I have been a dog lover my whole life, so I can­not stand it when I see a dog or any other pet being ill-treated.

I feel that many col­lege stu­dents, who like myself, are pet lovers and they decide to get a pet while in col­lege. For some this may not be an issue, but with my busy sched­ule I know that I would not have the nec­es­sary time to ded­i­cate towards car­ing for a pet.

Students have very lit­tle time to take care for a pet between a heavy class load, a part-time job, being involved on cam­pus, work­ing out, and mak­ing time for friends. There is a lot more to tak­ing care of an ani­mal then just giv­ing it some food a cou­ple times a day. They need to be let out on a reg­u­lar basis, exer­cised, and just shown affec­tion. Some pets even need to be groomed.

If my apart­ment allowed pets, I would LOVE to be able to get a dog. In my cur­rent sit­u­a­tion though, it would not be fair to the ani­mal. Several days through­out the week, I am gone for a very large por­tion of the day. When I am gone, who is going to let him out­side? Who is going to make sure your dog didn’t turn your pil­low into a pile of feath­ers or make sure your cat didn’t turn your cur­tains into rib­bons? In a lot of ways, pets seem like lit­tle kids. If you are not pay­ing them any atten­tion, they tend to look for ways to get your attention.

Personally, if I did get a pet, I would want a medium to a large sized dog. Keeping a good sized pet in a small apart­ment would be a major injus­tice to the ani­mal. That size of a dog needs room to run around, room to play. That is just one more rea­son why I know that there is no way I could be a good respon­si­ble pet-owner at this time in my life.

I have a friend that got a dog when he was in this exact sit­u­a­tion. We lived in an apart­ment and he was never home. Since the dog was never let out­side, he would often use our liv­ing room floor as his toi­let. Guess who was the one that ended up being pun­ished. In real­ity though it was not the dog’s fault. If you have to go you have to go, it wasn’t the dog’s fault that he couldn’t let him­self out­side. Fortunately, for both my friend and the dog, his mom is now tak­ing care of him.

That dog was lucky though, many other pets are not nearly as for­tu­nate as he was. A lot of peo­ple real­ize they bit off more then they can chew to late, and either take their pet to the ani­mal shel­ter or just aban­don them. By tak­ing them in orig­i­nally, you may of robbed them of a chance to go to a home where peo­ple are bet­ter suited to care for the animal.

It doesn’t make you a good pet owner just because you do not beat or abuse your pet. Neglecting your pet, even though it may be invol­un­tary and out of your con­trol, is still a form of abuse. Deciding to get a pet is a much big­ger respon­si­bil­ity then a lot of peo­ple real­ize. So before you decide to take this step in your life, make sure you are ready to be a respon­si­ble, car­ing, and lov­ing pet owner. n