When Pets Go Green

Now, at some stage in their lives, even the best of pets can get bitten by the “jealousy mootix”, and that can turn out to be a pretty sticky situation for us, as owners, to handle. It can be pretty hectic to manoeuvre around with bickering pets everywhere. Some of the problems with having jealous pets is arguments and fights between them, and even if your pet keeps quiet about it, the hurtful feeling of jealousy can really eat away at them and hurt their self-esteem. When your pets turn a little green, what can you do to try and bring a bit of peace and unity to your Neohome? This article will tell you everything you need to know about dealing with envious pets.

So how does this jealousy occur? Jealousy in your pets can occur for a number of reasons. I will first list the most common causes.

Adopting

This is one of the most common causes of your Neopets getting envious. There has always been a lot of hype about adopting new pets from the pound. Some owners have good intentions when they go pound surfing – to find a poor, defenceless and lonely Neopet and bring it to a caring home. Some other users, however, simply collect nicely painted pets as trophies to try and make themselves look better. Whatever the reason that you adopt pets, your current pets are obviously going to end up a little bit jealous. Some owners dive straight into the Pound without even considering that it might hurt their current pets. Recently, since the Transfers system was implemented, there has been even more excitement about trading pets and people have even gone as far as putting value on their pets – for example, who would have known that a Christmas Uni was not worth the same as a Desert Poogle? There go the days when pets were priceless.

So there are basically two elements to adoption-related jealousy. When you bring home the new pet you found in the pound, you current pets will obviously feel rather jealous.

Imagine that you came to your Neohome one day to find that your pets had found a new owner. Can’t you empathize with your Neopet here? – if you came home with a pet and lavished your love upon it, buying it extraordinary gifts and maybe even paintbrushes, how do you think your other pets are going to feel? Rather put out, I’d think.

    The second part of adoption-related jealousy has to do with the transfers. Since there is now a value being put on pets based on their species and colour, people will start trying to find good “bargains” on other people’s pets. After skulking on the boards for a bit, I came up with an example of a typical transfer conversation :

Person One: Hey, I’m looking for a good pet – LE only! I want to trade my Desert Poogle for it.

Person Two: Hi Person One, I have a Christmas Uni, is that okay? I have always wanted a Desert Poogle ^^

Person One: Ah, hello? Didn’t you read – LE pets ONLY! As if a Christmas Uni is worth a Desert Poogle, don’t make me laugh!

The conversation above is nearly exactly like the millions of conversations that take place over the course of each day. Now, this article isn’t here to discuss whether or not it is morally acceptable to transfer pets – I am here to talk about jealousy. Now, imagine how hard it will be on your pets if they overheard you talking about them like that. How would that Christmas Uni feel if she heard that she wasn’t as good as that Desert Poogle? Pretty rotten, right? She would feel bad about herself for not being good enough, and that might result in a low-self esteem. She would then be ridiculously jealous of that Desert Poogle or any other pets that were deemed to be worth the same amount as it.

Customization

Customization is the next big thing, but is it really that good for your pet’s self-esteem? Clothes shopping for your pets can seem really fun to begin with, when you buy them the latest fashions and they look spiffy. But what happens a month later, when those clothes aren’t the most fashionable anymore? What happens when you can no longer afford to buy them clothes as soon as a trend changes? You go wandering round with your pet and BAM, he/she feels like the odd one out in her out-of-date and unfashionable clothes. Nothing like being in last season’s fashion to ruin your self-esteem, especially when an extremely fashionable Wocky comes sauntering past. Even if it isn’t about just keeping up with the fashions, some owners can’t afford to buy clothes for their pets, and so, their pets might feel very jealous towards other pets who can afford it.

Beauty Contests

Drawing your pet for the Beauty Contest might seem like the best idea to make him/her feel good about themselves, as well as scoring a shiny trophy for their page. However, it can tend to have the opposite effect on the rest of your pets. Imagine this scenario – Pet One is entered in the Beauty Contest because of their ravishing beauty. Pet 2 looks upon the first pet’s success jealously, wondering why his/her owner didn’t choose him/her to draw instead. Maybe because he/she is not as pretty, intelligent, charismatic as his/her sibling? You as the owner know that this is never the case, but your pet doesn’t. Jealousy can easily occur because of this simple misunderstanding.

Paintbrushes

There is no worse feeling than when an owner lavishes millions of NP into an expensive paintbrush, only to paint the pet’s sibling. That gut-wrenching jealousy of seeing the other pet blossom into a new beautiful colour is one of the worst feelings a pet can experience.

Those are just some of the most common causes of jealousy. Now what are the consequences of having jealous pets?

Bickering

A jealous pet will tend to lash out at their other pets and have a less-than-happy relationship with them. They might bicker or argue over petty things out of spite or jealousy, wanting to make themselves feel better by putting down their sibling.

Attention Seeking

Their sibling has gotten all the limelight – in their jealous mind, the most logical thing for any pet to do is try and get some limelight of their own to outshine their sibling. They might take up attention-seeking behaviour which can be annoying for you and your other pets.

Poor Self-Esteem

And finally, as a result of being jealous, they may feel poorly about themselves. This will appear in areas such as the Battledome and socialising with other pets, where they do not perform to their peak performance or become reclusive and antisocial.

So how can you try and ease the jealousy, or prevent it in the first place? You can’t simply stop pound surfing/painting your pets/customising, so instead, you need to make sure you give all your pets equal praise, attention and love. Rather than putting all your baby Pteris in one basket, so to speak, by making a “main” pet that you paint, train and customize, make sure you lavish equal attention on all your pets so that they all feel that they are wanted and needed. If this does not work, sit the pet down and give them some one-on-one time, spending an hour or so playing with them and making sure they know that they definitely are loved just as much as your other pets.

With owning a pet comes a responsibility to keep them happy and content. As owners, it is your job to make sure your pets know they are just as important to you as all your other pets. I hope this article opened your eyes to ways you were making your pets jealous and how to sort out the problem.