Reasons To Downsize Your Pets!

That said, I realized that my hope for future pets was being hampered by the fact that I already had 20 pets. I decided to give away 3 pets to random people on the Pound Neoboard, and reserved my 3 Royals for my closest Neofriends. That means I only own 14 pets right now, and I'm truly relieved! Now I have room for future pets that don't yet exist, like the 8-Bit Draik, 8-Bit Krawk, and Polka Dot Cybunny. I revel in the emptiness of my accounts, and I'm a lot happier by having empty space than I ever did by owning a Royalgirl Bori!

There are hundreds of reasons for why we love our pets. We love their names, their faces, their colors, and their species. We love their stats, their Beauty Contest trophies, even their birthdays. But did you know that it's just as gratifying to downsize your pets? Read this article and see if you agree, downsizing your pets can be a really fun and rewarding experience!

As I stated earlier, it's a good idea to leave a few empty spaces on your accounts, in case an amazing new color/species combo comes into being that you just HAVE to have. People all over Neopia are slavering after the idea of an 8-Bit Draik being created someday, and I must admit, I do the same! I'm also hoping for a Cherry Chia and Banana Chia to be created someday. I'm crossing my fingers, since I've been wanting Cherries and Bananas since I first started playing in 2007!

Many players have avatar pets that they love to lend out, but sometimes, real life can prevent them from logging onto Neopets for weeks or even months at a time. I met one player who used to lend out her Island Quiggle and Coconut JubJub to other players, but she rarely logged on, so she decided to give her pets away to another pet lender. The pets are being merrily passed around to this day, and this player is glad that she downsized her pets, since it's made so many other players happy! (Congrats on your new avatars, everyone!)

One excellent reason for downsizing your pets is that one or more of your pets is your Neofriends' dreamie(s). I happen to have a Neofriend who is obsessed with Royal pets, so I gave her first pick of the 3 Royals I'm giving away. It took me a long time to decide that I'd give them away, and much of the sting of giving them up was ameliorated by the fact that they'd be going to loving new owners. I respect and admire my Neofriends very much, and I can trust them to be excellent new parents to my gorgeous Royals!

A lot of players have given away pets in order to dust off their old Secret Laboratory Rays and start zapping pets again. One player that I met a few weeks ago said that he gave away 2 of the pets on his side account, and is now zapping pets on that account again, the first time he's zapped pets since 2010. I nodded and smiled. I'm addicted to the Ray as well, even though I end up giving away every pet I zap. It's such a rush when they change color, and I feel excited every time!

One major reason why people give away pets is because they have a hard time coming up with characters for them. I feel the same way about my Royals, which is why I'm giving them away. It's kind of astonishing that I would have more stories and poems for my Grape Chia than for my Royalgirl Peophin, but it is what it is, I guess! Happily, my Royals will end up with my Neofriends, so I hope my friends are able to be more creative than I am!

A lot of times, the goals of the players on this site surprise me, because oftentimes, it's not all about the pets! One person gave away most of his pets because he decided to keep only those pets whose petpages he had coded. So he now has just 4 pets, because he wants to maintain just 4 petpages. I thought this was interesting, and totally antithetical with the usual pet goals on this site! People normally have the habit of hoarding as many impressively painted pets as possible. This user was quite unabashed by the fact that 2 of his pets were simply basic-colored (one Blue, one Yellow). To him, it's all about the petpages, not about his pets' looks. He's happy that he downsized his pets, and I was glad that he found such satisfaction in it!

Now that I have room on my side accounts, I've been considering whether to give away the numerous Paint Brush clothes that I've accumulated over the years. The way people do this is by adopting a painted pet, dressing it up in its appropriate Paint Brush clothes, and transferring it out of their account. I used to do this years ago, but had a few bad experiences where the other people failed to log in for several days, resulting in the pet being returned to me, and me losing a transfer. I applaud all those people who are persistent about giving away their clothes, though, and they often keep an empty space on their side account for the express purpose of giving away clothes. They even gave away pets, just to achieve that empty space. I wish I had their patience!

One player unabashedly declared that she creates pets based on how they look when they're customized, rather than basing her decision on her favorite species and color combination. She said she gave away most of her pets last year because they didn't have species-specific wearables that she loved. She also adopted a White Kacheek because the clothing options for Kacheeks are so lively and fun, even though she doesn't particularly like Kacheeks. I thought this was an interesting phenomenon!

One player admitted that she fell out of love with her pets, because she realized they were "just pixels." She ended up giving away most of them, just because she knew they'd make other people happy, and because they didn't give her any joy anyway. Now she finds more pleasure in chatting on the Neoboards, instead of being selfish and collecting as many pets as possible. The same thing happened to me years ago! I took a brief hiatus from the site, and when I came back, I realized that I didn't even remember the names of my side account pets. I ended up giving a lot of them away, and I've never regretted the decision! They were "just pixels" to me, but they meant so much more to the other players on the Pound Neoboard, where I advertised my UFA pets!

One player that I spoke to said that if you're trying to raise your pet's stats with Kitchen Quests, it's best to have just the one pet on your account, so that it gets all of the stat increases. I thought this was very insightful! And yes, it's a great reason to downsize one's pets. Or at least, move your spare pets to a side account!

Because I own the Secret Laboratory Ray on 2 different sides, I am constantly adopting pets from the Pound, zapping them into interesting colors, and giving them away. It's such a rush to get color changes from the Ray, and it's such a rush to give the painted pets away to excited new owners! This act of perpetual downsizing is really fun and delightful, and I plan to keep zapping pets for as long as I belong to this site!

My favorite reason for downsizing came from one player that made me LOL on the Help Neoboard. She said she was tired of having status pets, even though they were amazing colors like Maraquan, Desert and Stealthy. She wasn't a role-player, writer, or artist, and her pets were languishing on her accounts. She ended up giving away every single pet she owned, all 20 of them, and started over with 4 Yellow Gnorbus, all dressed up in the Hot Dog Mascot with Mustard outfit. She is constantly snuggling her hot dog army, and she loves the laughter that ensues whenever people see her hilarious hot dog account! Making other people laugh -- what an awesome reason for downsizing your pets!

And the last reason for downsizing your account? You can rest assured that every pet ends up in a home that loves it! For instance, I know that sometimes, the pets I zap and give away tend to bounce from account to account as they're being traded from person to person. Yet I don't mind! They always end up in loving homes, in the end, and I always smile when I look them up and find that they've landed in permanent homes and been customized to the nines!

I think it's amusing that no matter how much you love and adore your pets, there's always someone on the site who loves them a little bit more than you do! It was a lot of fun to give away 6 pets. I'm so addicted to the feeling of charity that I'm considering giving away more! Knowing that they'll be treasured and nurtured by their future owners makes me smile with so much happiness, and I hope they'll inspire their new owners for years to come!

I hope this article inspired you to downsize your own accounts as well! Neopets is such a magical site that even GIVING AWAY your pets is a gratifying experience! On no other game website I can think of is this kind of altruism possible. As someone who now owns a mere 14 pets, I can testify to the fact that having fewer, rather than more, pets is a lot more fun!

Thanks for reading this article, my fellow Neopians! Do you have any more reasons why someone might want to downsize their pets? Feel free to Neomail me, because I'd love your input for a future article! I'm always eager to know the opinions of my fellow players, and your feedback is the best part of getting my articles published!

Have a great week, dear players! May you always enjoy the act of downsizing your pets!