The Huffington Post says you can have a pet even if you're allergic to them. It's just a matter of:

• Cleaning more often.
• Using pet-free zones.
• Taking more drugs.

None of these are great options. Likely a list developed by someone who does not have much, or any, allergies. A pet-free zone in your house does not help when you usually share the house and facilities like laundry. Clean more often... pretty much the same issue. Pet hair has little fine, pin hairs which get into everything. As for taking more drugs... NO! Thank you.

Allergies are the sixth leading cause of chronic disease in the U.S. and approximately half of all Americans test positive for at least one of the 10 most common allergens, including cat allergies, according to a profile from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA) reports that about 15-30 percent of people with allergies have allergic reactions to cats and dogs. With more than 100 million pets in the United States this leads to high allergy morbidity as people are exposed to animal allergens when visiting friends and family or even in public spaces like schools and offices.

Source: How to Live With a Pet Allergy Without Getting Rid of Your Pet

There is another option which the people at the Huffington Post missed. Maybe they've been taking too many allergy pills.

Try a pet which does not cause allergies.

There are even fluffy pet options.

• Allergy & Air - The Best Pets for Allergy Sufferers
• Mother Nature Network - 10 of the best pets for allergy sufferers
• Health - 15 Hypoallergenic Dogs and Cats

If even the hypoallergenic pets give you allergies consider an unusual pet, less fluffy. Snakes, lizards, turtles and fish are not for everyone so consider a pet which won't cause allergies and needs very little care, like a pet rock. Just a little dusting or a run through the dishwasher... what other pet can you do that with?

In the end, how do you live with a pet allergy without getting rid of your pet? ...

• Give it to someone else and visit now and then.
• Buy a second home for your pet to live in.
• Or the even less popular option, taxidermy.
• Or, you could just take all those drugs and hope your pet doesn't out live you.

Found this (link below). I'm not changing anything, typos and spelling included. History makes mistakes. People shouldn't always come along and fix them.

There is this one pet that doesn't cost a lot of money or your time..... that's right. A Rock!A pet rock.

It's Great because it requires no work. You don't need your parent's permission to get one. Makes a nice paperweight. They don't drop fur or feathers all over the place and, of course, don't eat, bite or poop. and doesn't complain at all.

It's not so good because it just sits there and don't want to talk.

The best part, they don't have any requirements and come free of cost. All we have to do is look by the side of the road.

Pet Rocks are ideal for both the inexperienced pet owner and for those who are too busy to spend a lot of time on pet care.

When you have learned a little on training and maintaining them you could easily add to your pocket money by selling them to friends and relatives or your local shops.

How to select your Pet Rock

As with the selection of any pet, you will need to know exactly what you want from your pet Rock. you might want to carry around with you to keep you company and show off or, you may want a Rock to guard your house when you are not home.

So, in this case, the Guard Rock needs to be quite large and fierce looking and will need quite a large space to live in. Guard Rocks also like to sit out in the front garden watching the world go by while smaller Pet Rocks love to live on or near the computer.

After you work out the size that you want finding your new companion is not a problem anymore.

Don't make the mistake of taking the first rock that you see because each will have a different personality. Take your your time and choose the best.

Making your Pet look good

The look of your chosen pet rock would depend on the size, shape and texture to give it the best style and finish..

It will need a mouth, eyes of course, and you may also want to give it ears, a tail and legs to make it look like the pet you want to keep for a long long time.

Let your imagination flow while you decorate your Pet Rock with paint, fur, feathers or almost any other available stuff. Make it look nice.

A Guard Rock, should be of waterproof materials and glue, incase you would like to sit out in the front garden and soak in the sun together.

Once you are finished with decorating your pet, make sure you have a name for it ready at hand.

Make your pet rock listen to you.

All you need to do is.................ask them to "Sit" and that's about it.

Make it firm but deliver in a caring tone.

You should take your pet for a long walk at least once a week Unless you have a very large Guard Rock .

Avoid giving your pet rocks (as with any other animals) chocolate or sweets and cakes as it will make them sick.

Share your family of Pet rocks with others.......for a price of course!

Once you have mastered the decoration and training of Pet Rocks you may wish to make a little business of them.

Pet Rocks can be sold to friends and relatives or you can even get them sold by some of your local shops.

you can talk to pet shops, novelty shops and newsagents. if you want them in the shops.

You will find it easier to get shops to take them if you offer the Pet Rocks on a consignment basis. That is, where the shop displays them and pays you as each is sold.

via Pet rock.

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).