5 Disturbingly Common Pets

Human beings have many odd habits, but perhaps the oddest is our tendency to see anything with fur and big eyes as cute, even if it has big teeth and possibly venom to go with the big eyes. Heck, it doesn’t even have to be cute. It just has to be moving (barely), and of mild interest. Here are the animals you’d think nobody would try to put a leash on, but yet, somebody was dumb enough to try.

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Prarie dogs are, well, they’re kinda the rats of the high plains. They dig lots of holes, they destroy crops, they’re generally viewed as obnoxious, and in fact ranchers pay out a fortune to keep these burrowing little buggers under control. And to some people, they’re just too adorable for words.

Prarie dogs actually make pretty lousy pets, if the care and feeding guide from the only website for prarie dog fans we could find is anything to go by. They’re mean to anybody they don’t know, they ruin the furniture if they’re out of the cage, and they’re too thick to realize when they’re too high up, and have no depth perception.

…we just described a dog, didn’t we? Never mind.

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What’s the big deal with dingoes as a pet, you ask? Aren’t they just dogs that got loose into the wild? Adorable little puppies? Cute, pettable, lovable little doggies that just need a good home and possibly the assistance of Cesar Milan?

That depends on who you ask, but anybody who picks up a dingo in the wild and expects it to act like a Golden Retriever will deserve what they get, which would be a dingo eating their face. You know the phrase “a dingo ate my baby?” Yeah, not hyperbole. They do that. It used to be a problem. Depending on where you are in Australia, it’s still a problem.

Dingoes can be domesticated, but it takes a lot of work and even people who like dingoes think that you can’t create an escape-proof enclosure large enough or can manage the dingo when it’s in heat. Ever been around a dog in heat? Dingoes are exponentially worse.

Also, as it gets older, apparently it gets more aggressive and hostile. So maybe just invest your money in a quieter, nicer dog. Like a Rottweiler with rabies, perhaps.

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OK, we’re cheating by selecting the most adorable picture you can find of a raccoon. We might have even loaded the deck by picking out a juvenile raccoon. But make no mistake, the cute fuzzy with the black mask is not a good pet.

First of all, they can’t really be domesticated. Domestication takes a lot longer than a couple of days; try centuries. And, yeah, they can be really endearing, but they also have sharp pointy claws and sharper, pointier teeth. You can’t discipline a raccoon by bonking it on the head, either, because it’ll decide you make a nice snack.

What else? Oh, yeah, they need their own room. They can be litter trained but will probably crap everywhere anyway. They climb everywhere. And they’ll wreck your stuff even if they’re being playful. They can’t even eat cleanly.

Doesn’t that kitten seem like a much better idea?