by Meagan Spain

Created on: November 09, 2008   Last Updated: December 05, 2008

Different people have different perspectives on what is socially acceptable when it comes to pets. These perspectives become even more complicated when you factor in the fact that in some situations "exotic pets" live in the same household as children, live in towns, or, in some circumstances, hurt people.

Being an avid animal lover, I, personally, have a hard time distinguishing which of my pets are considered exotic, which one's are considered normal, and which one's are considered socially acceptable. I grew up helping animals with a loving and gentle hand: bandaging the injured birds, helping the turtle cross the road, bottle feeding a baby deer, and even taking care of creatures that my dad would accidentally maim with the farm equipment. I grew to respect animals: where they come from, what they eat, and even how they behave.

If one were to take a tour through my household it would be uncovered that there is an abundance of animals that live here (that's not including the five children)! Many of these animals would probably be viewed as "exotic" while the rest of the animals would be viewed as socially acceptable or traditional pets. In our family, they are all viewed as normal, all of them have names, all of them have personalities, and all of them are well taken care of.

When you walk in the front door, you are greeted with the frog tanks. Inside one of these aquariums live the 9 leopard frogs and inside the next aquarium live the 4 toads. The kids have made sure that each one of these frogs have a name. Every once in a while you may find a crawdad or two living it up inside the tank with the leopard frogs but they are accepted in this house too.

The next set of aquariums that you will find house the fish that live on the main floor of the house. In the smaller tank you will find little bluegills and crawdads. All of these were caught by the kids and have been taken care of, by the kids. In the next tank you will find our two Oscars (Molly and Floppy) who have healthy appetites. Underneath of their tank is the worm house and the grub tank. We generally ensure that both of these two tanks have plenty of creatures in them to feed to the Oscars.

Down the hall and around a corner begins the "reptile" section of the house. In this room you will find an Albino Burmese Python (Ivy), two Ball Pythons (Damian and Dolly), a Savannah Monitor (Drake), an Iguana (Fred), and 5 Geckos (Pooh, Rabbit, Eyore, Tigger, and Roo). There is also a tank with crickets, a tank with

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