Pets to the curb
College students abandon pets as school year ends
8:28 p.m. Saturday, May 10, 2008
Manhattan — The bark for attention and chirp for joy.
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Hundreds of pets swim, bark and run in pet stores in Manhattan.
People, especially to those college-aged, can’t help but walk into stores and get close to the cages.
At the beginning of the school year, many stores see an influx of college students wanting to purchase their own dogs or cats. But by the end of the school year, many of them see students coming back to the stores, wanting to return them because they can’t keep them or handle the responsibility.
Pet store manager Jacque Hernandez tells us many students underestimate the responsibility of pet ownership.
“You know what you can or can’t have, you know when your lease ends and you know whether or not your place will have pets or not,” says Jacque Hernandez, manager of Pets ‘N’ Stuff in Manhattan. “Just be responsible. Think about the animals.”
Zach Hainline is one K-State student who isn’t sure of his pet-owning future. He’s owned ducks for two months, but plans to move back home to Overland Park this summer.
“If I can’t find a place that has a backyard that I can keep them in, I’ll probably donate them to a nature park or throw them in a pond or something,” Hainline says.
Other pet owners like Sandy Burnett believe young people should wait until they can handle the full responsibility.
“They are still part of the family,” Burnett says. “We take them on. It’s our responsibility to keep them. I mean, they’re living creatures. You can’t just throw them away.”
“Unfortunately, that’s probably pretty true,” Hainline says. “You know, a lot of kids -- it’s kind of like having a baby, not quite as bad -- but you have to take care of them, remember to feed them and, you know, not do things to them when you get drunk.”
Though he’s unsure of where his pets will be this summer, Hainline says they will have a good home.
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