Many Dopers, it seems, have pets, especially cats and dogs. Have any of you guys had any pets that were especially unusual and/or exotic? Rare parrots? Wolves? Exotic reptiles? Even unusual breeds of cats/dogs/horses?
I guess my family hasn’t had that many unusual or exotic pets, beyond turtles and tropical fish.
Not so much me, but my spouse has, at one time or another, kept as pets scorpions, spiders, sharks, lion fish, puffer fish, various snakes and his cousin had a tame bobcat.
The spouse has also rehabbed various forms of wildlife, such as bats.
My spouse is a cross between MacGuyver, a mad scientist, and Dr. Doolittle. We’re never going to be wealthy but life is… interesting.
Right now we have parrots. Nothing particularly rare, but they have needs different than those of cats and dogs.
As a child and young man I was always into wild animal pets. My favorite was a bob cat. I have been trying to obtain a young American Badger but I understand they are illegal. For some reason they seem to have had a recent population increase in our central valley if counting dead ones on the highway is any indication.
My father had a pair of full-blood timber wolves for a long time. He loved them but he had to give them to a single friend when he moved in with his girlfriend and her kids because they never became trustworthy enough to be around other people, especially kids.
I have a pet chinchilla now. That isn’t terribly exotic but not all that common either. He is adorable and like a combination of a squirrel and rabbit but cleaner and sweeter than both of those.
Let’s see.
As a child I raised a baby crow who eventually grew up and rejoined his wild brethren. He use to hang on to the handle bars on my bike and stand there with his wings spread as I biked along. Walking home from school, as I got closer to my neighbourhood, he’d fly down out of the trees and land on my shoulder. Sammy was super cool.
I hatched a Robin’s egg that I found on the road but the little guy didn’t survive.
I’ve had a small (6 feet) ball python and a lovely and super friendly bearded dragon. When I moved from one side of Canada to the other it just wasn’t feasible to take them with me so I found them new homes.
My ex and I had a Marmoset monkey that we rescued who proved to be a bloody nightmare so we gave him to a man who had other monkeys and more experience than we did.
Having worked and volunteered at various zoos and wild animal sanctuaries, I’ve worked with tigers, bears, giant snakes (16 feet long), wolves, otters, eagles and many, many others.
My kids saw live lobster in the grocery store and wanted me to bring it home and put in an aquarium as a pet.
I actually considered it for a minute.
I had a Llama for many years.
No truly exotics but a couple weird stories about less-than-normal pets.
Our family just grabbed turtles we found in our backyard as pets. They always escaped from us when we let them out on weekly walks (by digging holes into the mulch when they went under the hedges).
Which isn’t unusual but one of them on their walks started to dig in the middle of the lawn. It took me awhile to realize that it was laying eggs. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see the results of the hatching because they were either eaten or hatched in the middle of the night or never hatched.
We also had a cockatiel that we confusingly called Papagayo (parrot in Spanish.) We got it when my mom was working in a school and it just landed on the shoulder of one of the students. It must have escaped from a family and was lonely. One time it spontaneously started to whistle rudolph the red nose reindeer so it must have been taught that before because I would think that you’d need a lot of alone time with the bird to secretly teach it a song. Eventually it started to forget the song or produce variations in its head out of bordeom because it would never finish the song but would randomly end the song with a wolf whistle.
My wife raises all kinds of rare and exotic stuff. We’ve got a yard full of critters imported from New Zealand, tiny little sheep, funky chickens that people pay big money for.
Its a regular circus around here.
My parents started a zoo when I was a kid, and even before that we had a lot of random animals around the house.
Personally, I’ve currently just got axolotls that count as ‘exotic’.
I’m not sure how exotic it is since they’re relatively common these days, but I have a bearded dragon. She’s a pretty awesome pet, and very easy to care for. I also have a cat, and the two of them get along fine.
I have dogs and cats, but I also have a hedgehog (my daughter’s, really) and a Kenyan sand boa, which is the best kind of snake, and my son has a bearded dragon, but it lives at his dad’s. I used to have rats, which aren’t terribly exotic, but also aren’t common. They died of old age. I’ve raised a trio of baby squirrels, but I released them, so they aren’t pets.
And I would very much like axolotls because I think they are super adorable!! How are they to keep, Filbert? Are they friendly at all, or just for watching? I think they have the cutest little faces. I also really really want a pet sloth, but it’s pretty unrealistic. Still… maybe after the kids are grown…
They don’t have the brains to be friendly- I’m not sure which is smarter, them or my pot plants. They are cute though 
They’re not hard to keep, so long as you have a decent set up, and you’re not somewhere too hot.
Was it a house llama? I’ve heard there are such things, or have I been misinformed?
I had a pet rock.
Oh man. Do you have a resource for caring for them that you would recommend? Or just any advice? You can PM me if you want, so we don’t derail the thread. I’ve read up on them, but the info was somewhat contradictory, and I got a little overwhelmed. I’ve never known anyone who had them, except the guy at the reptile show trying to sell them, and he came across as a jackass just trying to move product.
Anyway, very cool pet.
I have a chinchilla. Anyone want him?
I true Llama (there are other, related animals that look similar, and are smaller) is much too large to keep in a house. Our Llama was probably 300 lbs, and stood will over 6’ tall. He was kept outside, in our 1 acre pasture, and he acted as a combination lawn mower and conversation piece. The neighborhood kids loved him. He was a rescue, and we had him for 10 years or so.
Here’s a photo of him.
I work in the zoo field, so I meet a lot of exotic pet enthusiasts.
I’m having trouble formulating this post to be balanced and reasonable, so I’m just going to say this straight.
Most people that keep exotic pets, shouldn’t. Many private owners don’t provide adequate care for the exotics in their possession. Keeping exotics requires a lot more specialized and expensive resources than domestic animal care, including diets, vet care and husbandry.
(Of course, some species which are considered exotic have relatively simple care. I’m thinking here of arid-land reptiles, various aquarium pets, invertebrates - and of course, hobbyists can be very successful in keeping, housing and breeding these species. Horses, ferrets, even falcons, have huge hobbyist groups which can provide information to potential owners.)
My main objection here is people trying to keep exotic mammals, especially carnivores. The US does not adequately regulate the exotic pet trade, leading to safety breaches, cruel conditions and a huge population of unwanted animals.
And, from a zoo perspective, owners of exotics who can no longer care for them often turn to zoos to rehome these animals. Frankly, zoos don’t want these creatures. They are often of unknown genetic provenance, poorly trained and socialized, and possibly malnourished and/or ill. Accredited zoos have their own acquisition plans and requirements, and a backyard tiger simply doesn’t add anything to a zoo’s collection, instead taking up valuable exhibit space and staff resources.
Some people are great exotic pet owners, but it takes a lot of work, a lot of time, and a lot of commitment. Choosing a pet to fit an owner’s lifestyle is a skill, and one that people often don’t take the time to learn.
Sorry if I have offended anyone. I’ve seen the sad effects of poor pet ownership too many times to be circumspect.
I didn’t start this thread to necessarily promote the idea that anyone can have any exotic pet they wanted - I just wondered if anyone had ever had any unusual/exotic pets. 
I’ve enjoyed reading about people’s unusual pets so far. Keep the posts coming.