It's is very important that we take time to look into the cost associated with keeping pets around us before we really decide on keeping one.
These costs are numerous and to a large extent depends on the age, species, quantity of pets desired to be kept amongst other requirements.
Before i go further, i believe it is important to again defined what a pet is as this is important in any discussion about pets. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a pet can be either a domesticated or tamed animal that is kept as a favourite or treated with fondness or indulgence. Having gotten that straight, let's just go into the talk of todays post.
The cost of pet keeping can be categorised into:
Economic
Emotional
Societal
Environmental
Time
We ll just be looking into (3) while the Environmental and Time cost will be covered in our next post.
Economic:
Reports gathered about the economic cost of pet keeping are mainly from highly civilized and industrialised societies. It's estimated that in an average life span of about 13 years, expenses as high as $13,330 and $8,506 which are equivalent to about 7 and 5 million naira respectively are spent of pet dogs and cats annually in the United States of America.
These cost are huge and which i will also say gives an idea of how big the revenue his for pet product manufacturers, vets, caregivers, trainers amongst others.
To further buttress this, it was estimated that by the end of 2010(more than a decade ago) the Americans will be spending about $50Billion dollars on pets annually mainly on prepared food and accessories.
Therefore, it's really safe to say that income is a very important determinant in the popularity of pet keeping.
Emotional cost:
This qualitative parameter can be affected mostly through loss or disappointment related to the animals behaviour, or even eventual appearance as compared to what's expected of by its owner. Some individuals do not really fare well after the loss of a pet. Some do not just only experience severe grief, but prolonged grief afterwards. And in case of bad behaviours, owners of such pets experience theirs in form of distress and conflicts with family members, neighbours and friends. As humans have evolved into having enormous emotional ties with these animals. These ties are however not something that came up with the rise of the civilized humans as According to anthropological reports, pet keeping among hunting and horticultural peoples of early ages also was typically characterized by intense emotional attachments to the animals involved, it was reported to have went on as well as having strong moral taboos against killing or eating such animals .
As its often the case when these animals belong to species that are hunted routinely for food (Erikson, 1987 , 2000 ; Serpell, 1989 ).
Societal cost:
This can be related to emotional cost as what the societal cost might be may have an influence on the pet owners emotion. For example, a biting dog or one that contracts and spreads diseases. It's estimated the almost 5 million Americans are victims pet dog attacks yearly. People do also stand the chance of allergies and asthma as reported by Centre for disease control and prevention (CDCCP)
So it's there therefore very important to evaluate these factors as it will guide in correctly making a decision as to whether or not to, what kind and how to choose correctly the type of pet to own.
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