This isn’t that exotic I guess but I had a customer at the restaurant that would smuggle in his pet rat (I worked the graveyard so usually nobody was around). Its name was Gizmo and it would sit on his shoulder under his sweater and he would feed it French toast. Sweetest little thing.

My parents had a zebra when I was growing up in Northern California. He was skittish, to the point that this animal lover never got closer than 10 feet until it wound bolt. He brayed at sunrise, easily drowning out the roosters. He sadly ingested part of a mat in his stall which ended up killing him.

After my parents moved once I left home, they got 2 more of these fancy donkeys.

There’s a guy on Instagram who has two absolutely massive pythons, like 16 feet long and thick as tires. They drape themselves across his young daughter very casually, and she spends time playing Barbies with the big one. The owner is very educated about snakes and obviously takes very good care of them, and isn’t some trash person who just wants violent animals, but much like pit bulls all it takes is one wrong turn and that child could die in a terrible way. I know some pet snakes are very docile, but something that could take it into its head to strangle me for dinner is not a pet to me.

People’s pit bull apologia is bad enough, we had a person in my ER one night who had been walking their friend’s pit bull who they walked often, who yanked the leash when he saw another dog, and when they tried to grip it the dog turned around and began mauling them, and ripped their arm right off. Someone called 911 and the cops showed up and had to shoot the dog and kill it to get it off them, and they took both them and the arm to our hospital but couldn’t save it. My niece is also missing part of her lip because of a pit bull. Those are exotic animals that are extremely dangerous to me, fuck that nanny dog bullshit.

The guys yard was 4 lots so fairly nice sized (1 acre?)… Underground tunnels that lead to “satellite” cages for the prairie dogs to keep an eye on the yard. Venomous snake shed(cobras and rattlesnakes) and to top it off a pair of breeding crocodile monitors. A true Florida man.

My bestie has an iguana. Not that exotic in the grand scheme of things, even if pretty cool.

So I’m also internet acquainted with a guy that cares for tiger cubs. Except the big kitties aren’t his, he just works at a zoo.

I saw someone bring their bobcat into a Lowes once. It was on a leash, and you bet I did not trust that leash. It looked overwhelmed.

When I was a kid back in the 70’s there was a woman with a spider monkey who lived in the same trailer park as my grandfather. She rode around on a bike with it on her shoulder and would stop when my sister and I were visiting. We were never allowed to pet it, we’d watch while the lady fed it clovers.

Used to have around 50 tarantuals (and some other spiders).

Oh another post, my friend’s parents had a kinkajou that lived in the couch and pooped from high shelves at night.

My nephew has snails. He smuggled them out of the schoolyard in his hoodie after the teachers caught him the first time and confiscated them. My sister found them and had to take them to a pet store to make sure they weren’t dangerous. Now they sit in a nice terrarium and it turns out the hardest part is keeping the humidity up.

Met a couple with a pet raccoon, on a leash and everything. I asked them how it was, since my wife had fantasized about a pet raccoon. They described it as a “little mischief goblin”.

I worked with someone who lived in South Africa who nursed a couple wild finches back to health. The finches got better but never flew away, and lived in the house. They’d sit on her shoulders during zoom meetings.

I’ve seen someone walking a pig in the forest. Yes, a large pink hairless pig. It was almost like walking a dog, but this animal was quite a bit larger than most dogs.

I knew someone who dealt in exotic animals and they came to work with a baby caiman alligator in a Tupperware because they were selling it after work

I live in California. Pretty much all the cool pets are illegal here.

That being said I knew a guy who had a raccoon and several ferrets. Their house smelled awful but once you were there for awhile you kinda stopped smelling it and the raccoon and ferrets were adorable together.