What do you think of selling wild animals as pets?

Raccoons make excellent pets if they are raised from infancy and diciplined like children. Seriously! Think of a big cat that has hands. They’ll even learn to turn on sinks by themselves to wash their hands and face. At least my buddies did… That ‘coon was awesome untill it tried to eat dog food while the dog was chowing down. :(

Well, shit.. This is one of the people we have running for president.

http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=44664

Now might be a good time time drink myself to sleep.

Why would the Chinese boil a cat?

i wish people would just leave the damn animals alone for once. . .

Wild animals….are WILD. And there’s not much you can do to change that. I’ve been arguing this for years. Either you think wild animals belong in the wild and not in people’s homes, or you think a monkey or raccoon or armadillo or puma or zebra would make a great addition to your home, as long as you remove all canines, claws, and have the armadillo checked for leprosy (not joking). Oh, and I hope you don’t mind the smell of animal feces all over your house, as wild animals are incontinent – they go whenever, wherever.

The examples you listed above – rodents, skunks, raccoons – all bad ideas. Rodents have ever-growing incisors that need to be worn down by (you guessed it) biting on stuff. Skunks either stink horribly or they have their scent glands removed, which is not cool. Raccoons like to use their hands to get into anything and everything. And they smell. Think you can keep a raccoon out of your things by putting them away in cupboards and boxes and jars? Wrong.

The point is, it is a bad idea.

If anyone knows where I can buy a rabid badger, please let me know. My boss’s birthday is coming up.

I will agree with brownlemur in the fact raccoons do smell though… My buddies was litter box trained just so you know. They don’t have to be allowed to just “go” anywhere at any time.

Keeping wild animals as pets is like playing Russian Roulette. For each person that professes fond memories, there are 20 that don’t talk about the bites, the rabies scares, the damage to personal property, the foreshortened life span of an animal whose physical and behavioral needs are not met, and the releases into the wild of an unprepared animal that slowly starves to death.

Many of the same people who keep small species have the same lack of foresight that results in people keeping a cougar, lion or tiger in their back yard. I have personally been involved in the removal of a lion with rickets who was fed only chicken breasts during her lifetime which resulted in pathological fractures of almost every bone in her body. I have been involved in the rescue of a jaguar whose declaw was so botched, he spent his life crawling on his elbows to avoid the pain. I have also been present at the removal of the body of a “pet” tiger that mauled a 4 year old child. The child was allowed to play around the tiger because it was a pet, and therefore “tame”.

Wild animals are not tame – they are habituated. Tame species have been selectively bred for (sometimes thousands of) generations for specific physical and behavioral traits.
Expecting a wild animal to suppress its instincts is like expecting it to quit breathing.

I think it would be great, but we have to think about owner insurance and stuff.