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b'Should your family get a pet? Heavens, no. Take it from two extremely reluctant pet owners of the cat, dog, and fish variety.\\n\\xa0Okay, pets have upsides: their cute little faces. Their tolerating humiliating headdresses. But there are downsides as well, and in this episode we elaborate them for you in enough detail that you will vow never, ever to cave to your children\\u2019s demands for a pet.\\n\\xa0Barring that, we hope you will at least consult our extremely useful Pet Matrix in order to balance your future pet\\u2019s fun-to-hassle ratio.\\n\\xa0\\n\\xa0In this episode we discuss\\n\\xa0\\n\\xa0why getting a pet will not, despite popular sentiment, make an animal lover out of you if you\\u2019re not one already\\n\\xa0why you should or should not let your kids pick the pet\\u2019s name\\n\\xa0how you, once you have a pet, will either travel less, travel differently, or have to find a relative with \\u201cpet bandwidth\\u201d\\n\\xa0why you shouldn\\u2019t get a hamster cause you can\\u2019t handle a dog\\n\\xa0why birds are an absolutely not\\n\\xa0\\n\\xa0Here\\u2019s some useful links for further reading on the topic:\\n\\xa0from Lifehacker: Where To Start When You\\u2019ve Decided You Want a Dog (first step: \\u201cMake sure you\\u2019re sure.\\u201d)\\nfrom PetFinder: How Much a Dog Costs Per Year\\nfrom The Orlando Sentinel: Study Says Cats Would Kill You If They Were Bigger\\nAre you a doting pet owner? A absolutely not-er? A slowly-being-beaten-down-by-clamoring-children holdout? Tell us in the comments!\\n\\xa0\\nThis episode is brought to you by PastBook. With PastBook, you can make gorgeous hardcover photo books of your Facebook or Instagram feeds in seriously one click. (And you know that\\u2019s where you put all your best photos already.) PastBook does the photo arranging and can also include the captions from your feed as part of each photo. To get started, go to pastbook.com/fresh.\\xa0\\n\\xa0\\n\\xa0\\n\\xa0\\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices'