Ive always thought such a scheme as taking an exam to own any animal, to ensure potential owners know the true efforts required for caring for any particular species, was a good idea.
If youre a dedicated passionate animal lover, you’d welcome studying/taking such an exam.
It would put off the millions of animal owners who ‘fancy a pet’, and currently just go out , buy one, see how they get on. Thus preventing millions of animals going around the home to home circuitry.
If they knew study/preparation and exam was required, most of the ‘curious about a pet people‘ wouldnt bother, most likely, and those that do, are given a full picture of what to expect before going into ownership, so make a better informed decision before potentially ruining an animal.
I agree, there’s potential for such certificates to be too rigid, and prevent developing best practice ideas. We know, with horses, very rarely does one size fit all management-wise. There would need to be a basic outlining of essential needs to be met, and then caveats allowed in certain circumstances.
I dont truly welcome this at all, laws and policing of animal carers, but the stats dont lie, neither does history, it’s evidently needed to prevent the level of cruelty all animals species suffer from at the hands of *some* ‘carers’.