# Are animals capable of keeping pets? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 30, 2004, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animals-capable-of-keeping-pets/252911 "2004-06-30T17:31:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![liirogue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dbc845/32.png) [@liirogue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/liirogue)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2004, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animals-capable-of-keeping-pets/252911/21 "2004-07-01T15:32:41Z")
My oldest dog (half schnauzer half cocker spaniel) used to adopt the smaller animals in our house. Anytime we had hamsters, birds, etc. she would sit diligently in front of their cage for hours at a time, watching. If the other dogs or cats tried to come near, she would chase them away. If we took them out of the cage and showed them to her, she would get very excited and happy. They were very obviously “hers.” ---
**Author:** ![The\_Asbestos\_Mango](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@The\_Asbestos\_Mango](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Asbestos_Mango)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2004, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animals-capable-of-keeping-pets/252911/22 "2004-07-01T21:15:20Z")
> [@holdmytail](#): > > My grandparents used to live on a farm and they had these big beautiful egg chickens of different breeds. The chickens were quite pampered so that layed a lot of eggs. Suddenly though it was as if they stopped completely. > > Now the neighbors had free-roaming dogs but they never attacked the chickens. One time at dawn the chicken owner watched through the window as one of the dogs approached the chicken coop. At first all the chickens hid but then the dog lay down and began to make soft little yelping noises. One of the chickens came out and approached the dog which began licking it. The chicken then layed an egg and the dog ate the egg. The rest of the chickens soon followed suit. > > Weird. Oh, my God. That is beyond weird, that is just plain creepy, an animal offering up its potential offspring for another animal to eat. On purpose, even. I’m all freaked out now and have to leave this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Ross](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e274bd/32.png) [@Ross](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ross)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2004, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animals-capable-of-keeping-pets/252911/23 "2004-07-01T21:28:49Z")
> [@Surreal](#): > > I think you’re referring to Koko, the gorilla trained to communicate using American Sign Language by Dr. Francine Patterson, and her pet kitten, whom Koko named ‘All-ball.’ > > All-ball got run over by a car. I guess the moral is that we might teach orangutans to make axes, but we shouldn’t really be teaching gorillas to drive cars. ---
**Author:** ![Hyperelastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Hyperelastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hyperelastic)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2004, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animals-capable-of-keeping-pets/252911/24 "2004-07-01T22:45:02Z")
> [@Lissa](#): > > Well, _that_ I can understand, especially if the experiment reaches as far as teaching the ape to use a tool to _make_ a tool. (Isn’t that supposed to be one of the marks of sentience?) > > Teaching Koko to roll her own smokes seems to have little value besides the dubious cuteness factor, “Aw, she thinks she’s _people!_” I made up the bit about the cigarettes. Sorry 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Tikki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5daacb/32.png) [@Tikki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tikki)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2004, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animals-capable-of-keeping-pets/252911/25 "2004-07-01T23:03:41Z")
Koko did get another kitten but I don’t remember the name. I think she was allowed to pick one out of a litter of them. **The Scrivner,** for what it’s worth, our cats liked to drink out our fishtank and they liked to sleep on the lid but they never really paid any attention to the fish, even if they came to look at that pink thing that keeps dipping into the water. Strange. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2004, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animals-capable-of-keeping-pets/252911/26 "2004-07-01T23:21:44Z")
> [@norinew](#): > > When I was a teenager, my dad had a dog that was half collie, half german shepherd. At my dad’s work place, there was a cat that had kittens; the boss threatened to kill the kittens if no one would take them, so my dad took three of them; however, my mom hated cats, and wouldn’t have them in the house, so they had to be yard cats. Long story short, the dog _adopted_ those damned kittens! If the kittens’ food bowl was empty, the dog would bring it to the back door and scratch at the door until someone put food in the bowl. If it started raining, the dog would go gather up the kittens, by the scruffs of their necks, and put them in the shed. I don’t know if the kittens were the dogs pets or adopted children, but there certainly was an undeniable bond. AAAAAAAWWW…I think I can say that this is the most adorable thing I have read on these boards yet. (I hope the other kittens found homes too). When we first got Noel, our now oldest cat, my cat Fluffy was still living, as was our dog, Lassie. (A westie, not a collie-my sister named her). Lassie adopted Noel-whenever Noel cried, she’d come running. Lassie has also been VERY over protective of her food-if you came too near her dish, she’d growl. EXCEPT for Noel. Until the day she died, she would let Noel nuzzle up against her while she was eating, and even let Noel eat from her bowl. She never did that with any of the other cats (although she always liked them). If we took Noel to the vet’s, she’d get very anxious until we brought her home. (I think this is partly to blame for Noel being a spoiled little brat). ---
**Author:** ![Ashes\_Ashes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/db5fbb/32.png) [@Ashes\_Ashes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashes_Ashes)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2004, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animals-capable-of-keeping-pets/252911/27 "2004-07-02T03:35:13Z")
Our last family dog, Lady, had a pet chicken. Sort of. For whatever reason, Lady got it in her head that out of the fifty or so chickens running around, that particular chicken was hers to carry around by the neck. Lady would pop out of the house and the chicken would just lie still with her neck stuck out a bit so Lady could get a grip and then gently carry her around for a couple of minutes. Then Lady would follow the chicken around the yard as she pecked in the grass. Since Lady’s chicken was a little low in the pecking order, Lady was forever snapping at any chicken trying to give her pet a hard time. Not friendship, possession. Lady missed the chicken when it finally died, not sad of course, just wondered where her pet had gone. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2004, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animals-capable-of-keeping-pets/252911/28 "2004-07-02T06:22:39Z")
Y’know, I once saw a documentary on cat behavior, that had some footage taken of a mama cat and her newborn kittens…and a (live) mouse, that had snuggeled up with the kittens for warmth, or something. As I remember, the narrator said something about the mouse being kept as a “pet” by the cats, who’d probably never learn to hunt mice properly. Something like that. Damned if I know what documentary it was, though. It was years ago. ---
**Author:** ![nancypoppinz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9e8a1a/32.png) [@nancypoppinz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nancypoppinz)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2004, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animals-capable-of-keeping-pets/252911/29 "2004-07-02T11:28:59Z")
When we got a new baby goat about 5 years ago which we called Dill, the 2 adult goats picked on it, my my dog, Oscar, would stick up for him and snap at their ankles, warning them to back off. If the 2 big goats had every actually done anything, Oscar would have been screwed because they were fully-horned rather large goats, and he is only a small dog, some kind of a mix between a corgie and various other terriers. Oscar would also ‘mother’ dill, and play with him all the time. It was funny when Dill was big enough for oscar to walk easilly under his legs, but oscar would still protect him. When Dill died of eating bracken shoots (a fern which is extremely poisonous to goats which we found out about a bit too late), Oscar was definately upset, and moped around the house with his tail between his legs for weeks. He also did a similar thing with my birds. IMHO, animals can definately have pets. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2004, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animals-capable-of-keeping-pets/252911/30 "2004-07-02T15:03:21Z")
My girlfriend has two kittens that she rescued from the animal shelter. A few months ago, I noticed that one of them was spending a lot of time hanging out by the bathroom door, looking intently at a patch of floor near the laundry basket. I wondered what she was doing, so I looked more closely. There was a little gnat on the floor, scurrying back and forth on its gnat business, and Molly (the kitten) was utterly fascinated. She didn’t try to pounce on it or anything; she just watched. And for about a week, she would come back regularly to that spot, watching the gnat. It was the cutest thing I’d ever seen. ---
**Author:** ![liirogue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dbc845/32.png) [@liirogue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/liirogue)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2004, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animals-capable-of-keeping-pets/252911/31 "2004-07-02T16:19:32Z")
I’ll add another story. My dad lives on a farm and has six large dogs. For the last several years, the dogs have kept a pet turtle in the fenced-in front yard. They simply will not let it leave the yard. They don’t really bother him too much, though they will carry him around sometimes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animals-capable-of-keeping-pets/252911.md?page=1)