
Pets can be wonderful companions, reliable helping hands when farming and hunting, or therapeutic presences when people feel gloomy or alone.
Nothing has proved all of this more than life at home during the pandemic.
But before leaping into pet ownership, it's important to think deliberately about that undertaking.
Nobody is more aware of those subtleties than a veterinarian. And lucky for us, plenty of vets use Reddit.
Redditor mrktx21 asked:
"Veterinarians of Reddit: What is one thing you wish people would know/understand about their pet?"
Just Imagine Being Stuck Home All Day Every Day...Oh Wait
"About their pet, the best one I know is one I heard a while ago: You have your life, your job, your friends, your family to provide your social interaction per day. Your dog only has YOU."
"Interact with your dog for more than five minutes per day and maybe your dog will not go out barking every five seconds."
Consistency is Key
"Don't complain about your dog not having boundaries when you're literally feeding them scraps off your plate at dinner time! That's 100% on you." -- SquiliamFancySon95
"It's so tiring trying to get my parents to stop feeding their dog who is highly allergic to all sorts of meat food scraps off the table."
"In their minds, they're being kind and can't help pampering the dog when in reality it just causes her to chew her paw pads off when she has her allergic reactions. It blows my mind." -- takenwithapotato
You Get What You Pay For
"Vaccines you get at the drug store on the corner or the feed and tack shop ARE NOT as good or the same as the ones you get at the vet."
"Just because your dog is scratching its ears does not mean it has ear mites."
"Your cat is not urinating outside the box because its a jerk ( it might be) it probably has an infection."
"Not eating for 3 days while vomiting and having diarrhea is a huge deal! That 5lb chihuahua or even 80lb lab cant lose that many fluids without having any intake and be ok and neither would you."
-- missnorlax
Do Your Research
"RVT here. Exotic animals (reptiles, birds, small mammals such as rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs and rodents) may be easy to acquire and assumingly easier to take care of but most of these animals have very specific housing and dietary needs that need to be met and require enrichment."
"Also, not every veterinarian has experience with exotic animals, and exotic animal medicine is sometimes at a premium but is still necessary."
"I've met a lot of people who get a small mammal or a small bird for like $20 from the pet store and then won't pay for medical care because it costs way more than the pet was purchased for."
-- spookybunno
Bring the Enthusiasm
"Not a vet but my mom is."
"One thing that really frustrates her is the myth that neutering a cat will make them fat and lazy."
"It reduces the amount of calories they need which means they need less food and/or more exercise to maintain the same weight. Cats generally get less energetic as they get older regardless, but most will still perk up if you make the effort to wave a toy in their face every so often."
The Only Language Pets Have
"I am a vet. I wish people just even had a BASIC understanding of dog or cat body language. Ffs."
"The number of videos posted on reddit of animals in distress and its tagged as 'oh my little fluffster is so cute when he plays!' or whatever makes my blood boil."
"That kind of moronic ignorance is what gets children bit by the pet dog or the cat who is now dying because the owner had no idea of the signs 4 months ago."
To Keep in Mind
"If you see a stray cat with a cleanly clipped ear tip do not take it to a shelter. Either take it home to live with you or leave it on the street."
"Clipped ears mean they were caught, neutered/spayed by the city/county, and released. This is a way to control cat populations and, over time, protect wildlife. They compete for resources with fertile cats without adding to the population."
"In many cities, stray cats are more likely to be adopted from the street than in the shelter. If the cat is taken to a shelter they cannot legally release it because it is now abandoning the animal. That cat will be euthanized, or at best absorbs resources until it finds a home."
Tough, But Significant
"From my former vet tech girlfriend, don't leave your pets to be euthanized without you. It's hard to be there and it's hard to watch, but if you leave them they will die scared and looking for you."
"She had to try and comfort pets whose owner's couldn't bring themselves to stay and it's one of the few things that makes her cry."
One Vet's Take on Love and Stewardship
"If you own a pet and it's not a bird/mammal, it doesn't love you, not the way you're thinking of love. Reptiles, amphibians, and fish don't produce serotonin the way mammals and some birds do."
"They really do not care about you, they don't want to be snuggled, they don't want to be your friend, and it doesn't make a difference to them if you feed them/do their maintenance or someone else does."
"YES, they can learn to recognize you as their primary caregiver (my axolotls all know who I am and swim up to the glass if I'm there, which they don't do with anyone else), and they may come to TRUST you (which is arguably more valuable than love) but we do not know enough about them to say that they can love you."
"We just know that they can't love you the way you love them. They're biologically incapable of it, and that's not a bad thing, just different."
-- chibimonkey
Trust and Patience
"I'm a vet."
"99% of patients are ok with drop off appointments due to COVID. The number of clients claiming 'my pet has severe anxiety, I can't believe you're making him go in alone!' is quite high. Almost all pets are fine. And the ones who aren't fine, I've allowed owners in the building to help."
"There's been 2 since March who actually were in distress despite people complaining daily about it being an issue."
"Also I think people need to learn more about the medical process in general. Tests are usually required to make a diagnosis. Sometimes even with tests the diagnosis is grey. Sometimes spending all the money will not guarantee success. Many times there's not a magic shot I can give to fix it."
Cute Is Temporary
"Dont buy a dog only because you like the way it looks."
"Huskies and most sorts of shepherds are working dogs. They need lots of activities to be happy and they often turn aggressive if they do not get enough of it!"
"Cute is cute, but there's a lot more to be considered."
- Paulinemaller
Just Like You
"For all idiots out there who think you put a dog on a chain and leave it, get your head out of your a…"
"If you're hot the dog is probably hot. If you need shade, so does the dog."
"If you're not standing outside in the rain, neither should the dog."
"Your dog needs food, shelter, and love just like you do."
- oxfordveterinary
Inconvenient To Your Routine? Do It Anyway.
"If we tell you to give your pet meds, give your pet the effin meds, as directed, until told to stop."
"Some owners seem to think this is optional for their sick pets if it is inconvenient to their routine but especially chronic diseases that may be otherwise managed like seizures, renal, heart disease can really deteriorate due to a non-compliant owner."
"An ounce Prevention is really over a pound of cure, and if you end up coming in to our ER we will cost significantly more than your regular vet. It’s not because we’re greedy that extra expense goes directly to our enormous overhead costs to keep our doors open."
"We’re fully staffed and prepped with surgical and monitoring equipment to handle emergency procedures 24/7, we stock an extensive in-house pharmacy to be prepared to care for a wide variety of ill hospitalized patients, we maintain expensive lab equipment to run bedside diagnostics and have test results within mins to hours rather than send to outside labs, multiple oxygen cages, etc."
"We’re not taking advantage of your unfortunate situation, this is simply what is required to have on hand to provide the standard of care required for dealing with lots of very sick patients all the time."
"So give your pet the meds the way you're supposed to and avoid coming to see us."
- Sweet_Maybe1623
Mosquitoes Can Fly Indoors
"Just because your dog/cat is indoor does not mean that they can’t get heart worms!"
"Why do people think mosquitoes can’t get inside a house?!??! Their wings don't suddenly stop working once they fly indoors. They aren't suddenly not mosquitoes anymore and will just give up on biting."
"Get the heart worm meds. Use the heart worm meds."
- TerraJohnson94
"If you live in the south east yes heartworm prevention is required year round."
"Yes there are mosquitoes. Just because your pet doesn’t go outside doesn’t mean it won’t get fleas if you dont have it on prevention!"
- Adventure_vettech
Constraints Up Front
"If you're financially constrained, tell us your budget and goals for the visit up front. I realize it might seem rude but we're happy to work with it."
"In fact the budget part was actually part of my schooling - our clinical reasoning capstone included financial constraints on some of our cases."
"Basically for the class we got a couple cases each week and we had to pick the diagnostic tests we would run and then based on the results we had to outline a treatment plan. The first few were pretty easy with no spending cap so we could do the "gold standard" diagnostic and treatment plan, like a full blood panel and radiographs and ultrasound and endoscopy for chronic vomiting but then they would start introducing things like a $500 budget for a pet with cushings and we have to figure out the minimal diagnostic tests to give us reasonable certainty but also save enough money for treatment."
"Likewise, let them know your goals for the treatment. We would love to 100% fix every pet but sometimes that isn't possible or reasonable."
"If your 11 year old golden retriever comes in with swollen lymph nodes I would love to aspirate it, send a sample off for flow cytommetry, and refer to an oncologist for treatment but sometimes that's not in the budget or the owner doesn't want to put the dog through chemo or chemo wouldn't get them much more time or would reduce the quality of life and palliative care is a completely reasonable alternative."
- daabilge
Individuals Like Us
"That they are individuals, just like us."
"So many owners think that because their previous or other dog was/is a certain way that their new dog will be, too. Nope! they are an individual in their own right and thus have their own personalities."
"There is no cookie-cutter version of a dog where everything turns out the same. Show them some respect and treat them like an individual instead of being disappointed that they don't meet your expectations."
- youhaveafuture
I Don't Care. Also...
"To keep the damn come oh your animals head!"
"I dont care if he's uncomfortable. He's gonna me more uncomfortable when his incision gets infected."
"Also that you can't immediately change a dog/cats food. It takes them 3 months of gradual transitioning if you're going to avoid gastrointestinal issues."
- jellyfishpenis
Human-Grade
"The worst one to me is the massively successful marketing myth that dog food should follow “human-grade” standards."
"Grain free foods are implicated in serious and sometimes fatal conditions and grain allergies are very rare! The most common allergen in pet food is to the protein and is usually easily fixable by switching to a novel one (eg, salmon and rice purina diet or something)."
"There’s also really no such thing as 'fillers' in pet food. It’s all specifically formulated for optimum nutrient content and macros."
"Look for a brand that has conducted feeding trials and employs board certified veterinary nutritionists (purina, IAMS, etc) vs the boutique brands unless your pet has special dietary needs in pretty much all cases."
"and for the love of god exercise portion control for your critters! Obesity is an epidemic in pets too and it absolutely kills."
- flaaffyy
This Whole List
"1- Your personal beliefs on diet and religion and gender orientation should NOT be placed on your pet."
"If you wanna be vegan, fine, but it can kill your pet. Just because you don't want to go on birth control because of religion doesn't mean your dog/cat shares that view (and can produce a lot more offspring!), and there's no such thing as a dog/cat being nonbinary (yes we have heard that!)"
"2- SPAY AND NEUTER YOUR GODDAMN PET."
"He has NO emotional attachment to his balls. But he will get REAL sad when they torse, develop cancer, or cause him to become more aggressive and wander away looking for females."
"We see a pyometra every week (that's where your female's uterus will fill with pus leading to sepsis)- that's a $3k+ spay you could have gotten for a few hundred and this with no guarantee they will even survive."
"3- Just because you have a pet does NOT mean you should breed it."
"Breeding is a LOT of HARD, EXPENSIVE work. I have no sympathy for your financial costs with a dystocia. Even worse if you ignore the situation and the female dies in labor (no, sir, the puppies will not survive either). With access to information in this day in age you have NO excuse not to be educated before you do this."
"4- Your dog's ear infection/limp/anxiety/single instance of vomiting/any condition going on for 3 weeks is NOT an emergency."
"If you go to an emergency hospital, do not throw a fit about the costs or the wait time. Just because YOU made a poor decision does NOT mean you have to punish those who are there to help with REAL emergencies (ie seizures, hit by cars, bloat, etc.). Also, emergency vets are ALWAYS going to be more expensive- it costs more to keep skilled nurses and doctors on hand 24/7. We deserve to make a living wage, too!"
"5- HEARTWORM PREVENTION. DO IT."
"Unless you want your dog to die young and share it's intestinal parasites with you, there's no excuse."
"6- Your cat will die faster if you let it outdoors."
"It definitely wont be happier with frequent bite wounds, getting hit by a car, coming home with a difficult ailment we cant diagnose because we dont have a history, etc. Cats who roam freely outdoors have half the life expectancy of indoor cats."
"7- Yelling at veterinary personnel, insulting them, etc. is never ok. Stop it. Don't ever do it."
- Your_Moms_Strap_On
Like human beings, domestic animals are nuanced and complicated.
They have physical needs that can be costly and time consuming.
They're profoundly social, demanding plenty of attention.
And like all of us, they live somewhere along a spectrum of physical and mental health.
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Dating and the search for love and companionship... What a nightmare.
This journey plays out nothing like in the movies.
Every Prince or Princess (or everything in BTW) seems to have a touch of the psycho.
The things people say during what should be simple dinner conversation can leave a dining partner aghast.
Like... do you hear you?
Redditor detroit_michigldan wanted to discuss all the best ways to crash and burn when trying to make a romantic connection. They asked:
"You're on a date and it's going really great. What can another person say to ruin it completely?"
I once had a guy ask me if I was willing to follow him into the woods, depending on the price of the meal.
Yeah. No steak is worth that.
Plans After...
"Thanks for the ride but I have a date with someone else, I figured you wouldn't drive me if you knew I was going on a date with someone else and I really needed a ride."
"Online dating, talked to her for a while, finally got the courage to ask her out and then she said that as we got there."
iareyours
Mirror Image
“'You look just like my wife!'”
catalinachild
"I did have a guy tell me I reminded him of his son. I don’t believe English has a word to adequately describe my feelings at that time."
UnicornMagicRainbow
"That would definitely do it."
chaotica78
Third Wheel
"'Hope you don't mind if my mother joins us.'"
ofsquire
"Actually had a girl do this on a first date because she had anxiety issues. Honestly wasn’t bad except that 90% of the time she was silent and her mom talked over her."
"I didn’t mind that much and wouldn’t have minded trying again when she was more comfortable except that she was let go at the company we worked at and she deleted her social media profiles and she never responded on her number. Ah well."
Seightx
Liar
"'Hey bro aren't you gay? I made out with you last night.'"
"Random dude I've never seen before in front of my (f) date."
JHXC16
Was he lying though?
Filter Issues
"'You looked better on Tinder.'"
waqasnaseem07
"Isn’t it basic knowledge that everybody looks slightly worse than the worst picture you can find?"
no_user_ID_found
The Past
"'My ex used to do that too.'"
xxIvyOF
"Yep. I’ve definitely had two otherwise-decent-guy date-situations sour because the ex-comparisons just would not stop flowing. No woman wants to be seen as interchangeable—I’m not here to perfectly fill that ex-sized hole in your life. Focusing on the present moment and a future we could build together is a courtesy we need to grant each other in earliest dates of dating."
LarkScarlett
Powerless
"'I'm an alpha, you cant handle my top energy.'"
Midnightgay28
"I actually left a dude in the middle of dinner, in part, for saying this. I ordered an Uber under the table while pretending to listen to him. Went to the bathroom, and never came back. That was when I was young. Now I’d just say, 'How about we enjoy this meal in silence, before we head our separate ways.'”
UnicornMagicRainbow
Mommy...
"'Mother says I should be back by 9.'"
"Saying 'mother says' just feels weird."
bunnyrut
"That gives me Norman Bates vibes."
Werewolf_lover20
"'Mother says alligators are aggressive because they have an overabundance of teeth, but lack a toothbrush.'"
sodaextraiceplease
Obvs...
"'If you were going to be murdered, what method would you prefer. Purely hypothetical. Obvs.'"
Specific_Tap7296
If it looks anything like a Dateline NBC episode... RUN!
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Despite the advancement of technology rendering people left to their own devices–literally–to entertain them, there are some leisurely activities that will never go out of style.
Or so you would think.
Do people still knit to pass the time? Are people actively collecting stamps?
It depends on who's asking.
Curious to hear about hobby trends, Redditor gizehgizeh asked:
"What are once popular hobbies that are slowly dying these days?"

Before we've become conditioned to living on our phones, these activities used to keep people occupied.
Before Texting, There Was This
"Letter writing."
– littlekingMT
Literal And Tangible Joy
"Well the internet killed pen pals for sure. I do remember I had a Japanese girl for a penpal maybe back in 2007 or so. I honestly don't remember how it started, pretty sure some website, but that was a fun experience. But now I can just straight up talk to foreign people real time, lol. But yea getting a physical letter that someone took the time to write and mail still is hard to beat feelings wise."
– skyburnsred
Model Trains
"When I was growing up, every town had a model train store in it. Now I have one in region and everything else has to be bought online."
– Hairy_Effective1172
Pretty Rocks
"Don’t see anyone playing marbles anymore, I had an awesome collection in school."
– sheeple85
"I had some marbles as a kid in the 90s. My grandma got them for me and I had no idea what I was supposed to do with them. I always imagined them as a thing kids in the 40s played with."
– Ryoukugan
People Were Moving Canvases
"Paintball has been dying a slow death since 2006. Sad, really."
– hobo_recycler
Before the general population began hating clutter, collecting was once a "thing."
Precious Coins
"Coin collecting... I'm a silver/gold nut and I'm always hunting for precious metal coins. whenever I go into a shop they get all excited because 'no one under 70 collects coins anymore.'"
– ThatFishySmell99
Post It
"Stamp collecting."
– spooky_scully_mulder
"Collecting in general, really. Of course there are still prominent collectors but it's slipped more into enthusiast and niche territory than being a popular hobby that you might expect anyone to have."
– iuytrefdgh436yujhe2
What A Gem
"Rockhounding was immensely popular back in the 1950's and 1960's. Personally, I think it's a fascinating and fulfilling hobby, but when I go to a meeting at a rock and gem club, I'm usually the youngest one in the room by several decades."
– filthy_lucre
People once enjoyed making things.
Admiring The View
"Stained glass. I learned how to make it from my old man, and my junior high art class teacher also taught it. Very few artisans are still around."
– brobeanzhitler
Metal Vocation
"Black smithing."
– kenworth117
"I bought a forge to try. It’s insanely hard work, and crazy expensive. I still haven’t finished a piece."
– DSentvalue
Scrapbooking
"Yeah. I'm watching the arts and crafts stores around me completely uninstalling their racks for specialty paper. Now the only thing they have is mega packs of repeating colors/images. To boot all the inclusions like papercraft/die-cut things, washi tape, scissors, stickers, etc have gotten so expensive I would rather go buy $5 bags at value village to get an assortment of things versus buying anything new. I really, really miss yard sales for the same reasons."
– Phantasmai
I envy people who have jobs that are basically their hobbies.
Not everyone gets paid doing what they actually enjoy and have a profound level of passion for.
If they do, kudos to them.
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When we first meet someone–whether through mutual friends, at school, or in a new work setting–we generally feel people out to determine if they're worth getting to know.
While the process could take time, some people make our jobs much easier after spotting instant red flags.
Curious to hear about our general radar of people, Redditor xxFluffie asked:
"What is something that makes you immediately dislike someone?"

Some people just think they are absolutely hilarious and never realize they're the only ones laughing.
Next In Line
"They laugh about having screwed someone else over. If you think you're not next, well, you'll learn."
– whiznat
Unfunny
"when you mention you don't like a thing and they immediately do that thing 'as a joke.'"
– wayfinder
Playing Devil's Advocate
"Kneejerk contrarians. People who, no matter what you say you like or believe, just have to dismiss it and say they like or think the opposite."
– BubbhaJebus
People who put others down get slammed here.
Bad Parents
"When they treat their kids sh**ty in public. I don't mean handling tantrums, setting a rule, having to hurry to the train etc. I mean perfectly normal-behaved kids getting in trouble for trailing along peacefully, looking at things, asking questions etc."
"If you don't like tiny humans who learn the world, why have them??"
– raxeira-etterath
Public Humiliation
"Treating people sh**ty in public for laughs. Like being rude to service workers because they think it’s funny. Big red flag."
– Ok_Personality_1080
Simply Uncalled For
"Someone who is a d*ck to other people or animals for no reason."
– xebt1000
Those with ulterior motives rubs people the wrong way.
The Scheme
"If they try to get me to join their MLM scheme."
– spazmcgee1
Hard Sell
"A guy I used to be friends with in high school reached out a couple of years after graduating about a business opportunity he wanted my opinion on because 'you've always been smart', then he set up a Skype call and brought some other dude into the call and they started trying to sell me on what was clearly an MLM scheme. The guy went from friend to 'I'm never talking to you again' in a matter of 10 minutes."
– Mental-Afternoon-164
A Timeline
"Good gawd, this! I've had more than one exposure to this abject bullsh**tery..."
- Back in the late 80's/early 90's I was invited to a meeting of literally the OG "Pyramid" where you're recruited to pay in, and then you go out and recruit others to pay in, and the last in line got f'kall.
- In 1995 I had a coworker try to reel me into Amway, which was a hard no.
- In 2000 it was Pampered Chef, though to be fair they did have useful products.
- In 2009 a coworker tried to get me into some stupid video calling service that was obviously stupid from the description. He even got offended when I called bullsh*t.
– Mystical_Cat
Too much ego is a no-go.
I Can Do Better
"Being a b*tch just to stroke their own ego."
"We get it, you can lift 5lbs more than the 12 year old, you don't have to rub it in their face just because you're slightly better"
– Livia_Pivia
Can't Top This
"Oh, you did <story that's been told>? That's nothing! I did <implausible story>.
"I get the whole empathy through relating common experience, and I'm someone who does that (which drives some people crazy on its own), but there's a big different by empathising through common experience, and one-upmanship."
– Tisarwat
Lacking Conversational Etiquette
"Starting to talk over me when I was already talking."
"Stop it you rude, arrogant jerk."
– R33Gtst
If one or more of these traits sound familiar to you, you're not alone.
We don't have time for braggadocios, pyramid-schemers, and conversation interrupters.
And that's just for starters.
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Children tend to believe just about anything they hear.
That there are monsters under your bed, watching too much TV will make your head explode, and silly faces will be permanent if you make them too often.
The sky is truly the limit when it comes to silly things that children will believe.
Some call it naivitée, other's youthful innocence.
But it's hard not to look back with embarrassment on certain things we believed as a child, that today might simply seem dumb.
Redditor Disastrous_Toe_6548 was curious to learn the multitude of silly things people believed when they were children, leading them to ask:
"What's the dumbest thing you believed as a kid?"
Pleading to deaf ears...
"My dad told me he had hearing loss and couldn't hear me if I whined because my pitch would get too high."
"Would completely ignore me until I asked him questions in a normal voice."
"Trusted him implicitly until I was 12 and he yelled at my younger brother for whining."- Tyrion_Stark.
Get it while you can.
"That they took everything off the shelves when the supermarket closed."- fgyfddg.
Silly superstitions.
"My grandfather used to tell me that if I played with the fire, I'd pee the bed."
"I believed him for a while, until I got older."
"I think he was just trying to protect me from the fire."- teddypa1981.
"Rain, rain go away..."
"That if it was raining where I was, it was raining everywhere in the world."- morningshartz.
Age is just a number.
"My parents used to seem really old to me, so much so I believed they grew up like cave people as children, wearing giant leaves for clothes and what not."- Laleena_.
So that's how they're made!
"That smokestacks from the power plant created clouds."- Scaniarix.
An instant cure.
"The sun gives you sunburns, therefore, moonlight should heal them."- velocipeter.
Better safe than sorry.
"Don't drink and drive meant all drinks."
"My dad was super confused when I told him he wasn't allowed to have any soda until we got home."- hulagirlslovetoparty.
Don't believe everything you see on TV.
"There was an episode of Mickey Mouse where Mickey couldn’t reach something at first, so he tried again and somehow his arm was long enough to reach it."
"As a small kid I believed that if I couldn’t reach something, I should just try reaching for it again and my arm would then somehow be long enough to reach it."- That-Dutch-Person.
The miracle of childbirth.
"That babies are pooped out."
"When I was like 7 I was listening to my aunt as she explained that childbirth was pretty intense and painful for her, and I was all solemnly like, 'yeah, sometimes just my poops are painful, I don’t think I could get a baby out' and she went 'um, WHAT?' and her reaction made me realize real quick that I had f*cked up somewhere and I tried to change the subject while my mind was just reeling lol."- thesoundingfurrows.
Oh to be a child again.
And to believe literally everything you're told.
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