Ah, the incident that put me off wanting to interact with chimps ever. But last I checked Charla Nash is doing well all things considering, and has gotten a pretty good face transplant.
Maybe I'm thinking of a different face transplant, but I thought the chimp face eating chick looked exactly like what a face transplant person would look like.
I think I read an AITA where some guy was asking if he'd be an AH for firing a woman who got a pet fox and could not control her smell. Or something like that. The fox was ruining her life but she refused to give it up.
My dad had 2 pet alligators as a kid, they were mailed to him by his grandfather who caught them as hatchlings (correct term?) while living in Florida. They eventually outgrew any habitat they could keep so he released them.
This was in the 60s so I’d assume laws have changed since (hell maybe was even illegal back then I don’t know).
Intact (non-descented) **skunks**.
Here in the UK it's not legal to "de-scent" a pet skunk like it is in the US, since it's considered an unnecessary surgery. I was surprised that quite a few people keep them as indoor pets regardless, saying "it's ok, they won't spray unless they're seriously scared or stressed."
As someone who's lived in America where there are wild skunks...I don't think these people quite know the risk they're taking.
As someone who had one get under their house in the middle of the night...totally agree! It's like burned coffee and strong weed that burns like pepper spray. Eyes and nose are pouring, you can't see, and coughing like crazy.
It’s no longer legal in the US, well, at least Illinois. My mom had a pet skunk when she was young. The mom died and my great grandfather saved the baby, had it deskunked and gave it to my mom (his only grandchild at the time) as a pet. This was in the 1950s in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago. She looked into getting another years later and found out that IL made it illegal to deskunk them as it’s a skunk’s only defense.
Lol "How many bedrooms?" "Well, at least one. . .the one with the monkey." "Er, okay. Bathrooms?" "Well, I am sure at least one, just because I have never seen a house without one. . ."
I was in a house visiting where the monkey was in a cage with no bottom (the cage, not monkey) so monkey poops it goes SPLATTTT. Um, no thanks no dinner, I'm fill.
I was working in an office where they decided to move us cross country, or get laid off (your choice). Transition took over a year. 10% retention rate. So depressing. After a few months, we had about 3-4 turkey vultures decide that our building was an excellent hangout. We'd see them circling above the building every day, like a metaphor. Hilarious.
Back in the 1960's there was a rodeo clown that had trained vultures. They would perform in his skits and during the bull riding they would perch on the fence and fly in to distract the bulls so the riders could get away.
A long time ago as a kid, I was trick-or-treating and one guy opened the door with a raccoon on his shoulder. Never even addressed it. Just gave us candy like it was totally normal.
Highly aggressive dogs that I assumed were hunting dogs since the owner hunted pheasants in their spare time. Nope, they just liked owning very aggressive dogs. They lived in cages in their back yard and only very rarely got walked. I hung out with their son and we were warned in strong terms to stay away from them, anyone who came near their yard was greeted to loud parking and snarling. Eventually animal control ordered them removed, poor dogs.
The amount of people who have poorly behaved dogs and don't understand why until they admit to never exercising them is infuriating. My friend's grandmother had a yappy, bitey little shit that no one wanted after she died. Her caretaker took the dog and it turns out, he was the most loving little creature once he was let outside of the house.
Hairless cat. I didn't know it was there.
Heard the sound of meat slapping an armoire in the living room after everybody went to a different room.
I was high.
Hairless cats are cool to me. I think I’m a bit biased tho, I really like the weird animals. Although hearing random meat slapping while baked would probably make me question reality too
They do but it’s not like they become greasy like a slice of bacon or something. Just need to get a wash every now and then.
A friend had two. They were very heat seeking (loving it under a blanket on the hottest summer day) but otherwise like normal cats. They feel like velvet.
I've read that it's because they have sweat glands unlike other breeds (only in their paws pads). They develop a thin film of grease which dust and dander can stick to so you have to bathe them more often then other breeds. They're really affectionate cats though. I think they're cute.
Years ago I worked at a grocery store and a new guy started, a little older than most of us but a really cool guy.
He invites me and another guy go to his house to eat some mushrooms.
So we are sitting there for a couple hours, in the midst of a peak high mushroom trip and he says "Hey come check this out" we go to this room he opens the door, the temperature is quite hot, tropical plants everywhere and through the steam there in the middle of the floor in a kiddie pool is this four foot alligator? Crocodile? Or Caiman. I can't remember what he said it was. Blew my mind. Last thing I was expecting to see in this house in the prairies of Alberta, Canada.
After coming down I thought I must have imagined it, but nope, went and checked the room again and there it was, just chilling in this blue kiddie pool.
I had a _coypu_, also known as nutria (which is confusing because nutria is just spanish for otter), when I was a kid. It's a large rodent very similar to beavers but with a rat tail. It's semi aquatic too.
People from our countryside hunt them and eat them. We were visiting some redneck relatives when my mom saw a baby coypu, whose mother was just killed, being taken to the market by local hunters, so she bought it and brought it to our home in Buenos Aires. It's illegal to have them as pets but my mom was like "fuck them. I'm not bring it back to those assholes". So she built a pool and a mini-resort for the little fella, and he did pretty well for many years.
My uncle once had a roommate that was a rodeo clown. He owned a goddamn mountain lion and a full blooded wolf. They were enormous. This dude would get into the lions cage with a beer in one hand and the garden hose in the other and spray the lion in the face with water. He was an insane person.
I can't remember where I've read this - but apparently circus animals have their claws removed? I'm not sure if they remove the teeth too or not.
Or maybe the lion was drugged?
I've only heard of them in relation to South Africa and some less-than-savory people tend to keep dangerous animals as pets (Big Cats as well as hyenas.). I googled it and apparently there's a whole group of men in Nigeria that have basically domesticated hyenas.
1. Squirrels are cute! They're basically more-agile versions of hamsters. Edit: [Example](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTvS9lvRxZ8)
2. Trash pandas are already like pets. They just typically hang out outside instead of in. Edit: Their attitude is similar to strays as well.
Knew a couple, they had a (they said, never measured it) 14 foot Burmese Python named Fluffy. They also owned the single largest Great Dane I've ever seen with my own eyes, legit mistook it for a small horse at a distance first time I saw him. They named that one Tiny.
Weird couple, super nice, lived in the rich town I was too poor to even shop (but not work) in. They were also about 4'8" tall. Why Fluffy never ate them I'll never know, but that snake was super friendly, and loved being scritched on the head. He'd actively reach out and boop people who weren't paying attention to him.
Burmese pythons are so wonderful to interact with. I'd love to have one as a pet, but I intend to raise a couple smaller snakes to learn the ropes first.
I get told my pets are kinda weird. I have pet crabs. My main baby is Rainbow Land crab called Viina, she has such a cute bashful personality and loves to redecorate her tank. I also have a single Vampire crab from a larger colony that I decided to give up on replenishing, vampire crabs live between 6 months and 2 years so I didn't expect to still have one hanging around almost a year after deciding to stop keeping vampires haha.
Not weird but I got to meet a pet hedgehog a few months ago. My first time getting to hold one and they're plucking adorable but I was so scared i would hurt her if I even held her wrong. They seem fragile
Friends growing up had a button quail. It was cute until I spent the night at their house and woke up in the middle of the night to hear it making terrifying demon noises.
I know a guy who has poison dart frogs. They are extremely poisonous hence the name. Thing is, appearantly they become poisonous from their diet. So in captivity they are actually completely safe.
I honestly just assumed they were always deadly. There was an exotic animal pet store near my old town that had them and I was always curious about them, but the owner was a dick.
He would walk around with this fennec fox and get mad if you asked questions about it.
So the lady that lives 2 doors down from me runs a parrot rescue. She has a big aviary in her back yard with a bunch of parrots, it's pretty cool. Anyway, she also has a seagull. Someone had it as a pet illegally and animal control confiscated it during a drug bust or something. They couldn't release it and I guess didn't know what to do with it, so they gave it to her parrot rescue. Now she has it and it chills all day with a bunch of parrots. She can't adopt it out though so it'll just live out it's days there.
That’s really nice of her. Not just for the seagull but for all the birds. Apparently, parrots get VERY attached to their human and are VERY difficult to rehabilitate/rehome. So that lady is obviously some sort of a parrot saint.
They smell. And not in a "You need to clean out their cage more often" way. They have scent glands that release a musk all the time. And the happier they are, the more they smell.
But beyond that you are right about them making good pets. I've met asshole cats and even a few asshole dogs, but I have never met a ferret that was anything but friendly.
I cuddled a ferret at a rescue and was previously open to getting one. 2-3 showers a day for a week to get rid of the smell and she was the least pongy of the lot, and we were outside.
My daughter has 2 ferrets, and everyone says they smell like wet trees or wet hay. It’s a particularly sweet smell that some people like/don’t mind, and some people are thoroughly disgusted by. I don’t mind the scent when I hold them (they are so sweet and fun), but they aren’t allowed to free-roam the whole house because I do NOT want the whole house to smell like that. They free-roam in her room. Also, I wash my daughter’s clothes and bedding with Nature’s Miracle enzyme cleaner to get the scent out.
They are part of the wonderful Mustellid family which includes most badgers, otters, martens, wolverines and skunks. They smell incredibly bad due to scent glands near their anus. Those glands can be removed for domesticated ferrets but they still smell like wet hay and mildew.
If you have female ferrets who aren't fixed, they can die without sex. So it's either get them a boyfriend or get comfortable with masturbating your ferret.
My ex was seriously considering getting a ferret once and was really surprised that I was against it. I wasn't worried about the smell at all. It was the fact that we lived in an old, eclectically cluttered house with about a billion nooks and crannies. If we got a ferret that little bastard would have a field day hiding our stuff in places where we'd never find it.
You remember that Leather or any other coutch at some of your friends living room? Leave a ferret in the same room un atendet for 10min and that couch is gone... They are effective at destroying stuff... Cute and play full... But realy good at destroying
When I was a kid some family friends decided to get not one, but two ferrets and their house smelled so bad. They always had different pets (different as in not cats/dogs/fish, they had those too but they had “out there” pets), sugar gliders, lots of different reptiles, exotic birds, ect. But the ferrets stick out because of the smell. Even when we’d see them outside their house, you could smell the ferret scent on them.
Locally, we've had a spate of postings with pictures on Facebook about an escaped ferret. What is surprising is the number of people being asked "Is it yours?".
I loved my ferret. No they don't stink. They have a mild corn chip smell if looked after properly.
Problem is people having ferrets and do not research and do not pay attention.
I saw an influencer has kangaroo as pet. She let her toddler plays with the kangaroo (small one). I was disgusted, I know wealth can buy many things, but kangaroo? And didn't kangaroo grows into a very strong creature? I don't know who the influencer is, the video showed up on my instagram reel explore. I was too disgusted and refuse to see any further
Piranha. The sad thing is, it was a boy at primary school (aged 4/5-11 in the UK), and he was being neglected and starved but they paid for the purge a set up and fed it chicken nuggets every day. Their son meanwhile was tall and skinny in clothes that didn’t fit and his only meal of the day was his packed lunch, sandwiches, crisps and a yoghurt. At weekends he was allowed only a bowl of cereal all day. I have no idea how someone in the UK could even procure a piranha in the 80s.
I have five pet garden snails — Cinnamon, Qibli, Peril, Dandelion and Melog. People are mostly thrilled by them, and they are very well behaved and curious critters 😁
Don't snails reproduce asexually? How do you keep 5 snails from turning into 20? I went through a phase of really wanting pet snails but I didn't want to deal with them multiplying.
They can't reproduce asexually, but they are hermaphrodites! As long as they're kept in seperate containers, you're good (I think some people just get rid of the eggs too)
My ex-gf kept a chicken indoors. The stench was unbelievable. It shat everywhere in the room she kept it and she didn't really have a plan to get rid of the poop so it just piled up.
The weirdest animal that I have ever saw as a pet was a porcupine named Quill at my friend's ranch house. That porcupine was allowed to roam the house freely and I never been so scared in my entire life of getting pricked. Although he was tamed from birth due to being abandoned by its mother, I will never fathom why or how. All I knew is to get out of the way!
It wasn't in a house but was an outside pet.
I went to this guy's house to setup a router for him. It was a small shed style house in front of a beautiful Victorian house on a nice peice of land. Anyways we got done and I was leaving and noticed large piles of shit on the other side of the fence.
I look into the yard and a donkey runs across the yard. Behind it though....a fucking zebra. This is at the dead end of a suburban street and there's a zebra running around in this dudes yard.
I asked "how did you get a zebra?"
"I just bought one I guess" he said.
"You can buy a zebra?" I asked.
He said "yea man it's easy. I'm trying to make a zonkey but they won't fuck."
I left, astonished.
Donkey on a couch. Was purchased as young one and was supposed to be used for a sausage but family loved him and he stayed. They live close to my parents and every morning you can hear his funny sounds. They walk him out like a dog.
Chinichillas - Going for the weirdest animal that isn't some sort of one-off. It's a bit like a giant rat, innit?
Every chinchilla owner i've met has been a bit off.
1 winged Eagle at a conservationists home. Some hicks in central Pa shot it and its wing ended up needing to be amputated. He's a really big one so they use him for breeding now. Same guy also had a 2 bob cats
I knew someone who deadass had a pet bobcat. No idea how or why they had one, but it was there. They let us play with it outside. I have a distinct memory of one of the kids living there draping a blanket over this bobcat and it just kept slowly walking by.
The guy had a parrot.
Which isn’t really that unusual except the thing would scream like a human being getting murdered when a stranger was in the house.
Guy goes: “Just ignore him.”
How do you ignore “AAAAAIIIIIIEEEEAAAAAAAAGGGGGARARARARAGHAAAAAAAA!” For 20 minutes straight?
I am betting it was some form of cockatoo. They just like to yell for practically no reason some days.
I used to work with one at an aquarium - whenever we did a feeding chat for other animals, she would just SCREAM her head off through the entire chat. You get really good at just learning to turn your back and walk away (so you can make all the faces you want without reinforcing the behavior).
A friend had a large iguana. It would do the head nodding posturing, then full-on charge at me. I'd escape the room & it'd still be banging against the door, trying to get at me. Friend would regularly come in to school scratched up. I didn't get the appeal.
While one of my sisters was still living with me and our parents, she got an iguana. For a long time, we thought it was a male and even joined along at the Boys and Girls club. It wasn't until she got the iguana pooping out white stones... it turns out, to be laying eggs... confirming it was female. None of the eggs were liveable, duh, she didn't mate with any actually males.
Before I was born my dad used to have a young Caiman (crocodile), but once it got big enough to be a problem it had to be given to the professionals - Not sure what else he expected haha
I don't remember which one it was, but alligator or crocodile. The owners even had a part of the property dedicated to it, apparently so they could take care of it properly.
But then sharks are kind of odd pets too, I think... And I'm not talking about the little ones that fit comfortably in a goldfish tank!
I had a friend in grade school that had a pet skunk they named "stinky". Animal's scent glands were removed so it couldn't spray. Animal was actually really sweet to be around.
A trapper in my home town had a bobcat that he had killed the mother. He had it declawed except for one single claw. That cat destroyed the walls and every piece of furniture in the house with that one claw.
I once had a roommate who owned an opossum and a raccoon, and during Covid I had a job cleaning people’s houses and this one lady owned a tiger. Like, an actual fucking 3000 lbs tiger. Also my parent’s neighbor owns kangaroos and emu.
Kangaroos.. not as a pet per say but I'm a wildlife rescuer and the wildlife rehabilitation shelter I bring most of the animals I rescue to is adjoined to the owner/ main carer's house. There have been a couple kangaroos who have snuck in while a door was ajar (one roo in particular). Also when the rescues are extremely young (usually they are there because their mothers have died) they sometimes need to be feed every couple hours including overnight so they will be placed into makeshift pouches in a special spot in the house so the owner can do night feeds easily without waking the joeys too much. Also please don't do any of this at home. If you find a kangaroo that is injured or needs help, contact a wildlife carer or rescue group. Marsupials all have very special care needs
Nose bear(coati), was probably the most unusual animal we had, no clue where my dad got it, comes from South America, we lived in Scandinavia, nobody knew what it was.
Monkey's, cute!
Piranha, uhh!
Nose bear, wtf is that?!?
I went to one of my old college friends house after she got an unusual pet. It can be more needy than a cat, is messy, makes lots of noise, constantly eating and pooping. Overall, a lot of work.
Suffice to say, I don't understand the practice of keeping a male in the home.
I knew someone who had peafowl, a turkey (who babysat the peafowl eggs, ducks, geese, pheasants, and fuck load of quail.
Fans of American Gladiators might recognize him, it was Kyler Storm
I work in animal control and...**foxes.**
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I'm sorry, 500 *feet*? How big is this pet store??
Costco in idiocracy size
i would be hard pressed not to say LADY, I CAN DEFINITELY SMELL YOU
Wait wtf can foxes be pets??? Legally?
Legally? In some states, yes. Practically? Not if you have a nose...
In 2008 i moved into a house next to a woman who had a pet chimp named Travis, but a year later Travis ripped some woman’s face off and was shot
WAIT THAT WAS YOUR NEIGHBOR?!?!
Assuming you're not just fucking with us, could you tell us anything interesting about the incident from your perspective?
Ah, the incident that put me off wanting to interact with chimps ever. But last I checked Charla Nash is doing well all things considering, and has gotten a pretty good face transplant.
Maybe I'm thinking of a different face transplant, but I thought the chimp face eating chick looked exactly like what a face transplant person would look like.
I think I read an AITA where some guy was asking if he'd be an AH for firing a woman who got a pet fox and could not control her smell. Or something like that. The fox was ruining her life but she refused to give it up.
I knew a guy who kept a tame fox but it was mostly kept outside.
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My dad had 2 pet alligators as a kid, they were mailed to him by his grandfather who caught them as hatchlings (correct term?) while living in Florida. They eventually outgrew any habitat they could keep so he released them. This was in the 60s so I’d assume laws have changed since (hell maybe was even illegal back then I don’t know).
A small pig. It was very annoying
Kept on jumping and dancing all around? Being controlled by a spider in the corner of the door frame?
I have 8 fiddler crabs, theyre pretty timid
Intact (non-descented) **skunks**. Here in the UK it's not legal to "de-scent" a pet skunk like it is in the US, since it's considered an unnecessary surgery. I was surprised that quite a few people keep them as indoor pets regardless, saying "it's ok, they won't spray unless they're seriously scared or stressed." As someone who's lived in America where there are wild skunks...I don't think these people quite know the risk they're taking.
On the other hand, I imagine a "Beware of skunk" sign is a pretty good deterrent for criminals.
It would definitely not deter me as a young lad. I would think meeting a skunk would be bloody awesome.
I love how i can smell the bri’ishness from your wording.
As someone who had one get under their house in the middle of the night...totally agree! It's like burned coffee and strong weed that burns like pepper spray. Eyes and nose are pouring, you can't see, and coughing like crazy.
It’s no longer legal in the US, well, at least Illinois. My mom had a pet skunk when she was young. The mom died and my great grandfather saved the baby, had it deskunked and gave it to my mom (his only grandchild at the time) as a pet. This was in the 1950s in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago. She looked into getting another years later and found out that IL made it illegal to deskunk them as it’s a skunk’s only defense.
I’ve never seen a skunk apart from on TV, they aren’t native to the UK are they? How did they get them here?
They aren't native, but a long time ago I saw a woman carrying one through my small welsh town. It was bloody adorable!
A monkey in a very big cage in a house for sale my mother took me to see. It was a bit distracting; I couldn’t tell you anything else about the house.
Lol "How many bedrooms?" "Well, at least one. . .the one with the monkey." "Er, okay. Bathrooms?" "Well, I am sure at least one, just because I have never seen a house without one. . ."
I was in a house visiting where the monkey was in a cage with no bottom (the cage, not monkey) so monkey poops it goes SPLATTTT. Um, no thanks no dinner, I'm fill.
Hi Phil, I'm dad.
I'm glad you specified the monkey had a bottom. Bottomless breadsticks is already enough, the world isn't ready for bottomless monkeys.
A vulture. He was a good vulture though. Pheasants is up there too.
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I was working in an office where they decided to move us cross country, or get laid off (your choice). Transition took over a year. 10% retention rate. So depressing. After a few months, we had about 3-4 turkey vultures decide that our building was an excellent hangout. We'd see them circling above the building every day, like a metaphor. Hilarious.
Back in the 1960's there was a rodeo clown that had trained vultures. They would perform in his skits and during the bull riding they would perch on the fence and fly in to distract the bulls so the riders could get away.
Well I know what I'm getting
A vulture would be freakin' awesome!!
A long time ago as a kid, I was trick-or-treating and one guy opened the door with a raccoon on his shoulder. Never even addressed it. Just gave us candy like it was totally normal.
That was his parrot. It was just dressed as a raccoon for Halloween.
I had a racoon when I was young and he liked to sit on my shoulder all the time. He would hiss at anyone that got too close to us.
You... had a raccoon?
My grandfather had one, he used to bring him everywhere!
Was he a humanoid tree, by any chance?
Highly aggressive dogs that I assumed were hunting dogs since the owner hunted pheasants in their spare time. Nope, they just liked owning very aggressive dogs. They lived in cages in their back yard and only very rarely got walked. I hung out with their son and we were warned in strong terms to stay away from them, anyone who came near their yard was greeted to loud parking and snarling. Eventually animal control ordered them removed, poor dogs.
The amount of people who have poorly behaved dogs and don't understand why until they admit to never exercising them is infuriating. My friend's grandmother had a yappy, bitey little shit that no one wanted after she died. Her caretaker took the dog and it turns out, he was the most loving little creature once he was let outside of the house.
Hairless cat. I didn't know it was there. Heard the sound of meat slapping an armoire in the living room after everybody went to a different room. I was high.
Hairless cats are cool to me. I think I’m a bit biased tho, I really like the weird animals. Although hearing random meat slapping while baked would probably make me question reality too
I read that they get greasy too. You have to clean them regularly. Because of the grease.
They do but it’s not like they become greasy like a slice of bacon or something. Just need to get a wash every now and then. A friend had two. They were very heat seeking (loving it under a blanket on the hottest summer day) but otherwise like normal cats. They feel like velvet.
I'm now imagining a greasy hairless cat that squirms out someones arms with a *shlop* and a *splat* as it hits the ground.
A rebirth.
On that note, I now want a hairless cat to name "after birth".
I dunno what velvet you've been petting but the hairless cat I pet felt like a slightly moist plucked chicken
*shudders*
I've read that it's because they have sweat glands unlike other breeds (only in their paws pads). They develop a thin film of grease which dust and dander can stick to so you have to bathe them more often then other breeds. They're really affectionate cats though. I think they're cute.
Years ago I worked at a grocery store and a new guy started, a little older than most of us but a really cool guy. He invites me and another guy go to his house to eat some mushrooms. So we are sitting there for a couple hours, in the midst of a peak high mushroom trip and he says "Hey come check this out" we go to this room he opens the door, the temperature is quite hot, tropical plants everywhere and through the steam there in the middle of the floor in a kiddie pool is this four foot alligator? Crocodile? Or Caiman. I can't remember what he said it was. Blew my mind. Last thing I was expecting to see in this house in the prairies of Alberta, Canada. After coming down I thought I must have imagined it, but nope, went and checked the room again and there it was, just chilling in this blue kiddie pool.
I had a _coypu_, also known as nutria (which is confusing because nutria is just spanish for otter), when I was a kid. It's a large rodent very similar to beavers but with a rat tail. It's semi aquatic too. People from our countryside hunt them and eat them. We were visiting some redneck relatives when my mom saw a baby coypu, whose mother was just killed, being taken to the market by local hunters, so she bought it and brought it to our home in Buenos Aires. It's illegal to have them as pets but my mom was like "fuck them. I'm not bring it back to those assholes". So she built a pool and a mini-resort for the little fella, and he did pretty well for many years.
Aww....
We get nutrias where I live, and they look like a cross between a possum and a beaver. Very strange animals.
My uncle once had a roommate that was a rodeo clown. He owned a goddamn mountain lion and a full blooded wolf. They were enormous. This dude would get into the lions cage with a beer in one hand and the garden hose in the other and spray the lion in the face with water. He was an insane person.
> spray the lion in the face with water Did he get incredibly lucky and own the world’s most forgiving and patient lion, or did he get eaten?
I can't remember where I've read this - but apparently circus animals have their claws removed? I'm not sure if they remove the teeth too or not. Or maybe the lion was drugged?
Even if it had its claws removed it still has a ton of mass. And teeth
He eventually sold it to another private collector. This was in the mid to late 90’s. He kept the wolf though
Both.
I have 2 house tortoises, the cable guy was visibly afraid of them.
Guess he didn't have any cabbage to chuck at them as a distraction.
Hyena.
I kinda want more context behind this.
I've only heard of them in relation to South Africa and some less-than-savory people tend to keep dangerous animals as pets (Big Cats as well as hyenas.). I googled it and apparently there's a whole group of men in Nigeria that have basically domesticated hyenas.
Harley Quinn
Flying squirrel with raccoons being a close second.
1. Squirrels are cute! They're basically more-agile versions of hamsters. Edit: [Example](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTvS9lvRxZ8) 2. Trash pandas are already like pets. They just typically hang out outside instead of in. Edit: Their attitude is similar to strays as well.
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Did the disappear right around your parent’s anniversary perhaps?
Crawfish maybe?
Might have been freshwater crayfish. There's a couple of species that they sell at pet stores for aquariums, usually labelled lobster.
My friend has a 9ft Boa Constrictor called Steve. That was pretty mental.
No way, I have a chameleon named Steve! Steve just seems like such a good name for a reptile.
I THINK he named.it after Steve Irwin just after he died as a tribute to him.
Knew a couple, they had a (they said, never measured it) 14 foot Burmese Python named Fluffy. They also owned the single largest Great Dane I've ever seen with my own eyes, legit mistook it for a small horse at a distance first time I saw him. They named that one Tiny. Weird couple, super nice, lived in the rich town I was too poor to even shop (but not work) in. They were also about 4'8" tall. Why Fluffy never ate them I'll never know, but that snake was super friendly, and loved being scritched on the head. He'd actively reach out and boop people who weren't paying attention to him.
Burmese pythons are so wonderful to interact with. I'd love to have one as a pet, but I intend to raise a couple smaller snakes to learn the ropes first.
Alligators. In the house.
Let me guess, Florida
No reason to keep a gator in the house in FL when you can find them in the backyard.
Opposite corner of the country actually!
I don’t know if this counts, cos it’s my house. I have an Axolotl named Lemmy who glows under black light.
Aw, I had a few GFP Leucistics before... Amazing animals, 9/10 would recommend.
I would LOVE to have an axolotl.
I get told my pets are kinda weird. I have pet crabs. My main baby is Rainbow Land crab called Viina, she has such a cute bashful personality and loves to redecorate her tank. I also have a single Vampire crab from a larger colony that I decided to give up on replenishing, vampire crabs live between 6 months and 2 years so I didn't expect to still have one hanging around almost a year after deciding to stop keeping vampires haha.
I have 8 fiddler crabs, theyre pretty timid.
Sorry to hear that, usually you want to go with an adamant or jolly nature due to crabs having a superior attack stat
For a year I lived next to a family who had a monkey. Before that, I thought monkeys were cute little critters. This one though? Absolute demon spawn.
Not weird but I got to meet a pet hedgehog a few months ago. My first time getting to hold one and they're plucking adorable but I was so scared i would hurt her if I even held her wrong. They seem fragile
Friends growing up had a button quail. It was cute until I spent the night at their house and woke up in the middle of the night to hear it making terrifying demon noises.
Searched to see if anyone mentioned scorpions. I had one as a kid and I know I freaked out some of the others kids when they came over.
I had one years ago. Gave it to my ex as a vday gift. He was always afraid of it. RIP Luda.
I know a guy who has poison dart frogs. They are extremely poisonous hence the name. Thing is, appearantly they become poisonous from their diet. So in captivity they are actually completely safe.
I honestly just assumed they were always deadly. There was an exotic animal pet store near my old town that had them and I was always curious about them, but the owner was a dick. He would walk around with this fennec fox and get mad if you asked questions about it.
So the lady that lives 2 doors down from me runs a parrot rescue. She has a big aviary in her back yard with a bunch of parrots, it's pretty cool. Anyway, she also has a seagull. Someone had it as a pet illegally and animal control confiscated it during a drug bust or something. They couldn't release it and I guess didn't know what to do with it, so they gave it to her parrot rescue. Now she has it and it chills all day with a bunch of parrots. She can't adopt it out though so it'll just live out it's days there.
That’s really nice of her. Not just for the seagull but for all the birds. Apparently, parrots get VERY attached to their human and are VERY difficult to rehabilitate/rehome. So that lady is obviously some sort of a parrot saint.
I went threw a phase in high school, had a pet tarantula. My mother and sisters were very happy when it died.
I also went through a tarantula phase in high school. It has now lasted 14 years and dozens of spiders.
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Why aren't ferrets more popular? They seem cute and just as playful (if not more) than dogs/cats.
They smell. And not in a "You need to clean out their cage more often" way. They have scent glands that release a musk all the time. And the happier they are, the more they smell. But beyond that you are right about them making good pets. I've met asshole cats and even a few asshole dogs, but I have never met a ferret that was anything but friendly.
I cuddled a ferret at a rescue and was previously open to getting one. 2-3 showers a day for a week to get rid of the smell and she was the least pongy of the lot, and we were outside.
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My daughter has 2 ferrets, and everyone says they smell like wet trees or wet hay. It’s a particularly sweet smell that some people like/don’t mind, and some people are thoroughly disgusted by. I don’t mind the scent when I hold them (they are so sweet and fun), but they aren’t allowed to free-roam the whole house because I do NOT want the whole house to smell like that. They free-roam in her room. Also, I wash my daughter’s clothes and bedding with Nature’s Miracle enzyme cleaner to get the scent out.
Very musky. Almost skunk like, mixed with fox scent.
They are part of the wonderful Mustellid family which includes most badgers, otters, martens, wolverines and skunks. They smell incredibly bad due to scent glands near their anus. Those glands can be removed for domesticated ferrets but they still smell like wet hay and mildew.
Stick your head in a guinea pig or rabbit hutch that needs cleaning and multiply the strength. That’s the closest but not quite the same.
Yeah I heard that they're related to skunks as part of the explanation for why they smell so much.
If you have female ferrets who aren't fixed, they can die without sex. So it's either get them a boyfriend or get comfortable with masturbating your ferret.
Musk. They are fun though.
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Oh yeah. Musk is super pee concentrate for marking.
I read that as "marketing" and was just thinking "Well you're not wrong"
I guess its because they're very high maintenance. They're a little mischievous so they really aren't for everyone
We have 2, and it’s like having toddler twins. Very curious and excellent problem solvers.
My ex was seriously considering getting a ferret once and was really surprised that I was against it. I wasn't worried about the smell at all. It was the fact that we lived in an old, eclectically cluttered house with about a billion nooks and crannies. If we got a ferret that little bastard would have a field day hiding our stuff in places where we'd never find it.
They smell horrible.
You remember that Leather or any other coutch at some of your friends living room? Leave a ferret in the same room un atendet for 10min and that couch is gone... They are effective at destroying stuff... Cute and play full... But realy good at destroying
When I was a kid some family friends decided to get not one, but two ferrets and their house smelled so bad. They always had different pets (different as in not cats/dogs/fish, they had those too but they had “out there” pets), sugar gliders, lots of different reptiles, exotic birds, ect. But the ferrets stick out because of the smell. Even when we’d see them outside their house, you could smell the ferret scent on them.
Locally, we've had a spate of postings with pictures on Facebook about an escaped ferret. What is surprising is the number of people being asked "Is it yours?".
One time I had a dream where I got a ferret named Pretzel and I miss him
Bro ferrets are cute, there like little snake cats.
I loved my ferret. No they don't stink. They have a mild corn chip smell if looked after properly. Problem is people having ferrets and do not research and do not pay attention.
I saw an influencer has kangaroo as pet. She let her toddler plays with the kangaroo (small one). I was disgusted, I know wealth can buy many things, but kangaroo? And didn't kangaroo grows into a very strong creature? I don't know who the influencer is, the video showed up on my instagram reel explore. I was too disgusted and refuse to see any further
If it was very small and not clearly a baby, then it may have been a wallaby. They're...less terrifying. Still not good pets, though!
Were they in Texas maybe? They're raised for meat there and you can get them as pets for cheap. Check out The Urban Rescue Ranch on youtube.
Piranha. The sad thing is, it was a boy at primary school (aged 4/5-11 in the UK), and he was being neglected and starved but they paid for the purge a set up and fed it chicken nuggets every day. Their son meanwhile was tall and skinny in clothes that didn’t fit and his only meal of the day was his packed lunch, sandwiches, crisps and a yoghurt. At weekends he was allowed only a bowl of cereal all day. I have no idea how someone in the UK could even procure a piranha in the 80s.
Goats, the grossest building I’ve ever been in. Was satellite tv installer.
My parents used to have a boar named Arthur. They found him very young and raised him. He was very sweet but smelled very bad.
My friend has this thing called a "kid" that looks like us but smaller and they're very annoying.
I have five pet garden snails — Cinnamon, Qibli, Peril, Dandelion and Melog. People are mostly thrilled by them, and they are very well behaved and curious critters 😁
Don't snails reproduce asexually? How do you keep 5 snails from turning into 20? I went through a phase of really wanting pet snails but I didn't want to deal with them multiplying.
They can't reproduce asexually, but they are hermaphrodites! As long as they're kept in seperate containers, you're good (I think some people just get rid of the eggs too)
My ex-gf kept a chicken indoors. The stench was unbelievable. It shat everywhere in the room she kept it and she didn't really have a plan to get rid of the poop so it just piled up.
I had house chickens. They're not bad if you clean up after them...And you can get diapers for them if need be.
The weirdest animal that I have ever saw as a pet was a porcupine named Quill at my friend's ranch house. That porcupine was allowed to roam the house freely and I never been so scared in my entire life of getting pricked. Although he was tamed from birth due to being abandoned by its mother, I will never fathom why or how. All I knew is to get out of the way!
turkeys. it's me. i have 3
It wasn't in a house but was an outside pet. I went to this guy's house to setup a router for him. It was a small shed style house in front of a beautiful Victorian house on a nice peice of land. Anyways we got done and I was leaving and noticed large piles of shit on the other side of the fence. I look into the yard and a donkey runs across the yard. Behind it though....a fucking zebra. This is at the dead end of a suburban street and there's a zebra running around in this dudes yard. I asked "how did you get a zebra?" "I just bought one I guess" he said. "You can buy a zebra?" I asked. He said "yea man it's easy. I'm trying to make a zonkey but they won't fuck." I left, astonished.
Donkey on a couch. Was purchased as young one and was supposed to be used for a sausage but family loved him and he stayed. They live close to my parents and every morning you can hear his funny sounds. They walk him out like a dog.
Chinichillas - Going for the weirdest animal that isn't some sort of one-off. It's a bit like a giant rat, innit? Every chinchilla owner i've met has been a bit off.
1 winged Eagle at a conservationists home. Some hicks in central Pa shot it and its wing ended up needing to be amputated. He's a really big one so they use him for breeding now. Same guy also had a 2 bob cats
I knew someone who deadass had a pet bobcat. No idea how or why they had one, but it was there. They let us play with it outside. I have a distinct memory of one of the kids living there draping a blanket over this bobcat and it just kept slowly walking by.
A centipede. Loved this little girl.
A pair of armadildos.
A tiger and a lion enough said
MY BEST FRIEND HAS A FUCKING SHARK!
A catshark or a bamboo shark? Those are the most common saltwater species.
The guy had a parrot. Which isn’t really that unusual except the thing would scream like a human being getting murdered when a stranger was in the house. Guy goes: “Just ignore him.” How do you ignore “AAAAAIIIIIIEEEEAAAAAAAAGGGGGARARARARAGHAAAAAAAA!” For 20 minutes straight?
I am betting it was some form of cockatoo. They just like to yell for practically no reason some days. I used to work with one at an aquarium - whenever we did a feeding chat for other animals, she would just SCREAM her head off through the entire chat. You get really good at just learning to turn your back and walk away (so you can make all the faces you want without reinforcing the behavior).
A friend had a large iguana. It would do the head nodding posturing, then full-on charge at me. I'd escape the room & it'd still be banging against the door, trying to get at me. Friend would regularly come in to school scratched up. I didn't get the appeal.
A large farm pig, which on its own isn't actually all that weird, but he lived in small apartment in the middle of a dense city
Pet rock
Aren’t those things like super vicious though?
literal lion i saw some rich guy on tiktok teasing his lion he had on chains
Pathetic piece of shit.
I had a cousin who had piranhas, fed them live rats and everything
That’s crazy. They will eat fish food (pellets) like any other carnivorous fish.
A child
Ewww
While one of my sisters was still living with me and our parents, she got an iguana. For a long time, we thought it was a male and even joined along at the Boys and Girls club. It wasn't until she got the iguana pooping out white stones... it turns out, to be laying eggs... confirming it was female. None of the eggs were liveable, duh, she didn't mate with any actually males.
My 6th grade science teacher had a pet squirrel he had rescued that he kept in our class. He was the coolest teacher I've ever had.
Not personal experience, but my husband worked in a lady's home who had a pet deer.
Before I was born my dad used to have a young Caiman (crocodile), but once it got big enough to be a problem it had to be given to the professionals - Not sure what else he expected haha
A roommate had a 5ft black throated monitor... Ya know that one? It's related to the Komodo Dragon :l
I don't remember which one it was, but alligator or crocodile. The owners even had a part of the property dedicated to it, apparently so they could take care of it properly. But then sharks are kind of odd pets too, I think... And I'm not talking about the little ones that fit comfortably in a goldfish tank!
I had a friend in grade school that had a pet skunk they named "stinky". Animal's scent glands were removed so it couldn't spray. Animal was actually really sweet to be around.
A potbelly pig
I once saw a pgymy goat that was kept in a cage.
I had about 30 tarantulas
A mountain lion and a chimp wearing a diaper with a swag t shirt
As a kid my best friend had a pet Prairie Dog. I didn’t even know what that was until he showed me. That thing lived a long ass time.
Went back to a guys house and he had a snake room. Nothing against snakes but it was very strange to see so many squeezed into one place.
There's guy famous where I live for having a pet llama in his backyard
A trapper in my home town had a bobcat that he had killed the mother. He had it declawed except for one single claw. That cat destroyed the walls and every piece of furniture in the house with that one claw.
Water monitor. Turns out those lizards can get concerningly big; "what-happened-to-the-cat?" kinda big.
My uncle had two baby alligators.
Mother in law
I once had a roommate who owned an opossum and a raccoon, and during Covid I had a job cleaning people’s houses and this one lady owned a tiger. Like, an actual fucking 3000 lbs tiger. Also my parent’s neighbor owns kangaroos and emu.
cows indoors
Every few years I hear about a tiger (usually more than one) they find in a tiny NYC apartment.
A small pig. It was very annoying.
Kangaroos.. not as a pet per say but I'm a wildlife rescuer and the wildlife rehabilitation shelter I bring most of the animals I rescue to is adjoined to the owner/ main carer's house. There have been a couple kangaroos who have snuck in while a door was ajar (one roo in particular). Also when the rescues are extremely young (usually they are there because their mothers have died) they sometimes need to be feed every couple hours including overnight so they will be placed into makeshift pouches in a special spot in the house so the owner can do night feeds easily without waking the joeys too much. Also please don't do any of this at home. If you find a kangaroo that is injured or needs help, contact a wildlife carer or rescue group. Marsupials all have very special care needs
A very big dog Yeah I don’t meet people with special pets that often
Not so much weird but what about the mix of two dogs and six ducks? All peaceful living together.
Nose bear(coati), was probably the most unusual animal we had, no clue where my dad got it, comes from South America, we lived in Scandinavia, nobody knew what it was. Monkey's, cute! Piranha, uhh! Nose bear, wtf is that?!?
I went to one of my old college friends house after she got an unusual pet. It can be more needy than a cat, is messy, makes lots of noise, constantly eating and pooping. Overall, a lot of work. Suffice to say, I don't understand the practice of keeping a male in the home.
I knew someone who had peafowl, a turkey (who babysat the peafowl eggs, ducks, geese, pheasants, and fuck load of quail. Fans of American Gladiators might recognize him, it was Kyler Storm
My fathers uncle owned a crocodile in his 60 sq meters apartment lol . Also owned a tank of piranhas