Pets - God's gift to the mankind!!!

A pet is an animal kept for companionship and enjoyment or a household animal, as opposed to livestock, laboratory animals, working animals or sport animals, which are kept for economic reasons. The most popular pets are noted for their loyal or playful characteristics, for their attractive appearance, or for their song. Pets also generally seem to provide their owners with non-trivial health benefits; keeping pets has been shown to help relieve stress to those who like having animals around. There is now a medically-approved class of "therapy animals," mostly dogs, that are brought to visit confined humans. Walking a dog can provide both the owner and the dog with exercise, fresh air, and social interaction.

I opened this thread so that the hubbers can share their experiences with pets and also can provide valuable suggestions on managing the pets.

I always wanted to own a dog but the apartment life in Chennai has prevented me in having one. So I restricted myself to a flowerhorn cichlid. I bought this FHC an year ago and it was not more than 5 cm in length. In Chennai, there are numerous FHC breeding farms in and around Kulathur. The smaller ones will cost you from Rs.200 to Rs.1000, based on the species. To set up a perfect living environment for FHC, you would be ready to spend a minimum of Rs.5000.

I was in a dilemma whether to buy an FHC in place of a dog but finally succumbed to my wife's compulsion. For the first one or two months, I didnt bother to care about it and my wife used to take care of it. But once it got accustomed to the new environment, the fish started to exhibit some signs, which I had never seen in any ornamental fish. I had placed the fish tank near the front door of my previous apartment. So whenever I left to the office, it used to come to the corner of the tank and would headbutt the wall as if it was bidding me adieu. Similarly, it expects the owner to play with it. All we need to do is that we have to wave our hand before the tank and it follows the direction of your movement.

FHC is a very aggressive fish and cannot be bred with other fishes in the tank. It may either kill or get killed depending on the size of the fish. Its a fish which will not allow any other fish to enter its territory. If the tank is very huge, say with a capacity of 200 gallons, you can accomodate 2 FHCs and that too with partitions.

The FHC is also touted as a Feng Shui fish-the one which brings you wealth-but i am not really sure about that. If at all it brings some peace to your life, it may reflect in your work life as well.

This website will give you an idea on FHCs.

http://flowerhornking.com/FlowerHorn/

A vague memory: there is an old thread for this topic! :roll: