I'm allergic to animals. If I'm around them (fur bearing animals) I get an allergic reaction and then suffer an asthma attack. I can take anti-histamine and asthma medications, but I'd rather not.

At this point, to be honest, the idea of having animals in the house is gross to me. My Grandmother felt the same way - she lived in a one room house (over 80 years ago) and had to share it with the farm animals in winter.

This doesn't mean I don't like animals. I do like most of them, just not enough to want them as pets.

What's your style of fake pet?

Instead, I'm interested in virtual pets, digital pets, artificial pets and assorted other pretend pets who are low maintenance and inexpensive. Tamagotchi, robot pets, Virtual Petz, vintage pet rocks, and others in that theme and genre. Do you remember Fur Real Friends, doesn't seem that long ago they were the new thing and yet I haven't heard them promoted for years. They were cute, and mechanically inclined.

Do you know where your pet rock is?

I did have a pet rock, long ago when they were the fad. I don't think mine was an official pet rock. Mom did buy one with the whole kit, the box and all. But, some how all four of us had a pet rock but there was only one box. She did wash them all first, she was fairly clever that way.

Do you like online virtual pet games?

I've played with several of the online game type of virtual pets. The interest wears off after awhile. Most of the sites push you for money. You can't feel you really have a pet you want to keep around if you keep getting badgered to spend more money on something that doesn't really exist.

The virtual pet I'd pick is a robotic cat.

Something sort of cute, sort of pretty but not in the made for children way. A cat that could double as an attack cat would be fun and a great conversation starter too.

Really, a robotic dragon, but... they don't seem to exist yet.

I read Beautiful Joe as a kid. I can still remember having the book with me for a sneak read at night. I’d go into the bathroom and sit on the side of the tub cause I could stretch my legs out there. Beautiful Joe was one of the books I most remember from my childhood. Much later I found out the story was from right here in Ontario and the story was not fictional.

Beautiful Joe was a Real Dog

Beautiful Joe was a real dog, a puppy in 1890, from the town of Meaford, in Ontario, Canada. The dog was a mongrel (or a mutt as we call them) and owned by a milkman who beat and starved the dog nearly to death.

The young dog was rescued by Walter Moore, a local miller. His daughter, Louise Moore, kept the dog and gave it a much different life and named him Beautiful Joe because of how less than beautiful he looked. The dog’s ears and tail had been cut off at some point. The dog grew old and eventually died still living with the family in Meaford.

Joe became famous and never knew a thing about it.

Margaret Marshall Saunders (1861 – 1947) met the dog while visiting her brother and his fiancée, Louise Moore, in 1892. The story inspired her to write a novel from the dog’s point of view.

However, she changed the location of the story to Maine (in the US) in order to enter a literary contest sponsored by the American Humane Education Society. She also changed names in the story and she wrote the story under the name Marshall Saunders because she thought a woman writer would not be taken seriously. She did win the contest and the book was first published in 1893.

Beautiful Joe was the first Canadian book to sell over a million copies. By the 1930′s the book had sold over 7 million copies around the world. Beautiful Joe has appeared in several editions, been translated into ten different languages.

The sequel, Beautiful Joe’s Paradise, was published by Marshall Saunders in 1902.

The book contributed to worldwide awareness of animal cruelty. The Beautiful Joe Heritage Society was started in 1994 and continues to run . You can find the Beautiful Joe Park and monument if you visit the town of Meaford.

You can have a virtual pet shark. You can have an inflatable pet shark which swims along in the air. You can have a pet robot shark which swims in water too. Or, you can own an exotic pet and set up a real aquarium with real, living, sharks. Of course, only the very big aquariums in zoos and other displays for the public or inside a corporate office with an unlimited budget, will have large sharks. However, a large shark isn't really a pet. An animal that could eat it's owner (due to a lack of inhibitions or respect for our place in the food chain) is not a pet. Not really.

A nice thing about keeping a pet shark, or several of them, is just watching them swim around. Some how it is very relaxing (almost like meditating) to watch fish swim around. They don't seem to be doing much. It's all fairly repetitive. If you keep a pet shark all they can really do is swim circles around whatever space they have. Swimming laps over and over and over. It must be an awfully dull life for them.

I don't like seeing the small sharks for sale in pet stores. I wonder how many of them die before they are sold to anyone. I'm sure the pet store just keep them to attract shoppers on the weekends they schedule feeding time for the shark(s).

I don't really think sharks should be pets, kept in a tank of water. I don't think any tank is really big enough - unless it's massive enough to create a whole marine or ocean type of environment. There is something ugly about seeing a shark bump into the side of a glass fish tank. So, I'm only keeping the virtual shark pet. Virtual shark pets miss you when you travel and will be there when you get back, still alive (or you can just restart your game).

Why are stores choosing pets over human customers? As an asthmatic person, allergic to animals, I don't understand the new pet friendly rules in retail outlets. How much do the animals spend? When did you last see a dog buy a book? How often are dogs shopping for lingerie?

The issue of pet friendly stores is mostly talked about in favour of having animals in the stores. Pet owners defend their view point by claiming they need to socialize their animals, that people afraid of the animals are ignorant or they will talk about how they were allowed to bring their animals everywhere while travelling in Europe. So what?

Socialize your animal on your own dime. You expect a lot if you think to use people to train your animal this way. Without any consideration at all to the people who may dislike animals, be afraid of animals or just not want to bother having a dog who isn't socialized jump on them, bark at them, etc. Pay people to perform this service for you. Do not expect it from random strangers. If the situation were reversed how would you feel?

People tend to be afraid of animals for a reason. To put down their fears as ignorance is shockingly rude and inconsiderate. The reason for their fear is really none of your business. If they have a fear of animals that's just how it is. Don't sit in judgement when in fact, you are the ignorant and intolerant one in this case.

Last of all, bringing animals into a store should be up to the store owner, no matter the geographic location. However, I would hope store owners and managers would take their shoppers into consideration. It is one thing for animals to be in a pet supply store, it is another thing entirely for animals to be in a store which caters to people, not animals.

Why Do People Consider Pet Friendly to be About Dogs Only?

Most people seem to think pet friendly is about dogs (and only dogs) being allowed into public places. I have asthma and allergies to animal hair so I'm not all for this. But, aside from that, if a place goes pet friendly shouldn't that include all pets: reptiles, insects, birds, rodents, etc? Does your version of pet friendly include a large snake for instance?

Public Stores/ Shops Should Consider their Customers

I worked in a department store where there was a sign on the doors saying "No Pets" and the other standard restrictions about wearing a shirt, not riding a skateboard in the store and so on. No pets suited me very well. I have asthma which is easily triggered by my allergy to animal hair (dander).

When people began bringing their dogs into the store I was unhappy.

We had a regular customer who had a service dog. That dog was trained, very well trained, and no one was allowed to approach and pet the dog. The dog was not handled or carried around or put inside a shopping cart or basket.

Service dogs (service animals in general) are trained. They are trained very well and they are tested for their performance before they are allowed to become service animals. If you see a service animal in public or out somewhere, never try to treat it like a pet. The animal is not mistreated just because it is not being fawned over. Service animals are "at work" and it could be dangerous to distract them from their job. At the very least the animal should not be be put in the place of having to switch roles from being on the job to being a pet. They do get time to be a pet, just not at your convenience.

The pet dogs were far different than any service animal I have encountered. Pet dogs are treated like spoiled, pampered children rather than animals at all. In the store, clothes would smell and show animal hair after a pet owner had shopped, trying on clothes and discarding those which were hung up again, with dog hair. The dogs chewed on various things in the store, both merchandise and store fixtures. It was supposed to be cute and funny when the dog grabbed something and started eating it in the check out aisle.

As a person allergic to animals I did not appreciate being expected to serve people who brought pet animals into the store. I did turn people away from my check out counter as often as I could. At times (like early morning or evening shifts) I was the only cashier. So it was unfair to me that I was forced to suffer asthma and allergies just for someone's need to bring animals into a store.

Pet dogs/ animals are not really trained. They are not trained to be in public and perform a service. Pet animals will bite and chew things, defecate indoors, barf, scratch, will have fleas or worms and pet animals (dogs) will bark. Pet dogs will not keep to themselves. They are likely to jump on other people, chase people and generally be a nuisance to the store staff and other customers who came to shop in the store.

Pet Friendly Stores Need to Warn Customers

Currently, I have stopped shopping at stores which claim to be "Pet friendly". I wish more of them would make note of their pet preference on the door where I walk in. This way I could avoid finding out the hard way.

Having an asthma attack is like trying to breathe under water. Over years of having asthma I have learned to control it and at least, not panic and make it worse. However, people do die from asthma attacks and many people who have asthma also have allergies. Pets being a fairly common allergy, more common than being allergic to peanuts.

Also, I will admit, I do not like dogs in particular. I watched my little sister be attacked by a large dog when she was 4. The dog owner could not pull his dog off my sister's head which was clamped between the jaws of the dog. This was a family pet. So, I have a pretty strong distrust of dogs.

Why do people need to bring their livestock into a public place?

Why do pet owners think it's ok to use me (as a person in a store) to "socialize" their animals?

Why would a store choose to have pets running around rather than people who could actually shop, spend money and come back to do the same again?

Why can't people with allergies and asthma (a real medical problem) have more consideration than people with pets?

If you are a pet owner and can't be without your pet for the time it takes to shop in a store, consider shopping online in order to shop at home, with your pets. That way I can go shopping without wondering if your pet may bother me, scare me, bite me or cause me to have an asthma attack.

Make Mine Chocolate

Sadly, unwanted former Easter rabbits are a problem for virtually all rabbit rescues, humane societies, and animal welfare organizations. The goal of the “Make Mine Chocolate!” campaign is to address the problem at its source: reduce the number of uninformed, impulse purchases by changing the public's attitude towards rabbits.