Why do people have pets if they cant take care of them?

As a canine rescuer, adopter and owner for the better part of my life, I surely wish I knew the answer to this.

Those types of people are impulsive and very irresponsible. Its a shame that people neglect pets that they decided to take care of. The worst ones are the ones that allow their children to keep pets and then dont follow through with taking care of them ro get rid of it just to get another. They just end up continuing the cycle.

why do women have kids they REFUSE to take care of. irresponsibility. Most people think pets are like toys. play with them a while. get tired of them and throw them to the side. they don't consider them as living things with souls. That's why when they get sick they don't get them medical care or anything else..they have the attitude..so what if they die. that's why they abuse them. People do not understand what all is involved in caring for them..just like a baby. they don't realize that some pets live 20 years and it gets expensive..they need love and care and companionship. Some people don't care..just like women who have kid after kid after kid and then the kids end up in foster care because the mother cares more about drugs than the kids. selfishness and irresponsible.

Because they're selfish, ignorant s**ts! I had a neighbour who got a kitten from somewhere for her kids. They tormented it, threw it around, chased it, poked it and left it outside in the freezing cold. They'd feed it every other day.

Lo and behold, the cat was pregnant within a few months. The litter died in the cold. Did they get the cat fixed? No, it's pregnant again. The number of cats I've had to get the Ranger to collect and "dispose" of is incredible.

What's worse than having to put down a whole litter of cats? Letting them starve or freeze to death. Letting them procreate by not spending the money to get them fixed.

Same issue with dogs. Every now and then a whole pack of dogs, strays, roam the region and kill livestock up north. Why? Because as a puppy they were cute and cuddly, as a dog they were too much of a handful.

The pig-ignorance of people never ceases to amaze me.

I think there are two reasons: habit, and ignorance.

In our society it's normal to have pets, and even if a person doesn't want to take care of their pets, they'll see the pet and think How cute! So, they get it, because that's normal, it's our society's habit.

So that's why they have the pet; as for why they don't take care of the pet, that's ignorance (maybe wilfull ignorance). Our society in general doesn't promote animal welfare. The laws we have about animal cruelty are not very strong ones. We allow what are in my opinion horrible practises to be legal for animals raised for meat, and we allow the import of meat from places where the animals are treated even more cruelly. Animal welfare simply isn't one of our society's priorities. So many people don't think beyond what the general society tells them. They think of animals like property, which is how our laws think of animals. And a person can do whatever they want with their own property. They think, I bought this animal, it's mine, I can do with it what I want. So long as I don't beat it or starve it, I can do what I want. They don't bother finding out what's best for the animal; what they can do to provide a good life for the animal. They are selfish and lazy. Our society promotes selfishness and laziness. We focus in our society so much on individual rights, and hardly at all on the responsibilities we have that arise from living around other people/beings.

because people are ignorant. :|

It's like how young teens who have sex when they aren't old enough to handle the responsibilities that come with children, but are willing to have unprotected sex, then aren't are willing to deal with the consequence of their actions so they abort the baby, who did nothin wrong but to be born to an irresponsible person.

Although people would often tell me I shouldn't compare the two, animals and people, in this way but I don't care it's true. people buy pets, aren't ready to take care of them for what every reason, often mentally and the animal is the one that suffers most. :(

Beacause they only want to have fun with their pets & not care for them well.

.... because my mom is crazy