Don’t Own Pets That Can Eat You
As you may have seen in the news this year, pets are eating their owners. In most cases they are killing or badly injuring them. With all the news headlines this year regarding pets--or should I say wild animals--being kept as pets, I would like to take this opportunity as a veterinarian to make a plea to America: Don’t own pets that can eat you or your children!
Seriously, wild animals are just that, wild. The trained professionals in zoos take this point very seriously, and spend a lot of time planning how best to handle or work with wild animals on a daily basis. Understanding that at any time when working with a wild animal things can go wrong, is something zoo keepers and animal handlers take very seriously. The general public should not own wild animals, there is too much risk and little benefit.
Even if you don’t plan on owning a lion you should still take pet ownership seriously, as owning a pet is a long term decision and even domestic pets hand harm you or your children. Animal bites are very common and many people are bitten each year. When you choose a pet, take into consideration how much harm they realistically could inflict on your or you family members as a worst case scenario. Going through this mental exercise is helpful so that in the event that your pet does harm someone you are mentally more prepared.
Consider adjusting your homeowners insurance to appropriately reflect the potential risk your pet poses to others. This is proactive and responsible move as a pet owner. At the end of the day, most domestic pets never harm anyone but rather provide love to all around them, but realizing that they can harm, is just one part of responsible pet ownership.
Photo from Z Menagerie.
--Dr. Hamilton
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Dr. Hamilton is an oncology resident at Michigan State's Animal Cancer Care Clinic and a regular contributor to Wag Reflex.
Random Numbers on April 20, 2009 at 05:18 PM
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Ace on April 20, 2009 at 05:34 PM
...the potential risk youR pet poses...
Mary Kay on April 20, 2009 at 06:06 PM
Good gried, that's only common sense. Are people so lacking in common sense? On second thought, you don't need to answer that.
titger on April 20, 2009 at 06:34 PM
Doctor, As an insurance agent I can assure you that if anyone admitted to an insurance professional that they owned a tiger or a lion or hippo or anything exotic, they wouldn't get a homeonwers policy. These policies are not designed for that type of risk. The gist of your advice is the right approach: don't own any wild animals.
Fearsome Comrade on April 20, 2009 at 06:51 PM
I was going to trade in my kitty for an enormous crocodile, but now I've changed my mind!
austin tx personal trainers on April 20, 2009 at 06:52 PM
What are these peopple thinking?
lmj on April 20, 2009 at 07:09 PM
I took a close look at the image. I saw these guys on tv a few weeks ago. They had rescued the lion from a display in Harrod's of all things some 30 odd years ago. They kept the lion for about nine months until they were able to have it sent back to Africa where the Adamson's (born free) reintroduced it to the wild. There was some great footage of them visiting with the lion about a year after it had been sent to Africa. The lion recognized them immediately and acted the same way my orange tabby does when I came home.
They never had any intention of keeping a lion as a pet. In the end this was a rather happy story.
Hucbald on April 20, 2009 at 07:16 PM
The flip side of that argument would be the advantages inherent in owning a pet that could eat an intruder.
Don Meaker on April 20, 2009 at 07:28 PM
I grew up reading Curious George, and Lyle the Crocadile. Heavens, you mean those were, like, fiction?
Next you will be telling me that Danny and the Dinosaur is not scientifically possible. I don't know that I will be able to take that!
Diggs on April 20, 2009 at 08:48 PM
Given current economic trendlines, it is a much better idea to have a pet you can eat.
SoIshouldn'tadoptachimp on April 20, 2009 at 09:12 PM
Wow, thanks for the advice. I will be getting rid of my vicious dachsund tonight.
Peg C on April 21, 2009 at 02:34 AM
Our housecats might eat us, but only if we die at home alone and no one removes our bodies in a timely fashion. I love big cats but only from a safe distance. Anyone who would keep one as a pet is a dim narcissist. With exotic pets, it's all about the owner, not the animals.
The twin brother of the woman who was attacked by the chimp a few months ago is a colleague of mine. The hell this woman and her family are going through now is incomprehensible. It's not just big cats and alligators, folks.
RebeccaH on April 21, 2009 at 12:00 PM
In my hometown, back in the 60's, there was a man who kept a chimpanzee as a pet, a cheetah in his back yard, and lions in a lion-training school outside of town (for movies and circuses). Eventually, the cheetah in his back yard got hold of his 3-year-old grandson and chewed him up pretty badly. Within a year, the chimpanzee and the lions were gone (the cheetah was destroyed immediately). They're wild animals, as autonomous as humans, and just as dangerous. People shouild have better sense.
Windy Wilson on April 22, 2009 at 08:58 AM
I blame Walt Disney. Films like "Sammy the Way-0ut Seal" gave a false impression of what living with even a relatively less dangerous animal was like. All those "nature's true-life adventures" gave human attributes to the wild animals depicted. Marlon Perkins, nice man that he was personally, and Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom also didn't sufficiently show the danger. It was decades after Wild Kingdom was cancelled that TV ever showed a predator animal actually running down and eating a prey animal.