Cicely talks about three things to consider before adopting a pet.

Translations/summaries are available below in both Spanish and English. These are designed as resources for working with the text in ASL.

Visual Description

Light skinned woman wearing orange short-sleeve shirt is shown from the waist up. She is standing in front of a dark-grey screen. A white CATIE Center logo is in the lower right corner of the screen. The woman narrates the entire video in American Sign Language.

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Tres puntos que considerar antes de adoptar una mascota

Los tres puntos a considerar antes de adoptar una mascota son:

  1.     La edad. Se debe pensar si cuenta con el dinero necesario para mantener una mascota, como alimentación y salud. ¿Puede cubrir con todos los gastos? Si no es así, no la adopte. Hay que ver la raza del animal, los perros, por ejemplo, suelen vivir por 10 a 13 años, ¿puede mantener a un perro por 7 a 15 años? Los gatos pueden vivir por 19 años, también debe considerar si el gato vivirá dentro o fuera de la casa. ¿Va a poder cuidar al gato de 9 a 19 años? Si es así, hágalo.
  2.     Los viajes. ¿Viaja muy seguido o suele quedarse en casa? Si viaje frecuentemente, ¿llevará a su mascota con usted o la dejará en casa? Si ella se queda en casa, ¿tiene quién la cuide? También debe considerar, ¿su mascota se lleva bien con otras personas o suele reaccionar mal con ellas? Estos son factores que pensar, si la mascota no se lleva bien con desconocidos, usted tendrá que quedarse en casa con ella y si no puede hacerlo es mejor no adoptar una.
  3.     La salud. Si la salud de su mascota se deteriora con el tiempo, ¿usted se dará por vencido fácilmente? ¡Piénselo! Si es que no va a poder cuidarla y terminará abandonándola no sería justo, usted la adoptó, se comprometió a cuidarla de por vida.

Otro punto que me gustaría añadir, su futuro. Pueda ser que ahora tenga tiempo para cuidar a una mascota, pero ya ha pensado dónde estará de aquí a 5 años, en 10 años, en 20, 25.¿Se mudará, de repente otro estado en EE. UU., o a otro país como Italia? ¿Ha considerado si desea regresar a estudiar, tendrá tiempo si eso pasa?

Si adopta a un mascota sin considerar todos estos puntos quién sufrirá al final será la mascota. Considérelo, hay cantidad de animales sin hogar, abandonados. Esto no da lugar a quejas, sucede porque personas adoptan mascotas sin ver que no pueden cuidarlas, por eso piense todo lo que le acabo de decir y determine si puede o no hacerlo, si la respuesta es no será mejor que no adopte una.

Considerations before adopting a pet

Here are some things to consider before adopting a pet.

The first thing to consider is the pet’s age and if you have sufficient money to take care of their food, their health as well as their other needs. If you can afford, having a pet is a good thing. If you cannot afford it, do not adopt a pet. Some breeds of animals, such as dogs, live up to twenty years. Other breeds have various life time-span like fifteen or even seven years. So you need to figure out if you can support them over the course of their lifetime. Cats can live up to nineteen years. If you decide your cat can live outdoors, the duration might be nine years and if you go for an indoor cat, it might live up to nineteen years. The question you need to ask yourself is to see if you can afford to support a pet that long? If so, go for it.

Secondly, are you going to travel often or stay home? If you are traveling a lot, you need to think about whether you can bring the pet along or will leave it at home If you plan to leave them at home, do you know anyone else who will take care of them? That leads to another consideration: is your pet capable of interacting with people other than yourself? If your pet does not get along with others, this means you need to stay home more. If you cannot do that, then do not adopt at first place.

Thirdly, I would like to talk about the pet’s health. When their health starts to decline to age, will you give up on them easily? When they decline, will you want to give them up to someone else? It’s important for you to understand that in adopting a pet, you are committing to love them and provide support for rest of their life.

On a final note, think about your own future. Don’t just think about the present moment, but also consider your capability to take care of a pet five, ten or fifteen years down the road. Will you move to a different state or even move overseas? Will you move to different school or find a job that still give you sufficient time with your pet? It is something to think about those factors first before adopting because if you go ahead without thinking about this, the one who has to suffer is those animals. There are so many problems these days with homeless pets.  Many people are complaining about them. But the real issue is not the pets, but people adopting them and later dumping them after they realize taking care of a pet is not for them..

So, you need to consider these tips before adopting a pet.