So my brother wants a new pet of his very own. We’d get him one, but there are some problems.
We already have two cats. One of them likes to hang out in bro’s room, and also loves terrifying small scurrying things.
We can’t get a third cat, because my mom’s allergic.
Bro wants an interactive pet, not a fish or bug.
We’re stumped.
Guinea Pig, gerbils, ferret? Pocket dog like a 3# chihuahua who’s ass the cats can kick?
A chinchilla makes a great pet. They need a big and I mean big cage, but they are very clean. They are easily the cleanest rodents, they make virtually no noise, and if they do make a sound it sounds really weird.
They are so soft and they take daily dust baths, which are so fun to watch. If you get two big parrot cages, for instance and put a walk way between them and put one chinch in each cage they are so fun to watch.
The downside is they aren’t cuddly as you’d like. They will let you pet them for like 5 mintues then they are like “OK enough of this.” Also they need it cool, 75ºF (24ºC) or less. But when I had one I didn’t have air, I simply got around it by putting a marble slab in the freezer and then after 12 hours of freezing I’d stick it in his cage. The if he needed to get cool he’d sit on the slab. You just by two marble slabs and rotate them.
The problem with the scurrying furries is the cat I mentioned above. Even if she’s not able to get at a caged gerbil/ferret/whatever, she’d probably give it a heart attack. Unless there’s some method of keeping cage and kitty seperate*, in which case please share with me.
*I know what you’re thinking: a door. But he’s only ten- odds are that he won’t remember to always always keep it shut. For that matter, I’m not sure that he’d even want to have his room closed all the time.
Your mother’s allergic to having three cats? :dubious:
Seriously, is the incremental dander of a third cat going to be that big a deal? Your home is presumably coated already.
How about a rabbit?
Adult chinchillas or rabbits are probably big enough to thwart a cat. Rabbits are often assertive enough to drive off cats entirely, although sometimes they make friends. A chin will be less assertive and more likely to be stressed by a cat, but probably won’t be killed or eaten. Also, as mentioned, a chin needs it cool/cold – and I mean needs. They are subject to strokes and death as the temp approaches 80 F.
How about a large boa constrictor? 
Is your mom allergic to dogs? The right dog might work.
All of these animals can be adopted from shelters or from dedicated breed-specific rescues.
How much time and effort is the kid likely to put in with the pet? This matters a lot in choosing what sort of pet.
We briefly had a third cat (long story) and she says it made her allergies much worse. So for the time being, we have a two-cat limit.
I think rats might be a good idea. The males are generally big enough to take on a small cat. I used the have rats and ferrets at the same time, and one of my female rats was assertive enough to chase the ferrets around my apt. (Ferrets were domesticated to take care of rodents, same as cats, so I got a giant kick out of this. Really wish I had video, as all involved parties have now gone off to that big pet store in the sky.)
Rats are smarter and more sociable than any other pet beside a dog, certainly smarter & more sociable than most other rodents, so you can teach them all the tricks you like. The main caveat is not to get one - it’s as cruel as sentencing a human to solitary confinement for decades. They need friends.
You can even get neutered rats!
Ferrets are another good option. Some people keep them in a cage for most of the time, but I find that they are MUCH more social and friendly if given free range of the room or house. They do get into everything though - ferretproofing is similar to babyproofing.
I’ve heard that some reptiles are rather friendly and enjoy being handled - the “Ask a Guy Who Owned an Exotic Pet store” thread from a while back has tons of info about that.
In high school, I always loved playing with the corn snakesa couple of my science teachers had.
Guinea pigs. They react to people with pleasure (you can hear ours in the next county when they hear a plastic bag rattling), they purr, and they’re not too demanding if you don’t have a lot of spare time.
I know “small furry cat-food” is a concern, but I’ve heard that at least in some households, the cats don’t bother with guinea pigs. Heck, one person I know actually has her guinea pigs in an open cage (you don’t have to have a top on the cage, as the critters don’t climb) and her cats don’t bother with it. She theorizes the cats don’t recognize it as food. Not sure I’d want to risk that, however; if we had cats I’d definitely cover the cage with a lid.
If the pigs have hidey-holes, they’re not likely to be too terrorized by the cats unless the cat can reach through the cage mesh and bat the hideout around.
How about a device like this or this, (I don’t know the English word for it) to keep the door automatically closed? We used it to keep cats out of the baby’s room, and it worked fine.
Thanks for your advice.
So you really think that small critters can live in the same house as a cat? Because that’s my mother’s main concern. We actually were thinking about ferrets before, but we were worried that the cats would attack the ferret, or the ferret would attack the cats. Bro has specifically mentioned getting a ferret or a snake, but I think he’s open to ideas.
Understood. Sorry for being snarky.
I think this can be really variable. When I was a kid, we had several cats, and then my brother brought home a bunny. To our surprise, the cats accepted the rabbit as a colleague and maintained a cordial professional relationship as long as the rabbit was with us. My current dog and bird ignore each other, but my sister-in-law’s dog would make a chicken sandwich out of him if she could. I’d be nervous about bringing a cat into our house, because the dog is so mild-mannered that she’d be intimidated, and the bird is so aggressive that his beak would write checks that his feathers couldn’t cash.
You could always get a Sphynx.
ETA: “Although Sphynx cats are sometimes thought to be hypoallergenic due to their lack of coat, this is not always the case. Allergies to cats are triggered by a protein called Fel d1, not cat hair itself. Fel d1 is a tiny and sticky protein primarily found in cat saliva and sebaceous glands. Those with cat allergies may react worse to direct contact with Sphynx cats than other breeds. However, conflicting reports of some people successfully tolerating Sphynx cats also exist.”
So maybe not.
I have a Russian tortoise. They don’t smell, there’s nothing to be allergic to, and I think a tortoise is relatively safe from cats.
They are not as cuddly as a cat or dog, but they can be fun to watch (I think it’s cute to see mine chomp on food).
There is info on their care here: http://russiantortoise.org/
As to the ferret + cat question, I know of three different people who have cats and ferrets living in the same house. They seem to have figured out how to cohabitate. The ferrets do have cages where they are kept when supervision is not possible - ferrets only roam the house when there’s someone to watch them.
I gotta chime in again. I used to have two cats and two ferrets at the same time. Before that, I had two ferrets (one was the same, one was a different one) while my then-roommate had *her *two cats. In all cases, the various cats and ferrets would either ignore each other or play together.
Here’s the thing: ferrets are obligate carnivores, same as cats. My WAG is that ferrets, being meat-eaters, don’t smell like a cat’s standard prey. So cats don’t hunt them - they play with them as they would with another feline kitten.
Also, being hunters, ferrets are equipped with the same claws and sharp teeth as cats, so it’s not like they’re at a disadvantage if the cat decides to start anything. Ferrets also are legendary for having both tough skin and a weird insensitivity to low-level pain. I’ve seen ferrets bonk their heads against so many things, and it never seems to faze them.
No matter how old, a ferret NEVER loses its inherent sense of mischief and play. Very unique among animals.
I have fond memories of one of my roommate’s cats inventing a modified version of Whack-A-Mole with one of my ferrets. The ferret would hide under the couch, and the cat would curl up and wait. Ferret pokes head out from under couch, cat (gently) bops her head. Ferret ducks back in … and two seconds later, pops out a few feet over. Another gentle bop. Lather, rinse, repeat. They’d keep it up for a while, and it was always clear that it was a game; the cat was not actually preventing the ferret from getting out from under the couch at any time.
I’ve had plenty of friends with cats + rats, cats + ferrets, or cats + snakes.
Because ferrets can fit into very small spaces and usually don’t make noise when they get stuck, this is important to be aware of. Most people won’t let ferrets wander loose in the same way that a cat or a dog would.
It’s worth noting that my wife is strongly allergic to cats and dogs – she gets asthma after a short exposure and she gets a ski n rash if she cuddles them – but we eventually stumbled upon perfectly ordinary dogs and cats that she does not react to. So it must be variable. We now have two dogs – some kind of AmStaff/Basset/Beagle mix and an American Pit Bull Terrier – both shorthairs, and she can live with and cuddle them without problems. Every once in a while she will get a little skin irritation if she spends hours in skin contact with them (like letting one sleep in her lap) but it’s rare.
We’ve had three previous cats as temporary fosters (two longhairs and a shorthair) and she was highly reactive to all three being in the house, even closed in a separate room. But last winter we took in a shorthair cat, and she’s had zero respiratory distress from this one, and only mild skin irritation if she rubs bare skin all over him.
I don’t really recommend that you audition animals and send them away until you find one your Mom doesn’t react to, but be aware that it seems to differ in strength on a case-by-case basis.
