Could crew members Have Pets on the ENT-D

And I just have a really hard time picturing people of the 24th century just taking pets you're not really ready to take care of, and casually discarding a living creature, that's something terrible people do today.

 

Dr. Crusher served as Spot's healthcare practitioner during her pregnancy. So yeah, probably sickbay for the usual stuff

I too get the feeling that these people don't just bail on their pets over inconvenience or disinterest. They seem like a much more responsible & conscientious bunch than that, & I'd imagine that pet remains get molecular deconstruction, just like most of their waste. I'd figure sickbay would actually have an official one just for that purpose. Sometimes people who die might prefer that method of post-mortem management too

But this does raise the question... So who took Spot after Data died? I'd think Geordi, but man he hated that cat lol

 

^In the books, Worf adopts Spot after they come to an understanding. Worf thinks of him as a little warrior, and it is quite sweet.

And I bet someone in a ship and crew that large would probably love to adopt a cat. And on the Enterprise-D I wouldn't be surprised if there was like a pet nursery somewhere operated by a noncom (who literally has the best job on the whole ship) where pets that no longer have a home (pets of former redshirts, for instance) can live until someone in the crew decides to adopt one. Like an animal shelter but less 'shelter' and more 'transition home'.

 

Worf took her, and considered her to be a great hunter after watching her track down a mouse

 

I would join Starfleet just for that job

 

You might not even need to be Starfleet, you could be a civilian like those people working in Ten Forward, or Keiko.

 

true!

 

That's interesting. He seemed allergic, the one time he watched over her.

I just remeber him holding her at arm's length, & saying "I will feed it" & then sneezing as he left. Lol

 

I doubt most people have a big blinking self-destruct button in their quarters.

 

Also, it would probably require that three high ranking cats be present to push the button together.

 

It was for a laugh purpose, but we're told by some fans people are so open and casual in the future, that they'll just have sex with each other with reckless abandon thrown into the air, so surely disposing of pets with such casualness would be a thing. It's just animal -- can always get another one of those. Hell, you can probably replicate one. Unless it's cloth, then you have to pay for that shit while at Farpoint.

 

What would make Data so special that he alone could have a pet? Besides you're forgetting about Livingston.

 

There was a story (Alexander?) about a litter of puppies and the ship's school age children were playing with them.

Someone's dog got preggers, unless they were holographic.

 

And Ian Andrew Troi played with Puppies.

 

This is why I never understood why Amanda Rogers was all panicky about some puppies showing up. Granted, they be Q generated puppies, but who the hell is going to know the difference? The damn ship is positively littered with puppies.... no..... pun... intended

 

The question is then, what other sort of animals might have been on board the D besides puppers, kittens, and dolphins.

In New Ground the Enterprise was transferring those stick bug (branch bug?) things to a protected planet, and Discovery showed us that it was standard practice in Starfleet to pick up and transfer endangered species to sanctuaries. There's probably a whole zoology department on a ship as big as the Enterprise, where animals are being studied and transferred at any given time. It's kinda funny that Dr. Crusher seems to be CMO and also the ship's vet...you would think they would have a separate medical officer to deal with animals who would work in the animal department.

 

I can picture the new Kobiyashi Maru test...

Cadet enters the animal-holding area of the ship, It's on fire.
Cadet: "Somebody's got to save the wee li'l turtles!"
Runs in. We hear snapping noises. The cadet runs out with snapping turtles all over him.
Cadet: "Agh! Somebody save me from wee li'l turtles!"

 

A thousand people really isn't all so many, right? I'm googling this super quick, but like I'm reading in countries like the US, UK, and Canada we have about 2-ish doctors per thousand people, so really how big of medical staff are you going to put on your starship? It's not like a real floating city with tens of thousands of people, right? I feel it really makes sense people would have extra specialties and everything?

 

Over in my county, which as of 2016 had a population count of about 184,000, I see twenty veterinarian clinics.

So, that's about one clinic per 9,200 residents. Not every resident has a pet, but many residents have more than one, so I'll stick with that number. You're only allowed to have four pets (of any mix) total, but many people simply ignore it.

 

The Enterprise medical crew is more than just in-house medical aid though. They respond to planet-wide medical emergency situations. I'd honestly think there's as many medical people as security or operations/engineering. Out of the 1,000 on board, I'd think100-200 have to be medical, like 15% of the crew, minimum. That's doctors, nurses, therapists, medical aids, technicians etc...