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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   4725 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 24, 2023

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Should I be worried about my fiance's animal love? Before she moved into my condo it was me and my one cat. I'm not going to lie here I love that cat but since she moved in she also brought in 2 cats and a dog. This isn't a huge condo just a 2 bedroom and her dog is huge. So now we have 3 cats and 1 dog.

Then she became obsessed with fostering some kittens so we added 3 kittens to the mix. Then she got a bunch of emails from the animal shelter and she convinced me to take a dog for the holidays. Then, apparently she got an email about these kittens who had no home with their mother of which there are 4 and she made an executive decision to save them. So now I have my cat, her 2 cats, her dog, 3 kittens, the dog staying with us for the holidays (which she'll probably not let me return until it gets adopted), and then the cat and 4 kittens.

She's happier than a pig in shit with all these animals posting them on her facebook and instagram. Is this normal?

I love her and plan on making her my wife. I've already told her we're not adopting any of these and they are all going to other families. Part of me loves her for her kindness and love towards beings that need help, but this is insane. Last week when I was in meetings, cats kept trying to get on the keyboard and on my compute when I was talking to the CTO of my company. I had to lock them in the room pet room to work. When she moved in she took over my "man room", but this many animals is insane. She wants multiple kids so she's not trying to replace the with animals but this pet love is insane.

We have 2 dogs and 10 cats in my condo right now. This isn't normal right? She also teaches kids math as a data scientist so she is obsessed with helping people. But I feel like there is a certain point where it's insane. Should I crack down and tell her how crazy it is with how many animals live in our condo, or should I just let it go. I'm torn on whether I love it or think she's pathologically altruistic. If I put a baby in her, maybe she'll relax.

I am a massive dog nut, always had one. Have two now.

This is an unacceptable number of animals given your living situation. You don't smell your condo right now, anyone new to it does. It's bad.

Every dog beyond one and every cat beyond two is irrevocably degrading the living situation without specialized air filters and daily cleaning.

What happens when you both want to do a weekend trip? How much are you spending on food? How are you managing the relationship between the animals? I'd argue that having a smaller number of pets under your care will improve their QoL.

Correct. Due to irresponsibility on my end (roommate had one cat, I adopted a stray cat, didn't get one of them sterilized in time, and the female had a litter of seven of whom all survived), I wound up with nine cats in a similarly-sized condo. It was a nightmare. Once the kittens grew enough to walk the place was permanently trashed. I spent a fortune on food and litter. It was very difficult to find homes for them in a town that's overrun with stray/feral cats.

I've since gotten it down to three (still pushing it IMO; two are being babysat until roommate moves in with her boyfriend and the end goal is to have one cat) and it's a night and day difference in terms of QoL.

Happy side story though: One of my friends took the worst, most feral of the two kittens I had for barn cats, and over a period of months the worse of those two has become an adorable, fully domesticated housecat. I didn't believe it when she told me until she showed me pictures of it.

That is a happy side story, and I like barn cats being useful even if it hadn't "graduated" to house.

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