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Great Pets! An Extraordinary Guide to Usual and Unusual Family Pets
Sara Stein is nuts about animals. Over the years she's raised a monkey, a coyote, and a horned toad, and she came within a heartbeat of taking home a wallaby. In this mammoth pet encyclopedia she identifies dozens of unusual and not-so-unusual critters that make great pets in the house, in the yard, and in the wild. Stein even suggests temporary pets kids can bring home to observe overnight and return to their natural habitat the next morning. Stein's recommendations suit every domestic situation. Skunks, for example, work well in an apartment. A big backyard is ideal for keeping a goat or two. If parents don't want a pet running through the house, tarantulas are happy in a nice glass vivarium. And if indoor pets are out of the question, Stein explains how to befriend the pigeons in the park or the rabbits in the yard. For all her enthusiasm, Stein takes a common-sense approach to pets. Each entry discusses diet, housing, special problems, life span, and just how tame you can expect the pet to become. She also tells you whom to call if you wind up with a sick snake or an angry parrot. Stein devotes an entire chapter to which type of vivarium, aquarium, serpentarium, cage, or hutch is best suited to which creature. She even explains how to build an inexpensive-but-comfortable habitat. Whether you like them furry, slithery, slimy, or scaly; whether you want one that swims, crawls, leaps, flies, or hardly moves at all, you'll find a pet in this book suited to every family's taste.
- GenresAnimalsNonfiction
368 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 1976
3 people are currently reading
3 people want to read
About the author
Sara Bonnett Stein
35Ìýbooks9ÌýfollowersSara Bonnett Stein wrote books for children, some on sensitive subjects, such as divorce and death. She was also involved in toy design and native plant gardening, and wrote on ecology.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 21, 2012
A fair amount of author Sara Steins information is correct about most of these animals but one of the major flaws I discovered in her book was the section on rats. She states that a rat may e kept in a tank (10 gallon). Wrong, the ammonia from rat urine can build up in a tank due to the lack of circulation from the glass walls, resulting in a sick pet. Plus, a ten gallon tank is way to small for anything but a fish or mouse. She also mentions that rats can live with a 'plain' cage with nothing but food and water dishes and some nesting material. Wrong again. Rats need many toys, things to climb on, and places to burrow in order to stay healthy since they need more mental exercise than physical. Also, rats should not take baths as it is stressful for the animal ans washes away the oils that keep its coat nice. Rats clean themselves pretty well but it does get hot in the summer so, a better thing to do is put water in a large, shallow dish (up to their knees) that they can walk throug. What disappointed me most of all was that she never mentioned the fact that rats CAN NOT live alone. Rats need at least one of the same species to live with, or they may die of loneliness. Just because someone publishes a book about animals, doesn't mean they're experts. Please, rat owners, take no advice from Sara Stein.
-Kaitlyn
-Kaitlyn
April 27, 2009
Great tips for all kinds of pets! Easy to read for kids.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
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