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As I suspect is true for most of us, the highs and lows of my life are intimately tied to my pets. In fact, when I step back and look at my life, the decades are defined as much by the cats and dogs I've shared my life with as by my human companions. Is this a bad thing....well I don’t know ;-)

My pets have taught me about life, and death. They’ve taught me lessons about what it’s like to be fully “in the moment”; how to see the world for its good instead of its bad; and of course, what unconditional love is all about. In fact, maybe it’s easier to learn these critical life skills from animals than from humans, as the teaching takes place every day, and is never judgmental.

Some of the most pleasant moments in my life have been with my pets: long walks on the beach with dogs streaking through the shallow water in an always fruitless chase of shorebirds; a week road trip with my dog sharing a small hatchback Saab; the goofy play of puppies and kittens. But like Charles Dickens’, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”, some of my life’s saddest moments have also involved pets: Basil the Abyssinian who was run over in our own driveway; the inevitable sad wasting and decline of each dog and cat as it reached the end of its happy life.

And then there have been the mistakes in judgment which will forever haunt me – choosing the wrong pet for my family’s lifestyle. Much to my dismay I’ve been guilty of this more than once: there were the two (!) Australian Shepherd females bought at different times whose ceaseless barking and frenetic work ethic made us find them different homes; the impulsive purchase of a neighbor’s Doberman mix puppy who grew up to be a dangerous fear-biter and had to be given up for adoption.

Choosing a pet to share our lives with should be one of our most important, careful decisions. Guidebooks written by experts are great, but I’m a firm believer that real-world experiences from people like us can be the best, most helpful information of all. That’s why I created RightPet. On RightPet we can tell the tales of how well specific pets worked for us: what were their strengths and weaknesses; how well did they fit our individual lifestyles. Over time, and after tens of thousands of ratings, I’m hoping RightPet will become an indispensable educational tool for comparing breeds/species of pets by their different characteristics and behaviors. My hope is that this information will allow us to make the best possible choices – because finding the right pet is one of life’s true joys, and is something we, and our animals, truly deserve.

Cheers, Brett Hodges
Founder / Editor

March 12, 2009
Since a few people have asked, I wanted to let everyone know that we'e going to be adding a bunch of other animals to the site in the near future. We're currently working on:

Small Mammals (hamsters, mice, rats, ferrets etc.)
Horses (yes, I'm really excited about this one)
Amphibians (frogs, newts, salamanders etc.)
Livestock (pigs, goats, alpaca etc.)