I definitely agree with most of what you're saying, however I'd love to give another perspective. I'm not attacking you, just trying to stand in the place of people who had to give up their animals. I do agree with being too medically ill to keep the animal. I know people who have chronic illnesses and just can't keep up with their animals, but some can. It's up to the person, honestly.
Things I can MAYBE agree with:
- Moving and can't take animal with.
While people can generally find townhomes/rentals/ or apartments that allow cats and dogs fairly easily, once you get anything beyond that it becomes increasingly more difficult. I have a bird and rats and those two things usually require a lot of searching to find places that are okay with them, especially a bird. Where I live, there are a ton of apartments that allow all types of animals with no limit. Sometimes people don't have enough time to search for a pet-friendly home or a place that could foster them. Where I live, the nearest rat rescue is over 100 miles away and I don't even know if they allow fostering. I don't even know a lot of places around me equipped enough to care for rats. And I don't want to ask random people to foster, because I don't trust people and I am afraid I'd never see that animal again.
We can't expect my friends or family to take our pets when something goes wrong. Animals are lifetime commitments, yes, but it's not fair to expect anyone else in your life to take them when things go wrong.
Would I ever move without my animals willingly? No. Never.
While there a lot of options for people to keep their pets when they move, there sometimes just isn't an option and they have no choice but to move into places that don't allow pets, thus ending them in rehoming their pets. I just took two rats yesterday from a situation like that. Extremely sweet, social, great rats, but their caretaker didn't want rats in the first place (a friend dumped them on her), but she accepted them, but had to move anyways because life happened and her sister did not want rats (they did stink). I definitely don't like that her friend just dumped them on her-- that's awful.
Moves happen suddenly. Following my grandmother's kidney transplant, she had to give up her job in daycare and we had to sell the house, otherwise we'd lose it. This happened in a two-month period. We had to suddenly get our house ready to sell. We searched for six months and there were a lot of tears shed on my part when my grandmother kept saying "We can't find a place to live because no one wants birds or rats!" Thankfully, we roomed in my aunt's until we found a place, but the stress and tears was definitely enough to give a 20-year-old their dose of grey hairs. My aunt definitely did not like my screaming bird or how my rat cage stunk (this was before I got a bigger, better cage with a ton more litter boxes).
What I don't condone when people rehome their animals:
- "Wasn't what I expected." / "It's a lot more work than I thought." - You should be able to partly expect what taking care of animals is like. It's your responsibility to research the animal before you take it home.
- "Behavior problems" - Most of the behavior problems we see in pets can be trained out if the human changes their lifestyle. It's often the human's fault that a behavior developed, most people just don't like to hear that and refuse to accept it.
- "The animal smells." - You cage set up and care routine is wrong. I house six, soon to be eight, unaltered male rats in a cage and it never stinks. The only time I've had stinky cages is when the cage is crap, not ideal, or I'm not giving enough litterboxes.
- My favorite: "I lost interest." - If your interests change so much that you lose interest in another living, breathing creature, you shouldn't have animals.
I feel like I forgot something, so don't be afraid to add to the list or debate.