Be Sure Before Buying Your Pet

In the pet store, the puppy looks at you with wide, sorrowful eyes. When you pick it up, it squirms excitedly in your arms and licks your face.

You feel happy. You’d love to take this affectionate animal home.

But impulse buying may not be practical when picking out a dog, cat or iguana.

In many cases, when owners lose interest, unwanted animals are abandoned or put to death in a pound. That’s why animal protection groups urge careful decisions about pet ownership.

The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, for example, advises potential owners to consider these issues:

* Are you willing to care for the animal throughout its lifetime?

* Can you afford the cost of food, grooming and regular veterinary care--including yearly shots and checkups?

* Will you see that your pet gets regular, daily exercise?

* Are you prepared to train your pet in basic obedience and to housebreak it?

* If your pet is a dog, will you license it and obey the leash law?

* Will you give your pet love and attention when it needs you, and not just at your convenience?

Pets require long-term commitments. Cockatoos or African gray parrots easily live 60 to 70 years, while dogs and cats live an average of 12-14 years, says Laguna Hills veterinarian Bernadine Cruz of the Southern California Veterinary Medical Assn. Indoor cats often live longer than others, and giant dogs tend to die younger.

People choosing these or other pets should consider each family member’s needs and medical history, including allergies, the American Veterinary Medical Assn. says.

Families should also remember that all animals need exercise and this takes time. Owners can make toys to help cats--who tend to lay around--stay in shape. They also provide exercise for unusual pets. “I take my snake out once a week and let it slither around outside a bit,” Cruz says.

Families should also think about the cost of animals.

All dogs in California must have a license and be vaccinated for rabies, and some counties require cat licenses, Cruz says.

Dogs should also be inoculated against distemper, Lyme disease and two viruses that affect the intestinal tract.

Cats should be vaccinated for rabies, distemper, infectious peritonitis and leukemia.

These series of shots for cats and dogs cost about $25 at privately owned mobile clinics, which often appear at pet-store parking lots, or as much as $125 at a veterinarian’s office, Cruz says. Pets get no examination when receiving shots at the mobile clinics, Cruz adds, but do receive one at a vet’s office.

The shots are needed yearly except for rabies, which is required every three years after the dog is a year old.

In addition to paying for shots, owners spent an average of about $116 per dog and about $71 per cat on food in 1991, the last year for which the American Veterinary Medical Assn. has figures.

After a family considers these questions, it can get permission from the breeder, pet store or animal shelter to have the chosen animal examined by a veterinarian and to return it if unhealthy. In choosing a vet, owners should consider the friendliness and educational level of the veterinarian, the Southern California Veterinary Medical Assn. says.

“How caring are they?” says Cruz. “Is this a doctor who gets you in and gets you out, who doesn’t hold your hand, so to speak? Or is it more like your pediatrician who gets on the floor and plays with the pet, and will treat that pet like their own?”

You should “get the impression that this doctor is staying up on continuing education and has a good grasp on new advances in medicine,” Cruz says.

She also recommends full-service vets who bathe and board pets and sell animal food.

“The food at a veterinarian’s is often an ‘A’ quality versus some of the fad foods you could get at the pet store,” says Cruz. “ . . . They can also direct a client as to what’s the best food for the particular life stage the pet is in.”

Owners should also plan for the care of animals that survive them. Children often won’t care for pets of a deceased parent.

“It’s imperative that the decision for the long-term care of a surviving pet not be that of a relative, but of the owner, as carried out through a will or trust,” says Jamie Pinn, president of the Pet Assistance Foundation.