Slashdot Mirror
Household Pets for the Common Geek?
batobin asks: "I just moved into my first apartment that allows pets, and am looking forward to finally getting some sort of animal companion. My question to the Slashdot community is this: are there any pets out there that are especially conducive to a nerdish personality/lifestyle? I was looking into hedgehogs before I found out they're illegal in my state, but ferrets are starting to look fun too. Which pets are especially trainable? Which will be entertained by (yet not intrusive upon) a typist with a flashing screen in front of them? Is cable-gnawing an issue? Something tells me I can do better than simply a dog or a cat."
If penguins were legal to own, could there be any other obvious choice. :)
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
If you are looking to make a commitment I would recommend a few sugar gliders. They are very fun, but they do bond to their owners and live for many years, so they aren't a good choice if you're just dabbling with the idea of pets. They are also communal, so you should get at least two.
As always, a simple web seearch will turn up lots more information.
-- MarkusQ
Aibo. Obviously!
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"if you're just looking for a fixture around the apartment, go with something like a guinea pig or a fish... ferrets stink. literally. i mean, given that you're on slashdot, your chances of getting a girl to voluntarily come over are already halved, but if you do by some miracle score one for the home team, ferret-stink is a big turn-off.
if you're really looking for a companion with some personality, go with a cat, or to a lesser extent, a dog... personally, i'm a dog kinda guy, but its hard to find a good sedate breed of dog that won't get in your way while coding. if you do opt for a dog, definitely get obedience training. its indispensible for any dog owner, coder or not.
They're small, fluffy, cute, clean, affectionate, cheap, intelligent, trainable, and easy to look after.
:)
They only disadantage is they don't live very long (sucks getting attached to one and have it die within 2-3 years), and they will knaw through cables and clothes if you're not careful.
They'll sit on your shoulder while you work, can be trained to come when called, will sit while you stroke them, and come in a wide variety of sizes and colours
...and toilet train it.
No shit, I trained mine 5 years ago and it's been great. She uses the toilet in the spare bathroom and neither of us have to worry about all the indignities of a dirty litter box.
Do not try to train it to flush, though. Seems that if you do this they decide that they love it and go and flush the toilet whenever they're bored...
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
- Keep small pets. Pets like cats, and anything smaller, are good for this. The reason is cost. Food for a large dog will cost you a ton compared to a half-tin of cat food a day and a bag of dry food every two weeks.
- Keep low-maintenance pets. Cats are reasonably good for this, as long as you remember to let them in and out (if applicable), and remember to change their litter and feed them. They'll mostly stay out of your way if they're loners, and if they're sucky (friendly, suck-up, lovey) cats, they'll gladly sit in your lap, where you can pet them with one hand and browse slashdot with the other.
- In a ground floor apartment, you can have any pet you want. In anything above the 1 1/2th floor, or anything above the 3rd floor that doesn't have a huge tree just outside the patio/window, you need an indoor pet, or a 'companion' pet. Cats are bad for this (unless you have the tree), since once you get outside, they'll take off, and you'll have to wait for hours for them to come back so you can open the door. Dogs are better for this, since you walk them and then go home with them. Problem is, you have to walk them, it's not an option.
- Don't go exotic. It might seem 'cool' or 'geeky' to have an exotic pet, but when it gets sick and the vets are clueless, when the only petstore around that carries food for it closes up, when you move to a no-pets apartment and have to get rid of it, it can be a pain in the ass.
- Don't get a bird. Either you let it fly around the apartment and crap on everything, or you lock it up in a cage, which is cruel. The best case you could hope for is one that's happy in a cage, in which case it'll sing and whistle at you, which can make concentrating or sleeping somewhat difficult.
I'm a cat person myself, I've almost never not had a cat, but I'm also aware of how much work it takes to care for a cat, and a lot of pets take more work to manage. Be very careful. Ask your local petstore, or as many local petstores as you can find. Ask friends, family, coworkers what kinds of pets they have or have had, and what it takes to take care of them. Get as much info as you can, not just from slashdot. No one here knows enough about your personal habits to give you proper information, only suggestions.And lastly, once you decide on a pet, go to the SPCA or the local animal shelter. Don't buy from a petstore when there are poor things sitting locked in cages for who knows how long, up until they have to be killed to put them out of everyone's misery.
--Dan
Something tells me I can do better than simply a dog or a cat.
[This sounds like a sickly competitive statement.]
Dogs and cats have millenia of domestication backing them up. If you want a trainable animal, this seems like a no brainer. My dog knows all sorts of things.
- "Let's take a nap" and Belle runs up stairs.
- "MOVE!" and Belle avoids being kicked and gets out of my way.
- "Treat!" and she pays more attention to me.
- "Truck", "Clancy", "go", and she gets excited to go in the truck to Mom and Dad's to play with Clancy.
- "Get in the truck" and she jumps into the back of the truck.
- all of the standards, "sit", "down", "paw", "rollover", "stay"
- "other paw" and she'll shake with the other paw...
= "Outside?" and she'll go to the door if she wants out, otherwise she'll just stair at you.
- When let in from outside, Belle used to check out the living room for visitors, not she checks out the high chair for dropped food.
Dogs are only fun when well trained. Training is a physical activity. There is no negotiating with a dog. The dog has to know that it is at the bottom of the pack (below children) and may at times need reminders.
Mixed breed dogs are more robust and smarter. I'd look for a young dog at the pound.
Dogs are also a 20 year commitment, but can be well worth it.
Joe
Joe Batt Solid Design
More exotic pets, partucularly rodents, can get expensive: My daughter begged and begged for a "pet of her own" and we thought it would help teach her some responsibility. We ended up getting her a guinea pig. BIG mistake: the cage requires daily cleaning; the litter and food and expensive. The damn little rodent costs WAY more in food and litter than our cat. And a guinea pig isn't exactly exotic.
I mentioned a cat earlier. Now, I grew up with a dog -- a rather likable English Setter that lived to the ripe old age of around 18. I like dogs. But dogs need to be walked (some small species can be trained to do their business on newspaper in the garage, but the smell remains long after the excrement has been removed), and I've always thought it cruel to have a dog and not live somewhere where they can run and play in big open places. Cats are quite happy to live indoors, and some species can be trained to not roam. Persians are good for this, but you will have to deal with their long hair, shedding, and trips to the groomer 2-4 times a year to have them shaved (yeah, the hair gets that long, and perioding shaving is necessary). I've had a long-haired Persian cat for almost 10 years now. No regrets. It even adapted well to three moves in that time (apartment to house, to house, to house)
You could've hired me.
i can't believe the inane questions that people ask on slashdot these days... "is this geeky enough?" "what would be geekier?" "could you please define my life for me?" "help me, i have no personal identity!" "*whine*"
seriously. people! "nerdish" "geeky"... if you are you are. if you aren't and you're asking slashdot how you CAN be... ehhhh, you need help, but not from us.
"You're a geek..."
In which case the obvious pet is a chicken.]
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Yes, because a pet is a status symbol. All your friends will think you are uber-leet for having a marmoset.
What a moronic Ask Slashdot question.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Get a Servicat. I don't have a link handy right now, and I'm too damn lazy to find one, but a google search will turn up tons of pages.
A Servicat is half African Serval (like a mini-leopard) and half Bengal (a standard housecat, but is at least some part Asian Leopard). They are legal in most states because they are only considered 50% exotic.
I have 2 Bengals, and they rule. If they weighed like 30 or 40 pounds like a Servicat, they would be hella cool.
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In my sophomore year of college, my roommate had a pet ball python and believe it or not, made for a pretty good companion while working on the computer. He'd stay up on my shoulder, or on my arm, perfectly content to watch me work away. And before someone asks, he never tried to strangle me! *grin* The snake was about 3' long, and from what I remember my roommate saying, they don't get all that much bigger than that. And taking care of it was a breeze. Just make sure it has a clean cage and give it a mouse once or twice a month. And for those that are really adventerous, let a mouse loose in the living room and watch the snake hunt it down! Just be sure not to bother the snake while it's feeding, it does NOT like that!
Of course now, I have a springer spanial, but only because my wife HATES snakes.
I second this, even though you appear to want an "exotic" pet.
Rene, I agree with your "read" of the poster's intent, and I'm pleased you added the always prudent "appear" to your statement since it's not clear what the poster wants/needs in a pet. I thought your post was great. Hopefully that will cause the poster to think twice about the pros and cons of exotic pets.
My first thought when I read the poster's topic was what exactly does s/he mean by "Something tells me I can do better than simply a dog or a cat." What does better mean? Apparently an animal that fits in with the poster's nerdish personality/lifestyle, but that doesn't tell us much. I'm a little concerned that the poster's intent may be to get an animal that s/he can show off to his/her friends as an example of what a counter-culture, eccentric-genius, think-outside-the-box kind of guy s/he is. The comment about ferrets looking "fun" troubles me. Perhaps it's because I've seen way too many hippies who think that owning one of these is a great way to advertise your non-mainstreamness. Again, I don't know poster batobin so all we can do is guess what his/her criteria for a pet is.
I sincerely hope that batobin knows what is important to them in a pet even if s/he chose not to let us in on the secret. And for the record, I believe that cats make great nerd pets. If you're concerned about them fooling with your computer equipment, just put that stuff in a offlimits-to-Kitty-room.
GMD
watch this
An optical mouse! It always lives with you, very low maintainance and get along well with computer...
I can't say enough good things about turtles. You can either get aquatic turtles like red-eared sliders that spend most of their time underwater in an aquarium, or you can get regular box turtles that can wander around on the floor. They're very sturdy, they're easy to take care of, they live for tens of years, and they've got great personalities.
Personally, I prefer aquatic turtles: if you have to leave them alone for a week (for vacation, trips, whatever), you can get a little automatic feeder and you don't have to worry about them pooping all over the place like dogs. They're beautiful to watch when they swim, plus you can take them out and play with them.
Plus, they'll eat meat: you can throw a couple of live feeder fish, crickets, or whatever in the tank and watch the thrill of the chase.
I can't exactly say that they're trainable, but they're very smart. Mine have learned to climb up on my feet and sit there when they want me to play with them. They'll just camp out on my socks or shoes and wait patiently for me to sit down on the floor.
What's your damage, Heather?