Once you decide to keep a pet, it is for life. Sadly, this message is often lost on young people who buy an animal on impulse.
HKeducationCity.net, the Education Department's Web site, recently organised a visit for a group of children to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) in Wan Chai.
The aim was to show the children how to keep and raise their pets properly.
Ling Pui-sze, 12, has had nearly 10 kinds of pets including chickens, ducks, rabbits, goldfish, tortoises, guinea pigs and kittens.
Unfortunately, because she had very little knowledge about keeping domestic pets, none of them lived long.
'I was careless,' said Pui-sze. 'Sometimes I forgot to feed them, while at other times I'd leave them outside and they froze to death. Due to my ignorance, I washed a duck with soap and it was poisoned to death.'
Most of the time, it was her mother who bought her pets so she could learn to be responsible, she said.