Not every family can have be fortunate enough to have a pet to love and cuddle with, chase and play with. Living in apartments, having a family member with allergies, or just not having enough time to care for a pet are good reasons that almost 40% of us don’t have pets. But there are lots of ways that your family can take advantage of the benefits of pets even if you can’t live with one.

Friends you know will have pets and perhaps you can enjoy them on a limited basis. Play with their pets when you’re visiting. Ask them what they do with their pets, they’ll no doubt starting talking about how “crazy” their dog is or how sweet the cat is – or how the hamster keeps everyone up all night running in his squeaky wheel.

Read books about pets to your children. One of our favorites is Dewey, the Library Cat. Be sure to call out the relationship between a character and a pet in the book you’re reading. Picture books for pre-readers are mostly based on animals – from the Hungry Caterpiller to The Pokey Little Puppy, they’re easy to find. Harry Potter books are full of pet owls & rats, not to mention all of Hagrid’s animals.

Take walks at nature centers and observe wildlife. Even in parks you can watch ducks, birds, butterflies and all kinds of animals that are pets to some of us. Watch Animal Planet shows like Dogs 101 and Too Cute! They’re extremely informative, well made and very entertaining. Your stress level is sure to go down while watching them. Visiting zoos, aquariums and natural history museums are part of our kids educations. Talking about the pets we had when we were children shows our children that we value the relationship we’ve had with animals.  With or without a pet we can teach our children to Be Kind to Animals and they can benefit from knowing a pet.