I agree that people generally shouldn’t have wild animals as pets, but I’d say a skunk is definitely “better” as a pet than chimps, who may literally rip your arms and or face off. I do think there is a rough hierarchy of animals that make terrible pets, and the ones that can and will kill you are at the top.
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i LOVE this pig.
I also have a friend named Karen, who I also love. (but not in ANY way that would upset her husband)
The new “Karen” naming for busybodies? Reminiscent of Mrs. Kravitz? kinida makes me sad. (cause my friend). but kinda makes me happy (cause its a thing)
IF I passed someone walking a pig in a park? I would have to, socally distanced and masked, of course, stop and say hello.
because the person with a large pig on a leash? I GUARANTEE YOU - is an interesting human.
the complainiing one? less so
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Well, I mean lots of places do have land covenants that forbid farm animals, so Karen might have a point, even if she doesn’t go about making it the correct way.
Our neighborhood has such covenants and every time someone tries to raise a chicken our neighborhood listserv turns into a karen convention. I personally would love to have chickens but there is currently a litter of foxes being raised by their mother under my shed and they would make quick work of any chickens. My shed is also forbidden by the covenants by the way-- YIKR, I’m such a scofflaw.
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Thank you. Nice comment +1 points for humanity.
None of those is exclusive of the others ^^’ .
Why? It’s done by a vet, under anesthesia. If you were considering releasing the now-defenseless skunk back into the wild, sure, that’d be “inhumane”, but a domesticated pet? Hardly. Would you consider spaying/neutering other pets to be inhumane?
While illegal in a few places, they are legal most places AND make great pets. Literally every pet skunk I’ve ever met has been a lovable charmer; they naturally are very laid-back and easygoing. Nor are they uncommon or rare.
The old saw, “wild animals don’t make good pets” IS NOT universally true, of course, although it is a handy general rule. Additionally, most pet skunks aren’t taken from the wild. Pray tell, where do you think the currently widely-domesticated pets came from?
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So do the neighbours of the Spiteri family. I know, It is the law, but sometimes people have to think about the situation.
I would like to know what ever happened to the boy and his pony.
EDIT:
He kept the tiny horse
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The pig’s owners were AWESOME and chill.
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The pig remains admirably calm, resisting the temptation to escalate the situation.
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I’d vote that if more of these people just got punched for acting like total dicks, they’d be less likely to act like this.
But violence is not the answer (or so I have to remind myself)…
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Just sic the pig on 'em.
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Someone who owns a large pig may not be someone you want to piss off…
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Hey, how are people supposed to know if the clean-looking grass they are licking and/or eating has recently been covered in feces?
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I hadn’t seen that story. Those neighbors are monsters!
I feel kind of torn about putting in a planting near our property line because it will shade part of the neighbor’s house. I can’t even imagine how heartless you’d have to be to see an otherwise non-mobile 3 yo on a miniature pony and decide to complain about it!
So much for what we think about Canadians being nice, eh?
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For the same reason declawing cats is now considered inhumane and both the veterinarians in my family refuse to do it. It causes psychological problems for the animal and is a surgical procedure done only for human vanity and convenience.
Skunks are not domesticated. They are wild animals. Domestication is genetic and is not “being nice to things and keeping them in your house”. I say this same speech on every BB thread on this topic because everyone seems to get their knowledge about animals from Disney movies.
Keeping an animal from young and being really nice to it is not domestication. That is still a wild animal, and when it grows up it will become stressed and potentially aggressive because it cannot do all the things its genes are screaming at it to do. Worse, if it gets out or you cannot keep it anymore because of your life situation, you have created a wild animal that cannot take care of it itself. Again, all for human vanity. It’s the same reason it is unethical to feed squirrels and deer. They become dependent on you and ultimately it will hurt them. All because we think they are cute and it amuses us.
Not from selfish suburbanites wanting a novel cute thing to snuggle. Domestication of all current animals happened many thousands of years ago and was a complicated (and often accidental) process (different for each species) that I can’t explain in a paragraph. I think you know this line of argument is intellectually disingenuous though, so I wouldn’t bother trying anyway.
It’s unethical to keep skunks as pets. Just because lots of people do it doesn’t mean it’s okay. They sure are cute, though.
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My wife and I were hand-feeding chickadees and titmice at Goat Island (Niagara Falls) last month. A man and his pre-teen daughter were feeding bread scraps o the Canada geese there. Suddenly there was a disturbance. Some aggressive woman of about 50 was harassing the man and daughter, screaming at them about feeding the geese. The man was NOT having her bullshit, and became very aggressive and cursing her out like a longshoreman. Rather than take the hint, she persisted, and got into his space. He obviously felt his daughter was being threatened, and I kept hearing him say “get away, don’t touch me!”. She then turned on us for a moment and yelled at us for feeding the birds! We ignored her, hard. She then went after the man again, who was retreating to his car. Apparently, she touched him. I heard a “whack” and looked in time to see her flailing backwards and landing on the grass. She popped up and STILL kept after him. Then she got into her vehicle (someone else was driving), and everyone in the parking lot quickly left. We were on foot, and decided to clear out, too, rather than talking to the cops. We agreed that it was VERY satisfying that she got whacked, though. I guess we’re bad people.
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I guess I see what you are saying but fuck canada geese.
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There has recently been some advice about not feeding bread to geese and ducks. It is not entirely accurately represented (on social media – big surprise) – a bread diet alone can be bad for wild fowl.
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