How many pets is too many?

I guess I am a little confised as to your specific question...

The houshold is two couples, combined last summer. The animals are split fairly evenly between the two households. I have more of an issue with the household with two small dogs and two cats and two snakes (plus rats), because they have not had a place to live for more than a few months in several years and yet they seem to keep adding animals, and those animals have no preventative care whatsoever. They have had two litters of puppies in the last 8 months or so because they cannot afford to get either dog fixed. THAT is they kind of care that concerns me.

That's irresponsible. Getting your animals fixed should be top priority, right there with vaccinations. If they can't do that, then they shouldn't have them at all.

I have one (very large) dog, two cats and six chickens.

Topics that are only relevant to a select group of people are better suited for MyFitnessPal Groups than our public message boards

^ This.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/groups/home/66-pets

1

If we're talking cats...one.

Too many pets==when your house/apartment/dwelling smells like said pets.

I think a person can have as many as they have the time and funds to care for and it depends on their priorities too. A lot of those animals are pretty easy to care for so I don't think it's necessarily excessive.

I would love to have a dog but up til now have been out of town a lot for a job so it wasn't a good time. Still not going to get one for a bit til I feel a little more stable. In the past my family had 3 dogs, a cat or two, 2-4 horses, and then another random animal or two. Us kids were expected to take care of our own animals, so it wasn't really a big deal.

I'm 25 and make around $25k a year so a lot of people would probably think I'm crazy for owning a horse. I put damn near half my income into her. I don't mind driving an older vehicle and keeping a tight budget on other things, and the only reason I have furniture is because it's stuff my boyfriend already owned. I get a lot out of it and I feel it's worth buying clothes secondhand and not going out to eat much.

Meh. To each their own. Know your limits. Right now I own a ferret and a horse and won't be getting anything else until my life is a bit more stable. When I get out of debt I'll probably reward myself by moving into a place that allows dogs and get one. That is going to be around a year out.

Having lots of animals is just normal to me. I grew up on a ranch, I've shown dogs (most people that show dogs have around 6 I'd estimate) and horses, and did 4H with a bunch of friends that would be raising, say, rabbits and chickens and goats and sheep all at the same time.. When you do it right it's not that expensive or time consuming and I feel the richness it brings to my life is more than worth it. I'm very thankful I was raised this way and won't be having kids until I can do the same for them.

Some people pretty much collect animals and that of course is a bad thing. Again the difference is whether you can make the time and money commitment.

Circumstances change.

My husband and I had our own house 7 years ago. I was a manager who was making decent money, my husband was making decent money. We had no children.
We had 4 cats, 3 dogs, a snake, a tortoise and 30 tarantulas.

When those pets were obtained, things were going great. We had no reason to believe things would change the way they did. Long story short, we both lost our jobs, lost that house and packed all of our pets into our cars leaving behind our personal possessions because we couldn't afford a moving van and chose to take the pets instead of our stuff.

It's been rough, the pets were staying on my parents acreage, the cats out in a screen room and the dogs exclusively outdoors. It sucked because that wasn't how it was when we got them. They all lived indoors, they ate homemade raw diets, they saw the vet several times a year. The last 4 years or so they have had to tough it out on Ol Roy, and living outdoors. Now they are finally in a screen room attached to the house and in a garage that isn't used for cars and I've been able to make it more 'home-y' for them.

We're also over the pet limit. We weren't when we obtained them, but the law changed and as we couldn't afford the registration before that, ours aren't grandfathered in. So, we rely on our neighbors not to report us.

So, this begs the question, what does someone like me do?

My pets aren't desirable pets. They are shelter pets, most were 4 years and up when I adopted them placing all of them between 10-13 years old now. I'm in a high kill area where dogs under the age of 4 get a week to get adopted and owner surrenders over the age of 4 are put down the same day unless they are under 30 lbs or purebred. Cats have about a 1 in 30 chance of getting adopted, most will never be in the room the public sees.

I could give them away, but my area isn't exactly progressive in their care of pets. Even if I could find them a home, would they be any better off? Not likely.

That is the thing with pets, when you obtain them when times are good, what do you do when times are bad? You either tough it out and do your best and get called a bad pet owner, or you surrender them at the shelter and get called a bad pet owner, or you bring them to your own vet and have them put down when circumstances change.

I have respect for people who keep a pet that isn't convenient anymore and do their best. BUT, all that respect goes right out the window if they obtain a new pet when they couldn't properly care for the ones they already had. I don't think that I will ever get another pet again. My 20's are over and I'm still not financially stable. It would seem I've missed the boat for that.

But, I didn't know that when I got my pets.

If i can smell them on you, then thats too many

If you are spending more money a month in animal food than food for your family, ya might have too many pets!

That seems like too many. Maybe if they lived on a farm and had acres of land, it would be a different story. But a 2-bedroom apartment? no. I can only imagine what it smells like...

Yes, 1 is too many...

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