Your little girl has been whining about how much she wants a pet for her birthday. Sure, you could go the free route by setting a trap in your backyard to catch a rabbit or you could just put a bowl of milk and sleeping pills on the porch to catch a kitty, but you’re willing to shed some major bucks to keep your precious daughter happy.
If you’re serious about showing your little girl how much she is worth, then check out some of the most expensive pets in classifieds for 2011. You might want to reconsider your options.
Animal: Female F1 Savannah cat
Price: $7,000
There’s no disputing the beauty of a Savannah cat with perfect markings. This hybrid is a cross between a domestic house cat and a serval. In case you’re not familiar, servals are wild cats found in Africa. They are closely related to lions.
This particular female sells for $7,000 because she has the distinguished markings of the serval and the cute ears of a house cat. She’s as close to the perfect combination as you will ever see, unless you are a serious cat breeder.
The F1 here refers to the number of generations (F1 stands for filial 1, which might mean something to you if you paid really close attention during biology class). Since this cat is a first generation Savannah cat, she is 50 percent house cat and 50 percent serval.
Not quite willing to drop $7,000? You can get her F1 male counterpart for $5,000. Or you can go on the cheap with a $2,500 F4 male. He’s still pretty, but your little connoisseur will almost certainly spot the difference when she rips open her birthday present and finds a cat that isn’t 50 percent feral.
Animal: Small Pot-Bellied Pig
Price: $4,000
Weird things start happening to animals when humans think that they are cute. We just can’t leave their genetics alone. Take the pot bellied pig, for instance. Once you start to see them as cute, you can’t help but wonder how you could make them even cuter. Voila, that’s how you come up with the idea to breed a teeny, tiny piglet that’s too small to even call “toy.”
This $4,000 piggy only weighed a little more than one pound at eight weeks old. Too small to compete for food, her owners were forced to sell her. When you have a super-cute one-pound pot bellied pig, though, you don’t give it away for free. You slap a big price tag on her and sell her online so that eager-to-please parents like you pay up to keep their kids pleased.
Animal: Male Vervet Monkey
Price: $2,500
$2,500 is a lot of money to spend on a pet, but we’re talking about a monkey here! A real, live pet monkey that you can have in your own home. According to his owner, this little guy enjoys playing and drinking from his bottle. He also wears a diaper.
The whole diaper thing sounds convenient, unless you’ve ever been around a pet monkey for more than a few minutes at a time. Many of them like to use their poop as weapons by reaching into the diaper and hurling whatever they happen to find at the nearest object (which could be you). The real price of the vervet monkey, therefore, isn’t the $2,500 that you pay upfront.
It’s the cleaning bills that you will have to pay for the next few decades. Then you also might have to worry about legal bills since monkeys aren’t legal to keep as pets in some states. But, hey, anything to keep your little angel happy!
Animal: Baby Male Camel
Price: $5,500
If your kids love the circus, then consider buying them their very own camel. Camels are pretty fun, right? They spit, move their lips in a funny way, and can wander for days without taking a single drink of water. $5,500 will get you a baby male bactrian camel. That’s the kind with two humps on its back.
He’s small and cuddly right now, but he’ll grow up to be a real worker. Camels are used all over the world to transport goods, trek over long distances, and traverse deserts. Cuddle up with him now and find a career in him later. Eventually, you’ll get your investment back!
Animal: Morgan horse colt
Price: $20,000
Your little girl doesn’t want a pony. Ponies are for suckers. She’s thinking long-term, so she wants a horse that can kick some butt at the Kentucky Derby. Sigh; prepare to drop a lot of cash to keep her happy. How about $20,000 for a Morgan colt? Sound expensive? Well, he has a great pedigree and shows plenty of talent.
After you pay for board and training (let’s say about $5,000 per week for the kind of trainer that you’ll need to have any kind of shot at winning major competitions), the $20,000 you spent buying the horse won’t look so bad.
IN CONCLUSION
When your kids have a taste for the exotic, you have to up your game by finding pets that will truly impress them. Forget about purebred dogs. Real connoisseurs interested in expensive animals will always go for half-feral cats, the tiniest of tiny pigs, poop-flinging monkeys, cuddly camels, and hard-running horses.
This year, keep your demanding daughter happy with one of the most expensive pets that you can find in the classifieds. That way, you’ll know that you’ve done your job as a parent and she’ll finally have something to take to show and tell.