**Pets are wrong.**

I don't mean that pets hold wrong #opinions, of course: I mean that the idea of keeping small animals around for fun is a mistake.

Let me refine that: keeping #pets _in urban environments_ is _almost always_ wrong.

* It's a misallocation of resources (invest that same money and attention on a fellow human being; or improving the welfare of farmed animals, which have it much, much worse than your chihuahua).
* Many pets are probably miserable (caged rodents, reptilians and birds; cats and dogs living in apartments; any animal lacking space, exercise, challenges, prey, mates, etc).
* For cities, some pets may be healthy (eg, cats killing mice), but many others facilitate disease, stain the streets with their droppings, are dangerous to people, or are noisy.
* Pets waste much-needed empathy and send the wrong signal: there are so many pressing issues, and so many millions of people (and billions of farmed animals) in need of help, and so many causes lacking funds and visibility, that choosing to buy a pet and spend money on it seems a weird whim.

Exceptions I understand: guide dogs and the like; pets for lonely people who really can't find friends or caregivers; purely rural environments.