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Three blocks from Paycor Stadium, an African serval’s grandkitten curls up on a couch and falls asleep purring in human arms.
A Russian tortoise trundles around a fenced-in yard in Amelia, accepting watermelon treats from owner Angie Tucker and check-in sniffs from her Pomeranians.
And when CityBeat knocks on a door in Wyoming, five-year-old Vera van Leersum runs to the door to show off her birthday presents: A bearded dragon and a tarantula.
“All the animals are my favorite,” she says, but the ones given places of honor by her toy chest creep and crawl.
Almost all of these animals are domestic cats and dogs, felis catus and canis familiaris. Fewer than seven percent of American households include a reptile, bird or small rodent, the American Veterinary Medicine Association found in 2024.
And although insects are the most numerous animals on Earth, arachnid- and insect-fanciers like Vera remain too rare to appear on most pet surveys at all.
In our annual Pet Issue, CityBeat uncovers what it’s like to own rare pets — like skunks and Savannah cats — in Greater Cincinnati. Keep scrolling for a glimpse of life with an unusual pet, and read our full story here.
Strawberry the bearded dragon wears several hats, including a sequined sombrero and a derby-ready trilby, in the time Vera van Leersum shows her off to CityBeat cameras. As the primary companion of a preschooler, long accustomed to being stroked, carried and handfed, two-year-old Strawberry tolerates the dress-up game in stolid lizard humor.
Keep reading ↓ Photo: Aidan MahoneyStrawberry will be rewarded at the end with an Argentinian Dubia roach — an unheard-of treat for her wild relatives in Australia — and a blown kiss from Vera, who received her as a birthday present two years ago.
“Reptiles are one of my favorites,” says Vera, who plans to be a mermaid veterinarian when she grows up. “My favorite thing to do with Strawberry is feed her bugs. I like every snake, and I’m not scared of spiders and tarantulas.”
Keep reading ↓ Photo: Aidan MahoneyThe van Leersums found Strawberry at the Cin City Reptile Show. Vera fell in love. In a series of home videos recorded by Lindsey and later compiled by warm-and-fuzzy animal video distributor The Dodo, Vera reads stories to Strawberry, plays dolls with her and takes her for rides in a Barbie convertible.
Keep reading ↓ Photo: Aidan MahoneyVera’s family also consists of a variety of other pets, including cockroaches and a tarantula.
Read more about Vera’s pets here. Photo: Aidan MahoneySekhmet purrs, snuggles and chases toys across her downtown Cincinnati condo like a housecat, but she’s twice the size of one. She uses a litter box and rides happily in a stroller but becomes territorial at direct eye contact from strangers. And she is smart, her owners say — smart enough that they child-lock their front and balcony doors so she doesn’t open them on her own. One of her grandparents was a felis catus. The other was a serval, a leggy African wildcat known as one of nature’s fastest and most successful feline predators.
“It’s like having a dog, a toddler and a velociraptor in the house,” says owner Laura Arnold, who adopted Sekhmet as a kitten with her husband, David. “All those things.”
Keep reading ↓ Photo: Aidan MahoneyWild-domestic hybrids like Sekhmet, an F2 Savannah cat, are classified as exotics for their close proximity to undomesticated ancestors, says Mariemont veterinarian Dr. Jeremy Zola. But, as products of all-American genetic engineering, they’re as reliant on human care as any Persian or Goldendoodle.
“You can’t leave these cats alone,” Laura says, pointing out the baby-proofed kitchen cabinets and wall decorations hung just outside Sekhmet’s 10-foot vertical jump range. “Because they get into trouble.”
Keep reading ↓ Photo: Aidan MahoneyBecause the existence of a domestic hybrid is impossible without the existence of a captive wildcat ancestor, hybrid cats’ would-be owners must screen their breeders carefully to ensure they receive a healthy, well-socialized animal whose wild parent or grandcat is treated humanely.
“There’s a lot of bad operators out there,” Laura says. “There’s situations where there’s a Savannah cat [for sale], and it seems too good to be true. So we looked really hard to find a reputable breeding operation … someone who’s responsible and cares about the cats.”
Read more about Sekhmet, including how she helped her family heal after the loss of their 17-year-old cat, Kitty, here. Photo: Aidan MahoneySeven-year-old Rosie the skunk “just kind of fell into my lap” after another owner surrendered her, Cincinnati Parks botanist Hannah Fitz says. Observing the little creature’s glossy coat, roly-poly tummy and sweet temperament, one wonders how Fitz ever finds the heart to push her off.
“She’s basically a stuffed animal,” Fitz confirms. “She loves to be held. I’ve got a whole arsenal of baby carriers to wear around the house or when I take her to Findlay Market. [Her baby sister] Ramona went with me to BLINK.”
Keep reading ↓ Photo: Aidan MahoneyFitz acquired her five cats and two other skunks, Percy and Ramona Flowers, in serendipitous ways. Rehomed plants and repurposed pieces of decor fill the small clan’s CUF home, where the trio of skunks cuddle on the couch and build blanket nests in the cabinets. In the upstairs “skunk room,” they chase treats around a pond liner that Fitz reshaped into a ball pit. All three are curious, mischievous and sociable.
“They’re just little double-wide ferrets,” she says.
Keep reading ↓ Photo: Aidan MahoneyLaw requires that pet skunks be de-scented. Rosie, Ramona, Percy each went to a veterinarian as kits to have their scent glands — the two anal sacs that produce a skunk’s sulfurous defensive spray — removed. De-scented skunks still smell musky, like their ferret cousins, but can’t mark up their home, spray intruders or fight fire with fire in a skunk-on-skunk dispute.
Keep reading ↓ Photo: Aidan MahoneyThe procedure is safe and not very invasive, however, it creates a permanent ethical imperative for the owner. A skunk that can’t fend off predators with spray is a skunk that will need a human caretaker for the rest of its life. Fitz says she’s happy to shoulder the responsibility. Her home is baby-proofed to keep her three curious charges safe, and she devotes considerable effort — sometimes to the point of exhaustion — to ensuring they stay safe, healthy and entertained.
Read more about Rosie, Ramona and Percy here. Photo: Aidan MahoneyLindley Legg wanted to see their girlfriend, Emily Hartig, smile. So they bought her something slimy.
Banana Split, an Australian green tree frog, matches the couple’s Brat-green Over-the-Rhine apartment and the striped shirt Hartig wears to pose with him. The museum curator has been preoccupied with her favorite critter since childhood; she’s found that unconventional pets provide an opportunity to bond with the people she loves.
Banana Split was purchased at the Cin City Reptile Show and looks fabulous in a sequined hat.
“She just always wanted a frog, and I wanted to see her childlike joy,” Legg, an environmental scientist at Procter & Gamble, says of Banana Split’s adoption. “There’s so many pictures of her as a kid with frog stuffies and frog shirts.”
“I just think they’re so cute,” Hartig says. “They are so cute. I can’t really explain it. Ever since I was a little kid, I just was drawn to them.”
Read more about Banana Split here. Photo: Aidan MahoneyAngie Tucker’s “party animals” — the collection of reptiles, amphibians and arachnids who share Tucker’s Amelia home — are pet store returns and oddball rescues adopted after rejections by previous owners. Unlike the other adopters who spoke to CityBeat, Tucker had no preexisting yen for the creatures whose terraria now occupy a full wall of her family’s living room. She just felt sorry for Nubs, a bearded dragon whose missing foreleg hurt her chances of finding a home.
Keep reading ↓ Photo: Aidan Mahoney“About three years ago, I got to work at a local pet store for a little bit, part-time,” Tucker says. “And people kept coming and bringing animals back, surrendering them. They were all missing a limb or, you know, something went on. “[Pet stores] call them unsellables. If there’s something wrong with them, they’re damaged goods.”
She had a basic understanding of reptile care and a starter set of equipment from the store when she volunteered to adopt the “unsellable” beardie. Learning more about her charges and their needs has been the best part of tending to the expanding menagerie, she says.
Keep reading ↓ Photo: Aidan MahoneyNow, Tucker’s critters travel around Greater Cincinnati as Tucker’s Party Animals, a rental service giving event crowds a chance to hold, feed and take pictures with previously unloved animals.
Keep reading ↓ Photo: Aidan Mahoney“If I saw a snake coming four years ago, I would’ve probably run the other way,” Tucker says. “But the more I’ve learned, the more I’ve learned to trust them. They really do bring you joy and knowledge. The ongoing education… I mean, at my age, you think you know it all. And then I got into this and thought, ‘Wow. I have so much to learn.’”
Read more about Angie’s “Party Animals” here. Photo: Aidan MahoneyNot every pet is suited for a cuddle on the couch. Rather than invite their exotics inside, Katie and Teddy Moser of Lakeside Park, Kentucky, devote considerable effort to accommodating their animals on their own terms. The couple leaves portions of their backyard unraked in autumn so firefly larvae can overwinter safely between the wet, warm layers of leaves; they encourage the growth of milkweed to attract monarch butterflies; and they’re determined to keep their backyard quails’ lives luxurious but natural.
Keep reading ↓ Photo: Aidan MahoneyThe Moser family had owned chickens before they moved to Lakeside Park, Katie explains as she prepares a plate of mealworms and strawberries for their small covey. But the city’s bylaws forbid the keeping of non-native birds, so the fowl were rehomed with Teddy’s parents and the search for a Kentucky-native feathered friend began. They picked the ones that pecked at her heartstrings: bobwhite quails.
Keep reading ↓ Photo: Aidan Mahoney“No one really owns bobwhite quails as pets,” says Katie, a native plant designer. “Mostly they’re just being bred on farms and used for dog hunting. Basically, people will raise them and release them as dog treats. That’s not our vibe. I was like, ‘I want to take these home and love on them.’”
Read more about the Mosers’ covey of quails here. Photo: Aidan Mahoney
