People getting their first pet.

Yunnie

A topic created here got me thinking about people buying/adopting their first pets and how many of them actually went into it with their eyes open.

I constantly find myself in the situation now of 'what will we do with the dogs and guinea pigs' when we either go on holidays, go on day trips, work/college or weekend trips.
I'm 23 and my boyfriend is 21, so we are quite young and we were pretty naive when it came to having pets.
I want to share my experience of owning pets for the first time and maybe giving some insight into how hard it can be for your animals and yourself.

We got the guinea pigs first when my boyfriend and I moved into our first apartment together. We wanted to get a dog but because the apartment was small we didn't bother so we went for something that could be put in a cage. They were easy to look after and generally didn't have any problems with them or finding someone to look after them if we decided to go away.
A few weeks later we thought having small animals was great, so we got a rabbit. She was very shy and quiet so we decided to get her a friend. We got another rabbit that turned out to be absolutely mental, every time you lifted her she would bang her feet off the cage or ran rings round the cage kicking up hay and bedding, so we came to the conclusion that having rabbits in an apartment was a nightmare and decided to move to a bigger house.
We got our house but the smell from 4 caged animals was becoming overwhelming (even after changing their bedding every few days ) so we decided to give the rabbits away and found them good homes. I wasn't very attached to the mental rabbit but I was quite sad to see the shy one go.

After enjoying the newness of having new animals in the house and it having worn off, we decided we would get a dog. We had a big house, big back garden and saw no reason not to. So we bought a pup, a beautiful King Charles Cavalier and we named him Chuck. He is our baby, my boyfriend adores him and soon he came to forget about the guinea pigs, even now im sure he doesn't remember what their names are.
Every time we wanted to go somewhere we popped chuck up to my boyfriends parents house with the guinea pigs. Sometimes it was a nuisance for his parents because they have a dog of their own who is old and very quiet whereas chuck is young and playful, barks, scratches is very curious and could be a handful when he wanted to be.
We had Chuck for just over a year and were itching to get a new puppy. We convinced ourselves that having another one would be no hassle, that it would be the same as having 1 dog, how wrong we were. We got a JRT pup and named her Foxie. The two breeds couldnt be anymore different. Foxie wrecks the place and has now lead chuck to do the same. Shes taken over the house! It was a nightmare training her, we forgot how messy it was cleaning poo and pee day and night when we first got chuck. She went to the toilet everywhere, I was running after her with a sheet of newspaper in my hand everytime i saw her squat to try and catch whatever was coming out of her. She thought i was giving her something to play with and proceeded to rip the newspaper out of my hand and run round my house with it streaming out behind her.
I love my dogs to bits and love caring for them, but lately my boyfriend and I have been discussing immigrating to Australia as there aren't really any employment opportunities in Ireland for us. The first thing that came into my head was 'What are we gona do with the dogs'. The thought of leaving them behind is heartbreaking, but thats not the biggest issue we have. The big issue is WHO is going to look after them. I cant bare to think of giving them to strangers. I love my dogs and the thought of any harm coming to them is heartbreaking. It seems to me that immigrating is inevitable and the handing over of my dogs to somebody else also.
I wish now that a few years ago I thought of these problems before i got my pets. Ill be leaving 4 animals that have depended on me most of their lives, I have fed them, trained them, loved them and soon i will be leaving them. I just hope that anybody who is considering getting a pet takes into consideration the sacrifices they will have to make to make sure that their pet is well cared for if they have to leave them.

Eibhin

A very honest post OP and one I wish many people would read before embarking on getting a pet of any description.

Hope things work out for you