How Many Pets is Too Many?

[CampFireJack]

I was talking with a friend today about owning and taking care of too many animals. She and I sort of disagreed on the issue. I said that when someone owns horses, dogs, cats and birds, that's too many. She seemed to like the idea of being surrounded by all of these animals. I don't know why because I feel as though taking care of so many pets would be too expensive and it would really get in the way of the rest of her life. I mean, how can you go on vacation, or anywhere for that matter, if you need to take care of so many things every single day?

Doesn't taking care of a lot of pets get expensive too? I remember one time when my partner and I owned four cats. It seemed like they would get sick one after another and those vet bills really got pretty high. I wouldn't want to experience that again. Now, I understand that we don't always choose our animals. Sometimes they choose us. That's what happened with all of our cats. They were strays that just wandered up to us. We weren't just going to throw them back out into the wild, especially after we already fed and bonded with them. So we took them in and took care of them for their entire lives. What I'm referring to here is when someone purposely goes out and gets into (buys) horses and aquariums and dogs and cats and birds and just about anything else. Those aren't homeless animals. To me, that's a problem.

What's your opinion on all of this? How many pets is too many? Can there be too many?

 

[WendyMay]

I think you should only take on as many animals as you can afford. If you try to care for too many, you'll run out of money and the animals will suffer and eventually die. We've all seen this type of story on TV. Dogs not being fed. Dead cats behind boxes that are stacked up in the hoarder's house. It's better that some people don't own pets at all.