I occasionally come on photos and videos of people with “pet” owls or owl cafes.
Owls are beautiful and soft, but they aren’t meant to be around us being cuddled or whatever. What is cuddling to us causes anxiety to them. It isn’t owl behavior. They tolerate it sort of if they are imprinted, but it makes them more underdeveloped and under equipped to be themselves than it does to make them good company.
Handling birds of prey, a person will get nipped or cut, but these hands are seriously grabbed up and cut, yet in the video clip they still have the owl restrained and continue “playing” with it.
If this hand is any sign of how happy the owls are here, I feel bad for them. If they don’t like their handler touching them, I can only imagine how upset they are being touched by strangers all day.
Dogs, cats, and farm type animals have been domesticated and are used to humans to a decent extent. Most animals though will never be domesticated. They want and need to be free.
Please don’t give up on having a pet! My adult child (34) had the most terrible luck with pets, they all died or had to be rehomed. After several years of settling down with their current live -in partner for five years, now, last year a stray kitten in poor condition wandered up to them at work. By the end of that week, that kitten was indoor, being fed, loved and scheduled for the vet. Two vet trips and a round of antibiotics later, that now-adult cat refuses to exit the house, sleeps in their bed with them, and is in the available lap of the moment when humans are available and the cat isn’t playing, eating, or window-gazing.
I got all my cats in a similar fashion. I loved all my time with them.
Both of us are rarely home these days, and I don’t feel we could give proper attention to a mammalian friend. We tried the fish as something that didn’t need our personal time, but even with regular tank maintenance, we had nothing but problems.
I’m keeping having pets as an incentive to let me retire early and become the pet nanny, but I haven’t quite sold the idea yet. 😁 She just wants to cuddle them, and I get all the work. That’s how it’s been every time we’ve dog sat.
Lol! Perhaps yin and yang tasks could be negotiated for more even distribution. I’m sure you’ll find a balance, along the way. Pet nanny sounds great! 😃