I want one of these:


But they're too aggressive really to be kept domestically unless you're very experienced with tarantulas, so I'll have to settle for this:

No, I genuinely do want a tarantula as a pet. They're very misunderstood creatures.

Plus, I defy anyone to tell me that that Cobalt Blue up there just isn't one of the most beautiful creatures they've ever seen.

That just isn't one of the most beautiful creatures I have ever seen.

That blue spider isn't neon enough for me.
Additionally: cats are shit. Go away cats. Booooo cats.
Some other animals are cool though, like Giraffeees.

boo cats are excellent.

Ive got a silver and black tabby, hes fucking huge and called max.
Me mam's also got a 5 foot tall metal silver and black giraffe.

Ill post up a picture later on of both.

You have no soul.

That blue tarantula is amazing.

I have one cat. And a wife. And 20-odd fish.

We appear to have a cat that belongs to another house that likes to pop in from time to time. He/she is a very nice cat, and I usually wouldn't mind, except as you all know I own two rats...

The white one is Noodle, the brown hooded one is Nibbler. They're both girls and have just had their first birthday. Sadly, this also means they're about a third of the way through their lives. As anyone who's owned rats could tell you, they're surprisingly intelligent creatures and have bags of personality. Neither are especially keen on being handled or stroked, but Noodle is by far the friendliest and most outgoing and will happily wander up to people to see what's up. She's also the amateur gymnast of the pair and whenever she's let out of the cage spends her time trying to climb my bookshelf or the clothes hanging in my wardrobe, constantly trying to get as high as she dare. She's also a kleptomaniac and keeps nicking sweet wrappers or anything shiny and hiding them - currently I'm mising an entire pack of Polos thanks to her. She also hides all the food in the cage and when not running around going mental is usually fast asleep in her hammock.

Nibbler is the exact opposite. She's very wary of everybody and has a bit of an 'attack first, ask questions later' policy. For some reason she's taken to trying to bite me whenever I try and pick her up, but once grabbed she usually calms down. She jumps at the slightest noise (my brother brought round Rock Band the other day - she wasn't keen) and rather than hide food, she just eats it straight away. Since she also doesn't get anything like the exercise Noodle does, she's twice the size. Whilst she must presumably sleep sometimes, I've never seen her with her eyes shut, unlike her sister who doesn't give a shit when she wants a kip.

My mum and dad also owned a house rabbit until recently, who lived to the grand age of 11, which ain't bad going for a bunny.

We have a few other cats that like to hover around. Unfortunately my cat is massively antisocial, and will fight with/cower in terror from all other cats.

1 Cat currently.

She's called Lamia (named after a character from Star Fleet/X Bomber. She's beautiful but deadly. She's about 17 now. The picture is quite old though. She's still as beautiful though (apart from a little matted fur toward her rear)

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3192/280 ... e16b_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3205/280 ... f7f1_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3115/280 ... ceda_o.jpg

HOVERCAT?

/tries to remember if haz photoshop installed at home..

It does look rather funky. 80s disco spider is a unique look.

Last I read (in the late 90s), there's never been a documented case of death by tarantula bite. The only people who've been killed by them were allergic to the hairs, which they sometimes rub out into the air as an irritating deterrant to predators.

Now, somebody please prove another of my sources embarassingly wrong, ta.

1 hamster
4 kids
Half of next doors cat - but she keeps going after the hamster and is a sponge thief so gets chucked out these days.

No, you're right. Tarantula bites are painful, certainly, but they're not dangerous. There are many spiders that are mistakenly called tarantulas that ARE dangerous, but a true tarantula is not venomous to humans.

If you're allergic to one of the proteins in their venom that can be a problem, but that's not really the spider's fault as the proteins are generally common ones.

The main thing you have to be worried about with tarantulas are the urticating hairs that they have on their legs and abdomen - they flick these off their bodies at high speed as a defense mechanism and if you get some in your eye or are unfortunate enough to inhale them it can cause serious damage. That only applies to non-Asian tarantulas though, they don't have those hairs.

They're also very fragile creatures - the chances are that they will not survive a fall of more than 1.5x their legspan. Unlike most creatures, each one has a unique personality - some are aggressive, others aren't. The cobalt blue ones like the one I posted are Asian and (as they don't have the defense hairs) are more aggressive biters, but even then you sometimes come across one that's docile enough to hand-hold.

I love 'em.

I find them fascinating but I don't think I'd ever want one as a pet. I don't care if it couldn't kill me, if one of those sank it's fangs into my hand I'd uncontrollably fucking freak. I've been bitten by a big garden spider and that was bad enough.

Yeah, I heard they are sometimes killed by panicky idiots dropping them. Their abdomen tend to split, if I remember. Can't be a pleasant way to go.

I used to work with a girl whose mother bred tarantulas and would have as many as 150 in the house at any given time. Unsurprisingly, I never went round there for tea. I didn't realise they were so fragile though - it's a good job rats are a bit more robust as Noodle would've killed herself long before now.

Yup, that's right. There was a "wildlife guy" in my town the other day doing a show for little kids in the town square. You know the type, lots of snakes and other exotic wildlife that the kids can see and touch.

Well, he had tarantulas there. When they weren't being handled by him, they were being handled by the kids and I cringed inside thinking how many of them (the spiders, that is) were probably scared out of their wits at all the attention, and how many the kids accidentally dropped on to the table/floor.

When they weren't being handled by anyone, they were put back into tupperware containers about the size of a normal slice of bread (except about 2 inches thick, obv.) and I can't imagine that's very nice for the little blighters either, they need space.

Gnnnngh.

Yeah, I vaguely remember the sort. The hissing cockroaches were ace. They had a huge tanker for them, though. I can't remember the rest of what he brought, but I'd have thought if the roaches had all that space, the spids must have too. I hope so, as that does sound horrid otherwise.

We have a cat called Tesla (aka Tess and Mr/Miss Kittles). She only responds to Kittles. She's a tabby with white beard, white belly and white paws. She is very pretty, cute and small. She's one year and two months old. She's not very bright. She has recently developed a new miaow that is impossible to ignore/sleep through.

She's great. Unlike most cats I've known she doesn't get affectionate when she wants food. Instead she gets loud and nips at your feet as you walk past the kitchen. Which is great, because it means when she is affectionate it's not because she wants feeding.

In the mornings she often likes to lie on me for a bit, then push her way under the duvet and sleep between or on my legs for ten minutes or so.

She is not very good at catching flies, but likes to try very hard.

She's a biter when we're playing, but doesn't bite hard enough to hurt or leave marks. She's very good like that. For some reason she likes to get my thumb and then hold it in her mouth for a few seconds.

Sometimes she won't have a poo unless I take the lid off the litter tray and sit down by it. I have no idea why that is. She'll hang around her litter tray and miaow until I come and sit there. Weirdo. And that's just for me - she won't poo if my wife's there. It has to be me. Most of the time she'll poo okay on her own, but sometimes I just have to be there.

She's not a lap cat, but she likes to sleep somewhere where she can see us. Either on her bed by the sofa or on the stairs. If one of us is downstairs and the other upstairs she'll often get very confused about where she wants to be and will hang around the stairs miaowing and fretting.

She loves Marmite, but she's only allowed Marmite-flavoured foods in tiny, tiny quantities - like a tiny piece broken off the end of a breadstick. I don't want her getting an upset tummy. (Though when she does get one, a couple of days of boiled chicken and rice sorts her out.)

She has special miaow for when she wants some cat milk, which sounds exactly like the word "milk". But that's the only useful thing she can say.

She loves being bags and boxes of all kinds.

She will eat any random crap she finds on the floor. Also: the tails of cat toys. Also: my hair. We haven't had to pull string out of her bottom for a few months now, but when she was younger it was quite a common occurrence.

She has developed an annoying habit of jumping up in front of the TV and obscuring the screen as soon as she hears the 360 coming on. She'll run from wherever she is in the house once the fans come on. She also loves disc trays. She'll try and get the disc out of the tray as it slides into the machine and sometimes succeeds.

She's also very responsive to moods. When one of us is feeling down she won't go into crackhead mode and will instead come and be very affectionate and calm. When my wife's feeling ill or otherwise out of sorts is about the only time she'll actually be a lap cat.

I've had other cats, but she's the one I've loved most. There's something about her - silly, stupid, oddly clever at times, cute as all hell and often a complete blur of batshit insanity.

Or scraped down the side like last time. He still thinks that was another car...

I've never quite understood why people have pets. It seems to be a massively selfish thing to do. Purchase an animal that is so inbred it has major genetic defects that will cause it ill health whose sole purpose in life is to provide the owner with pleasure and it depends upon the owner for food, warmth, shelter and its own health.

Eh?

Domestic cats have evolved to have a symbiotic relationship with humans, as have dogs. It's a two way thing. We get companionship and rid of small vermin and they get fed, it's hardly abusive.

It's only some that are inbred but I agree that it's a fucking travesty.

Justify it anyway you want to, slaver.

Surely that's only a problem with pedigree animals and not your normal moggy or mutt?



I think you're missing the point that one of the great joys of pet ownership is knowing that an animal in your care is happy and healthy because of you. Pets that are being kept properly are family members, not prostitutes.

So they are totally reliant on you, for everything. Without you, they get ill, and die.

I know I'm such a bastard. My cats are right now thanklessly toiling away at their sleeping chores, later they'll have to do eating and after that they'll have to fuck off outside and shit in the neighbour's garden for me.

My cat is more than free to walk away and live its own life at any point. My fish less so, of course.

Except that it's been so softened by being domesticated that it'd get eaten by a squirrel before it got to the end of the road.

Of course - because it chooses to stay where it's looked after. It'd be no different to me stripping down to codpiece and boots and attempting to rough it in the wilds of Epping Forest.

Not sure where you're getting inbreeding from, that's only common on pedigree animals generally.

And the rest describes kids pretty much.

My rats, next door's dog, and 'The Cat From Down The Road The Keeps Coming In Our House', all being fed and sheltered by humans, all seem a damn sight happier that that wild fox that I keep seeing in our street at night, the poor scrawny flea bucket.

But that's an urban fox though, innit. The rural foxes are happy and sleek and healthy.

You get the same difference between people in London and people in the Cotswolds.

Ahahhahhahaaaa.

You just called me scrawny.

Ahahhhahaahaaaahahhhhahahahhaaa!

This is a Fox Urban.

Yeah, right up until the time that some cunt sets fire to them

We are now happily co-existing with ours.

It's one of the local cats that's setting itself up for a napalming this time.

I'm surprised the cats would go anywhere near with foxes around.

Yeah, me too. Still, the cats seem to wander around in the early evening and the foxes, when they occasionally come down (which is much less frequent now the bin men are taking bin bags out of our bins rather than making us leave bags out loose), come down the hill in the early hours of the morning.