Love Your Pet Day 2025 is on Thursday, February 20, 2025: I'd love to get a pet but I work all day?

Thursday, February 20, 2025 is Love Your Pet Day 2025. Celebrate National Love Your Pet Day February 20 National Love Your Pet Day

How's your connection with your favorite furry buddy? Love Your Pet Day is an opportunity to reveal your cat, pet dog, tortoise or [insert various other] just how you really feel. Treats, pampering and all the the attention that the little person or girl can handle are a fantastic means to commemorate!

Do NOT get a single budgie it would be absolute cruelty they are such social little animals...leaving them alone all day would be very mean. If you would like a budgie consider a pair, even then I would say it was mean as they will not get the time out of the cage they require.

What you need to think of is whether on top of your busy schedule are you going to be able to be bothered to take your pet out for a couple of hours and play with it, then feed it and clean it as necessary? Personally I would wait until your life is more settled, people suggested rats but I really don't think rats would be happy with you gone from 7.30 in the morning until 11 at night. You shouldn't really be handling animals after you've been drinking you could drop them or hurt them. I know my rats wouldn't be happy if I was away that amount of time and only had an hour tops for them. You would need to be very dedicated to make a high maintenance animal like that work, and trust me rats are high maintenance if they were cared for right.

If you really, really want a pet, I would consider one of these:

Syrian hamster...don't usually mind if they get handled but they are active so will appreciate being out for a couple of hours every few days to run around. Don't get one of those tiny poxy little cages if you are going to be out all the time, you'll need something spacious for your ham: good brands of cage are the Savic Hamster Heaven, Savic Ruffy 2, Ferplast Mary rat cage, Marchioro Rene 82, Ferplast Criceti 15, or Fun Area Leon Rodent Home. Habitrail, Mayfield and all the other hamster cages are too small, especially if your ham is going to be in the cage most of the day.

Gerbils or mice...these guy seldom bite, and with regular handling can become very tame, although if you want them to be tame pets they will really need to be handled at least 4-5 times a week for lengthy periods. These guys are cool to watch too. You will need an open wire cage for mice, but gerbils can live in a big converted aquarium filled with woodshavings for them to dig in, they will love this.

A reptile...a corn snake, royal python, smaller carpet python, kenyan sand boa, western hognose, leopard gecko, fat tail gecko, crested gecko or bearded dragon are all considerations here. Reptiles require a very specific environment...you will need heating equipment with a thermostat to ensure an even temperature. Lizards eat bugs and the bugs need to be cared for and fed, and snakes eat thawed frozen mice and rats. But once you understand their environmental needs these are really the only pets I would say are ideal for your situation. Reptiles don't require or desire human company, most of the species above are happy to be picked up and handled but they don't really seek humans out, although the lizard species I picked out seem very personable and do seem to enjoy attention from their humans. So long as you feed them properly and get their environment right, you can set the lights for their tanks on a timer, and leave food for lizards in the morning, or in the evening when you get in if you get a nocturnal species. I would NOT suggest a tortoise as someone above did, these animals are a surprising amount of work if you are caring for them correctly...they can't just eat lettuce and fruit unlike what some people seem to think ,you really need to pick wild food and grow food for them if you want them to be healthy!

Of the above reptiles are the only pet I would recommend for you, that or fish. I really feel it would be unfair to have a deeply social animal like budgies or rats in your situation...even if you provide them with same species company they are seldom going to get out of the cage and thats not fair in my opinion. You need to decide whats more important to you, the gym and socialising or having a pet, you can't have everything in life sadly and you don't want to be cruel!

who loves pet chickens?

Yes! I love them and it's nice to see that I'm not the only one. I raise chickens and have had many that were pets.

The first chickens I ever got were really into pecking at people's moles and freckles when they were chicks...they even pecked a mole completely off someone once, it started bleeding! It is easy to hypnotize a young chicken by laying it on the ground on its side in the dirt and drawing a line in the dirt slowly from the eye outwards...the chick just lays there and stares at it for the longest time.

We gave them grapes when they got older and they would run around the yard for hours having fights over the grapes and chasing each other around. Then they would come and wait by the door for handouts, you had to shove the chickens away every time you went in and out so they wouldn't come in the house.

Another time, two hens both went broody on huge clutches of eggs at the same time on both sides of the bed of my brother's pickup truck...he made me move the nests.

I also enjoy going out into the chicken coop in the morning when they are laying eggs, and watch how they chase each other from nest to nest for hours until the egg finally comes out, one time there about 4 hens all squashed in one nest box together at once...they all laid eggs on top of each other!

Show dog or just an every day loving pet?

To me, they are one in the same....no difference, show dogs have proven just as great out of the ring as in the ring....and gives you just as much love...no reason to treat them different, not in my book anyway.

a dog is a dog, treat it like one, love it, show it you care, whether winning a dog show or just likes to lay around in your lap or all over your feet.......

dogs deserve better......