The "they just don't make good pets" argument...

What constitutes a "good" pet is as individual and personal as what constitutes a "good" spouse, job, place to live, hobby, kind of food to eat, kind of vehicle to drive (or ride), or style and color of clothes to wear. When someone tells you that any kinds of animals "just don't make 'good' pets," a thoughtful person's reaction should be one of insult and indignation--if not anger.

This argument is basically telling you that--

you don't have the intelligence and ability to decide such a personal choice on your own,
you shouldn't have the right to decide for yourself what kind of animal to bring into your life as a pet, and
their personal values are better and important than yours

I happen to like cats--all kinds of cats. And personally don't care for reptiles, rodents, or amphibians when it comes to the pet I'd select for myself. But I feel that people who do like those other kinds of animals should be accorded the same respect and oportunity to pursue their choices that I want to be able to pursue myself. That's the kind of freedom that (until a few years ago) was the hallmark of this country, but is persistently being whittled away a little bit here, and a little bit there.

Consider for a moment how people would generally define an "ideal" spouse.

If you put 100 married people together in a room, you could come up with a handful of characteristics that they would nearly all agree comprise a "good" spouse. But if you then examined every one of those people's actual spouses with the list of ideal characteristics they had just agreed with, there would appear to be discrepancies: not all of the spouses would appear to match the list of characteristics. That's because we each put our own personal interpretation on definitions, and we all put somewhat different "weights" (or importance or priority) on each of the commonly-agreed definitions when we make our decisions.

It's exactly the same way when it comes to selecting a pet. Individual people want different things in the animal they choose for a pet. Why do you think everyone doesn't have a poodle? ...or beagle? ...or a calico cat? ...or a bowl of guppies?

The idea that one person (or any group of people) should be able to judge what constitutes a "good pet" for anyone else is just totally wrong in a country where we've been taught that we have certain inalienable rights: one of which is the "pursuit of happiness." And the very thought of anyone expecting to be able to make that judgement for others should gall all of us.

So how can the claim "they just don't make 'good' pets" even begin to be accepted as a legitimate argument for banning exotic cats (or any other animal)?

If what is meant is to say that they aren't "safe" pets, or they are "difficult" pets to provide and care for, then the argument should deal specifically with those issues honestly--not to shroud them in the holier-than-thou argument that they "just don't make good pets."

--Greg Lyons