An interesting conversation struck up between my wife and I the other evening and I thought I’d get a bit of feed back from a few animal communities that I‘m apart of. We are expecting out first child in April and with Easter coming we’ve been seeing the face book statuses about Bunnies and Chicks not being Easter basket gifts. We both whole heartedly agree with this and the fact that pets in general are not gifts really unless they have been planned for (and I don’t mean just by the adults.) our discussion turned to how we would want to handle our Tig wanting his first pet and through the discussion I had an interesting idea.


When a child asks for a pet they should have to wait a certain period of time before being told yes. The time period depends on the pet (I’ll get to that in a minute.) in that waiting time they are to hit up the internet and the library and get as much information together about the animal they want, even if it is a dog or cat. They should be finding things like caging, feeding, habits, costs, ect. once they have gathered their information they can educate their parents on what they have learned (of course younger children would need a lot more help with the research than older children.)


The next step would be to set up a mock cage (a shoe box or something with little things to serve as the equipment that goes with the pet) with a mock pet (a stuffed animal of the critter). And they care for the stuffy as though it were a live animal going through the motions of its care and marking it down on a care sheet for mom and dad to check every couple days. (cats and dogs get a whole different mock up though.) I’d thought of a system in which a whole list of everything that has to be done daily and weekly and monthly is gone over and each item on the list is ranked from most important (food and water) to least (depends on the pet) and each of these items that gets missed has a day amount attached to it and whenever it is missed that is how long the waiting period for the pet get extended.


The mock pet can also “die” if it is neglected too much at which point mom and dad sit down with the kid and discuss whether the child still wants the pet or not. If they do then the waiting period starts back up again and the mock pet is “resurrected” for the child to care for once more.


Does anyone think this would work? As for the waiting periods I wanted to get some opinions on what everyone thought. I also wanted to see what others thought of difficulty levels of different types of animals. I have a few examples listed with each, but if you have other examples to add feel free to mention them. These skill levels are also based somewhat on what I have handled and know how to care for myself (which is why something like a ball python gets on the beginners list) or what I assume would be suitable for that level based on what I have seen others caring for please correct me if I am wrong on some.


Mammals
Beginner: (Rats, Mice, and Hamsters)
Intermediate: (Guinea pigs, Rabbits, Gerbils)
Expert: (Chinchillas, Hedgehogs, Ferrets)


Birds
Beginner: (Finches and parakeets possibly Canaries)
Intermediate: (Cockatiels, Budgies, Love birds)
Expert: (Any Parrot or Conure)


Reptiles
Beginner: (garter, rat, or corn snakes. Ball Pythons Anoles)
Intermediate: (Red tailed boa, Iguanas, Bearded dragons, Tortoises,and turtles)
Expert: (Retics, Tree boas/pythons, and Olive pythons, Chameleons, Basilisks)


Fish
Beginner: (19Cent gold fish, Pool comets, and Betta)
Intermediate: (Fancy gold fish, Shebunkins, Koi, other simple fresh water fish)
Expert: (the not so simple fresh water fish, Brackish water fish, Salt water fish)