Shira and Dexter
If you and the kids or you and the spouse or you and the kitchen sink were thinking of adopting some kind of purring, woofing creature at any point in the near future – now is probably the time.
Before we talk about why it IS the time, let’s talk about why it MIGHT NOT BE the time. This is a very important discrepancy:
WHY NOT:
-DON’T adopt an animal, or worse, buy it from a pet store if you are looking to surprise your son/daughter/boyfriend/girlfriend for Christmas. In addition to it being like handing someone a present and saying “Here, this poops, you clean up after it!” it’s also not the kind of thing that is healthy to ‘surprise’ someone with. After all, you wouldn’t surprise someone with a baby, would you? No, I think not. Whether you admit it or not we’ve all seen “I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant” and, well, you get the idea.
-DON’T adopt an animal because it’s cute. I have a secret – I am the innkeeper for two very adorable, yet very neurotic, goofy, clumsy, sneaky, obnoxious, cuddly cats. Sure, Cash is little and Yuna is fluffy and it’s oh-so-adorable until one of them is scratching at the bedroom door at 5am (boyfriend allergic, no sleeping with them!) At that time of the day they are like little demon shadows whose sole purpose in life is to keep me from beautiful, restful sleep.
-DON’T adopt an animal ‘because it’s Christmas’ because guess what, it’s not going to be Christmas in 6 months and you’ll have a considerably larger pet at that point who may or may not understand that while they grew exponentially, your lap did not. Which is kind of cute…but…see above.
Classy Cashy and Taudrey Audrey
OK, that wasn’t so bad. Time for the DOs!
-DO adopt an animal if you and your son/daughter/boyfriend/girlfriend have discussed responsibilities including vet visits, walks, feeding, litter boxes, pooper scoopers, and the average lifespan of Fido and what that means for your traveling, housing and schedules for the next 15-20 years.
-DO adopt an animal if you’ve been thinking about it for awhile, and not just when you saw the weird cage full of cats at Pet Quarters on your way back from the Christmas Tree Shops.
-DO adopt an animal from a shelter, NOT A PET STORE!
-DO adopt an older animal, they’re quite mild-mannered!
-DO adopt an animal if you have $500-$1000 cushion between you and poverty. Because kitties and puppies do get hit by cars (this happened to me) and they do fall from great heights (this also happened) and eventually your mother is going to be tired of fixing your cat for you (this didn’t happen, thankfully, my mom would literally go to the poor house for her animals, be they hers or anyone else’s)
-Lastly, DO adopt if it’s the right thing for you and you’ve thought about it. December’s cold, and January only gets worse and you think you get stir crazy in the middle of winter? Trying living in a little cage during the solstice! Dark, dark dark.
Mysterious, Fluffy Yuna.
What are some of your favorite animal rights organizations in Southern Maine and surrounding? I love these guys:
Click to be taken here!
Little Eye Designs 