What pet would you get?

[vrikasatma]

A cheetah? Good luck with that. That's a vicious animal.

Actually, no. Cheetahs aren't vicious, they're known to be the gentlest and most easily tamed/trained of the big cats. I know a number of exotic cat keepers/breeders and we have a wild animal encounter park near here. When they take a big cat to a school, they always take the cheetah.

I remember watching a show on the Travel Channel where the hosts went to a cheetah rescue/breeding facility in South Africa. The handler just went in the compound with the senior male cheetah, sat down in a chair with an umbrella and said to the hosts, "Come on in. He won't hurt you." So they sat down, and the cheetah flumped down on his side under their feet, purring and grooming their socks like a big tabby cat. Ohhhh, so vicious...

And to answer the question...I'd have a hard time deciding between a cheetah, a snow leopard, a giraffe and one of the larger lemurs.

[lupine]

No matter how much money I won, and how good a habitat I could provide. My only pets would be the ones I already own, my two beloved dogs, Duke and Mishka.

Anything wild, to me would be cruel, wrong and a waste of time and money. You want to spend a fortune on giving it a huge living environment? You then don't have a pet. It remains wild, as it should, and that being the case, it may aswell have been left in the wild in the first place.
All of these animals are fine, beautiful creatures that should be left where they belong.

[Kaebora]

Again, I should say that there are some animals that CAN be tame without being stressed. Others, cannot, and it would be cruel for such animals to be stressed by captivity. Most smaller animals that are captive from birth are easilly tamed without being harmed physicaly or psychologically. Wallabys, skunks, racoons, horses, and even zebras can be kept tame and without it being the slightest bit cruel. Lions, giraffes, crockadiles, whales and other such animals are very hard to tame, and usually still act wild in the captive habitat. That could be considered cruel.

Cruelty really lies in the handlers of the animal. If they aren't capable of careing for the animal properly so that it doesn't get stressed or sick, than cruelty isn't involved. If the animal was at one time a wild animal during its life, that could be considered cruel since it knows it is captive. The very basic truth for all of these creatures in captivity is that they are safer than they would have been in the wilderness. They wont stare, or be eaten by predators, provided that the human caretaker can provide what they need.

[ShadowFang]

Again, I should say that there are some animals that CAN be tame without being stressed. Others, cannot, and it would be cruel for such animals to be stressed by captivity. Most smaller animals that are captive from birth are easilly tamed without being harmed physicaly or psychologically. Wallabys, skunks, racoons, horses, and even zebras can be kept tame and without it being the slightest bit cruel. Lions, giraffes, crockadiles, whales and other such animals are very hard to tame, and usually still act wild in the captive habitat. That could be considered cruel.

Cruelty really lies in the handlers of the animal. If they aren't capable of careing for the animal properly so that it doesn't get stressed or sick, than cruelty isn't involved. If the animal was at one time a wild animal during its life, that could be considered cruel since it knows it is captive. The very basic truth for all of these creatures in captivity is that they are safer than they would have been in the wilderness. They wont stare, or be eaten by predators, provided that the human caretaker can provide what they need.

That's why for alot of the exotic animals listed here, it's best to raise them while they are young. Otherwise, taking a creature out of the wild and expecting to completely change what it knows in attempts to "tame" it is, yes, cruel.

[Kaebora]

Exactly what I'm saying. Wild adult exotics should remain in the natural habitat. Raised babies is the only way.

[vrikasatma]

Adult wild exotics DO stay in the wild. By law. If anyone "brings 'em back alive," they go to jail for poaching. Besides, there's no need. The legal exotics industry knows that they need go no further than Texas to get any given animal. In effect, giraffes, eland, bongos, lemurs, cheetahs, lions, tigers, rhinos, et al, are bred and sold in Texas freely. There're more tigers in Texas than there are in China.

As for cruelty...let's take into consideration that the exotics ranches in Texas were responsible for the preservation of the addax antelope. They'd be extinct if it weren't for that. They also had a hand in the survival of the white rhino. I'd definitely place <b>EXTINCTION</b> as the ultimate cruelty in bold caps.

[lupine]

I'm not knocking conservation of a species, not for a minute. But we are talking, as I understood it, about pets. Personally, I don't believe animals such as tigers and the like should be kept as pets. I don't believe you can take the 'wild' out of an animal just by hand rearing it from infancy. I believe it takes a VERY long time to domesticise a species of animal. I mean look at dogs, even after thousands of years of living alongside humans, as working animals and as pets, they are still capable of being unpredictable and vicious towards us. I know that can apply to any creature, humans included, but I really don't believe you could get any animal more domesticised than a dog, yet they will return to feral state(as will a cat) quite easily. I repeat from above, these are just my personal feelings.

[Kaebora]

Actually, dogs and cats are scavengers, and live a life of mutual benifit off of humans. Most scavenger types of animals can be bred as a pet VERY easilly because of their obediant nature towards the source of their food... man (or woman). Exotics are more difficult because they have more instincual tendancies to survive on their own. Like I said, as long as the owner can properly care for the animal, and not stress it out, there is no cruelty.

The Bennet's Wallaby has been bred as a pet for nearly a century. Because dozens of generations of the animal have been raised in this way, the instinctual actions are less likely to occur. Thus why it's my first choice of animal to raise. If I don't buy one as a pet, someone else will that may not be prepared for such a task.

[garouda]

Imagines himself with a swimming pool full of members of the tetra family of fishes.

[vrikasatma]

The Bennet's Wallaby has been bred as a pet for nearly a century.

Cheetahs were kept as companion animals — usually the rich and nobility — for thousands of years. Egyptian, Persian and Mediaeval nobility used to hunt with them, just like hounds (it was more economical; if a nobleman used hounds, he'd need upwards 100 to hunt effectively; he only had to kennel and feed two cheetahs at most to get the same results). It's only in the past hundred years that the symbiotic relationship between humans and cheetahs ended.

I remember my aunt gave me a picture when I was a child. It was a magazine ad, I forget what the product being peddled was, but it showed a ritzy-dressed woman sitting and laughing at a nice dinner table...across from a cheetah wearing a bowtie. He had his paw on her hand and I guess the implication was supposed to be that of two people having a lovely dinner-date. This was back in the '60s when we didn't have Photoshop. It could have been airbrushed but there's a possibility that it wasn't. Cheetahs really are that gentle. Would I do that with a tiger, lion, leopard, panther? Not a chance in hell. Hold hands with a cheetah? Done it, at Marine World, and know a number of people who've done it as well.

It could be argued that today's cheetahs are actually mostly feral, not wild in the sense that tigers and leopards are wild. They were domesticated and at least lived in very close, familiar proximity to humans for thousands of years. I wouldn't advocate keeping a tiger as a pet either.

[Kaebora]

I wasn't comparing Wallaby pet breeding to Cheetahs, rather, I was saying that the longer a particular family of animals is bred generation to generation, the less their insticts interfere with a household. These days, dogs only scratch at the floor, chew on things, and occationally crap on the carpet. Benett's Wallabies will still lie on their backs relaxing in the sun (regardless of the temerature outside), kick playfully without realizing the harm they can cause, and attempt to graze the carpet as if it were grass. At least (in both cases) they are capable of treating their owner like family.

Now, I know very little about Cheetahs, nor have I heard much about them being pets. So I don't know for sure if there are any multi-generation, captive bred families of Cheetahs out there. It certainly sounds more humane if the animal truely is happy with the life as a pet. Most tame animals are.

Have any pictures?

[vrikasatma]

[MattSullivan]

I want a colony of bullet ants :}