Pet owners of reddit, what should people be aware of before becoming a pet owner as well?

We’ve had someone return a foster cat less than 24 hours after adopting because she wasn’t a lap cat immediately in a new home with a new owner.

I'm semi guilty of doing this, we adopted a kitten recently, and I couldn't handle it. I lived with my gramm for all of high school and my gramm was unfortunately a cat hoarder, during the time I lived with her she went from 3 cats to 19. I had to cover my bed in a sheet of plastic (imagine what people put over classic cars), and had something similar for my dresser otherwise it would be cat pee on everything. Couldn't cook, couldn't have people over, it was all around awful. When my gramm died we were finally able to give them all adequate homes.

My significant other had always wanted a kitten though, and begged for years. I finally did it, got a kitten from the shelter and it was basically PTSD for me, I literally couldn't function if it was in the same room as me. One of our good friends is a big cat person and her husband was a vet so they ended up taking the kitten off our hands and working with us on finding a specific breed, and reputable breeder. A few months after this, we ended up buying a purebred kitten for $1,800 - absurdly expensive compared to the $50 for the shelter kitty, but I've handled it a bit better. My SO believes my issues came from knowing all the cats my gramm hoarded were from the shelter, and that's why I was such a mess.

/r/AskReddit Thread Parent