A kitten as a Christmas present? Better not.

<p class=rtejustify><span style=font-size:medium>It's Christmas time and the rush for gifts has started. We go around stalls, stores, and online, to look for the perfect gift to give the people we love and some of us are thinking that the perfect gift could rightly be a little furry friend. Why shouldn't we give a kitten as a gift to a person we love? Let's look at some reasons why this decision could be wrong and, in many cases, detrimental to both the animal and the person who receives it:</span></p><ol><li class=rtejustify><span style=font-size:medium>Adopting an animal is a very important decision that should be thought out and taken with concienciousness, and especially, according to each one's possibilities and desires. Getting a Christmas-wrapped kitten could cause some problems to someone who was not expecting it at all, and perhaps not even really desiring it. An animal living with us involves responsibilities, costs and changes in life habits, it is a profound change for the whole family, so the decision should only be taken by those directly involved and not by outsiders.</span></li><li class=rtejustify><span style=font-size:medium>Giving a kitten to a child may seem like a beautiful gesture, but it conceals several problems. One of them is that the child may receive the wrong message: that the animal is comparable to an object, just like a toy found under the Christmas tree. Another problem lies in the fact that a child does not yet have the tools to deal adequately with the physical and psychological health of an animal, so parents must be aware that the care and responsibility of the animal will lie with them. Giving an animal to a child (or young boy/girl) with the aim of making him more responsible can put the child in great difficulty and the animal in serious danger. This is due to the fact that the child has not yet been provided with the right tools to understand the importance of cohabitation with another individual