Living in rural Ireland we tend to keep our animals outside ( as god intended as it were) I see a lot of this sites users with their pets. Now I like animals ok, in fact I haven't eaten one in nearly 40 years but where in the house do you let them roam? Are there boundaries?
I love all creatures great and small. I have had what people call pets but never been entirely comfortable with the larger culture involving domesticated animals. THroughout my life i have often gone on solo backpacking trips for a couple of weeks to a month. I wait until the noise and the smell of cities, of people fades inside and out. I can tell because the wild things start walking up to me, sometimes I wake up with critters snuggled up alongside me sleeping bag. Birds and horses have always fascinated me, fish too, but octopuses captivate me to no end. My last real pet was a miniature boarder collie named Cyrus. After I caught my fiance carrying on with my boss I just walked out. I didn't have a place for him with me so I had to leave him. When I went back a few weeks later to collect him, she told me he was killed. Hit by a car running into the street. He kept running away trying to find me. Not sure I ever got over that, really, it still hurts down deep somewhere. Anyway, as a scout I studied falconry and applied for a Peregrine but unfortunately that was the same year the government listed them as endangered. My parents wouldn't pay for horse riding lessons so I also got work as a groom in northern kentucky hunter jumper stable in exchange for for cash and dressage lessons.
I am owned by 3 border collies and a blue heeler/leopard katahola they let me live in their house and only one insists that I share my bed.
I am a cat person but I lost my 16 year old L'l Buddy and just have not found a replacement. Not sure I want to at the moment.
Any inside pets I have would have to be the two-legged, female type.
My cat tucks me in a night and wakes me in the morning. Her only boundary is not being able to go outside because she does not have front claws to defend herself (I adopted her from a coworker already declawed).
Although I can understand not wanting to have a pet in the house, that is how I feel about dogs mostly because I think they stink.