Buying on the spot

This is the quickest note I can leave about why you should never buy a pet spur-of-the-moment.

Imagine this scenario. You walk into a petshop (if you have kids, go ahead and envision them with you), and you're just making a happy zoo-day out of it. Seeing so many different animals in one place is a great learning adventure, for you and your kids. Look at the array of different fish! So many little birds! But what's this? Free hamsters! Oh my, look how cute they are, scurrying around in their little cage. "Mommy! I want one! Look how cute it is! I promise I'll take care of it!" Well... It is about time we had our first pet---

STOP!

Let's review what's wrong with this situation. First, you didn't come in with intentions to buy a pet. That said, you probably haven't reviewed your budget. Do you have any idea how many pets are abandoned because they were bought or adopted free and can't be afforded by their pet parents? I can't give you an exact statistic, however, my experience working in petshops allows me to tell you, a lot.

Second, why are the hamsters free? Petshops don't make money giving away free pets. And look over there, those hamsters aren't free. If they're babies, they're accidental in-store births, or were forfeited by pet-parents who weren't exactly "expecting". Either way, they're probably not vet-checked for health problems, and potentially too young to be away from their mother. Or perhaps these hamsters are known to have health problems. Stay away from that idea. Or perhaps, to favor the store, there was just an over-abundance of pet hamsters, and the staff needed a quick way to free up some space. Even so, that should convince you that there are plenty of hamsters out there, and you should take some time to get your act together.

Last, "I promise"? How often have you heard that? Even if your child has never had the opportunity to say it before, you know most other children in America have, and have won over their parents, only to fall back on their promises. DO NOT be pulled in by the "I promise".

Now this doesn't qualify just for hamsters. This is ALL pets. Birds, fish, dogs, and especially kittens. If you are prone to buying on impulse, you may not realize it at first, but when you see someone knew that you'd like, you get what's called "envious". That means that you want to own what you see, before someone else. Don't even try to argue with it. Why else do you HAVE to have that adorable white kitten among his orange brothers and sisters? Because there's only one, and it seems more rare, and thusly, you need to have it before someone else nabs it up.

If you're that determined to have a pet that looks a particular way, get what you need, be sure you can afford it, and then search one out. If it's so rare, you can bet your bottom dollar a petshop won't have it. The breeders keep the really good ones. I can tell you this, again, from my petshop experience.

Need more proof? Take a trip to your local pet shelter. Read some of their tags, listing why they were giving up for adoption. A good majority say, "abuse", "neglect", "family moved", "didn't get along with family's children", "didn't get along with new pet", "accidental litter"... Those are all signs that the family didn't reseach what their pet needed before they brought it home. That not just a good majority of the pets at shelters; that's a vast, unimaginable majority.

Please research your pets before you buy them.