What's your favourite kind of pet, and why?

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Cats, guinea pigs and dogs.

I've always had cats, and can't imagine being without one. They make great friends, and despite what people seem to say, they are very loving. You get what you put in with a cat. If you give it lots of love and time from kittenhood, it will love you and want to spend time with you. If you just feed it and that's it, then it will just see you as a servant. My cat Charlie, who died earlier this year at 16, would have quite happily been carried around by me for 99% of the time.

Guinea pigs are awesome little dudes. They have great personalities, very chatty and bouncy, never bite, and are awake during the day. They can be a bit scatty though.

I've never had a dog of my own, although I've known some great dogs in my time, notabley two when I was a child. Major was a German Shepherd and Spooky was a black Belgian Shepherd. Both amazing dogs, that have made me want a dog of my own ever since. One day.

This is me.

Cats - they are the greatest pets in the universe *

They are soft and furry, charming, kind, sweet and funny, affectionate with huge personalities, intelligent, interesting and make fantastic friends. I would choose cats above any other pet.

*Apart from mini dragons like Anne McCaffrey's Firelizards. They'd be awesome.

Hope it's not going to negatively affect you!


Ring-necked snakes?





I love cats. I've always kind of wanted a naked cat. But I can't get one because my sister's fiance is allergic, and he's gonna be living with me (as well as her ) when I move back.
She has a dog I really love though. I think a dog might be too much work for me, at least at this time in my life. But I LOVE hers. He's sweet and loves me. I love giving him treats, and wrestling with him. Whoever said that thing about man handling them is right. I like the fact that I can pat him and shake his face around, and then push him over, and he loves it!

Dogs, hands down. I've had other animals over the years: birds, cats, hamsters, fish. But dogs are interactive, give love unconditionally (even if you get upset when they do something wrong, they still love you), are always happy to see you (doesn't matter if you've been gone for 2 minutes, hours at a time, or days-they greet you like you've been gone forever), they're trainable, etc.

Yes, they need maintenance: daily water, food, attention, brushings (depending on the breed & coat type), training, etc. But my relationship with my dog is much deeper than one with humans (I have severe distrust with the species overall). My dog travels with me whenever he can, doesn't complain, & puts up with my quirks. What's not to like?

i do not have "pets" so to speak. i have "friendships with animals", but because the phrase "friendships with animals" is arduous to type, i will use the word "pets" instead.

my favourite types of animals to befriend are australian brush tailed possums and kookaburras.

i had a house in bushland but it got taken away from me, and while i was there (5 years) i got to experience real wildlife very closely.

i had mouse friends and parrot friends (galahs and cockatoos (which i tried to discourage) and rainbow lorrikeets and crimson rosella's) and 3 australian magpie friends, and a few kurrawong "hangers around", and a family of australian miner friends and a family of kookaburra's (i loved them so much and i think they knew it (apart from the fact that i hand fed them)), and 5 possum friends (that i also loved extremely).

the thing that made them so special to me was that they were wild, and they had never interacted with a human before, and they were naturally suspicious of me to begin with, but i won their trust over time, and i treasured it so much.

as far as domestic animals go, they are bred to be what they are. dogs have been selectively bred for various desirable traits for many thousands of years.

the original wolf ancestor is an animal that is a good candidate to integrate into the human social structure, so i can see why it was chosen. it is alert and has a pack mentality and also recognizes and respects dominance. but the original wolf was none the less a wild animal, and there was no guarantee that it would retain it submissive role if the human that "owned" it became ill or impotent.

over the years, dogness has been crafted and there are many different varieties, and they all have a generally happy disposition.

i do not feel as "touched" by the fact that a strange dog looks trustingly at me as i do when a wild and undomesticated and unmodified animal looks trustingly at me.

cats are almost the same except a cat has less interest in the dynamics of what is going on in the human world of their keeper. cats are very sensual and soft and graceful and that is something that has been crafted by humans from the times of ancient egypt. even though cats are sometimes keenly aware of what your thought process must be, they only care if it will impact on them. that characteristic makes cats somewhat aloof and elusive and that is seen as an admirable quality by many.

humans of ancient times wanted both an animal they could adore, and animal that would adore them.
i think that is why cats and dogs are the natural choices to pick from the plethora of wildlife that one could think of as suitable for domestic accompaniment. this only my guess. i may be wrong.

possums are not terribly smart, and i can see how (not why) the average person would consider them on a level that almost is equal to vermin. possums were mercilessly slaughtered for their pelts in the 1800's and early 1900's. if you shine a torch at a possum feeding on the lawn, it will sit up and show it's white underside and just stare blankly at the light. i can not believe anyone could take aim and shoot it's life away for a few dollars.

anyway i found that despite their slowness to comprehend (which is the thing that average people reject them on the grounds of), each of my possums had a completely distinct personality.

one was cheeky and bossy and he followed me around always extremely interested in what i was doing.

another was aware that she had a very pretty face i think because she seemed to "pose" for me. i thought she was very pretty and she wriggled her tail too as if to augment her cuteness.

another one was an old male possum who was past his life expectancy, and he was rather paranoid about encounters with the cheeky boy. he used to slide in to the ceiling of the back verandah, and i had to reach high to give him his treats.

whatever i am going on and on, but it is a fact that i have not met anyone who shares my knowledge of how possums are real entities with their own personalities.

possums are by far the most common roadkill on sydney roads. people just drive over them (their brush tail is the only thing not eventually rolled flat (like chewing gum on the sidewalk)) without another thought. well i loved my possums until i was torn away from them.

i also had kookaburra's which trusted me in the same way. i always had company that i enjoyed when i was there.

here are some pics of my friends. (i may have to break this post up so i do not get the smiley data rejection)

people very rarely see kookaburras look at them like this. i feel so deeply happy that she sees i am alive like her.

and here are a few of the possums.

here is a little one who i called "scamper" who is with her mother.

---next post (smiley data)

here is the old possum accepting a honey injected bread roll portion.

he very much liked these treats as you may be able to see from the look on his face.



but he was old and easily confused so this happened:

They're cute!

hah!

Very cute & cool, B9! In fact, your opossums are much cuter than our American Opossums, who look like giant rats.

they are not "opossums". they are "possums". they are marsupials.

and what is wrong with rats? i can love a rat very easily.

this is about a rat. i identify extremely, and because of this particular song, i know that michael jackson was a very nice person. i know all the garbage that has been said about him, but it is irrelevant to this song.

this is about a rat that general people would consider fit for extermination.


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5Ym0ZpYfM4[/youtube]

i truly love animals and i am sorry to people that i consider them less.

Well I have a cat so I rather like them and they are fairly low maintenance but I always longed for a dog as a kid. Although I would still quite like one I think I have enough trouble looking after myself let alone a dog at the moment! I hope I can have one in the future.

I like carpets

^^

Very good!

Yaks are great pets. They are good company. But they are a bit difficult to house train and they are tend to hog all the sofa.