Weirdest Pets from Around the World

Lions and tigers and bears – oh my! There have always been people who have pushed the pet envelope. Elvis had a kangaroo. George Clooney kept company with a not-so-small potbelly pig. Tippi Hendren and her daughter, Melanie Griffith, owned a pet lion. There are plenty of people who think owning a cat or dog is just too boring. Instead, they bring home exotic, wild, or large game animals. Is it completely crazy or kinda cool? Maybe a little of both. You be the judge. Here are the weirdest pets from around the world. 

Jessica the Hippo

If you ask us, it looks Jessica the hippo is smiling. (Photo: Steven Tan/Flickr)

While most people think the lion is the fiercest animal in Africa – it is actually the hippopotamus that is the deadliest. But there seems to be one exception: Jessica, the hippo owned by Tonie and Shirley Joubert of Hoedspruit, South Africa. During the floods in Mozambique in 2000, the Jouberts were on a walk when the discovered the baby hippo the banks of the Blyde River. The calf had been swept away from it’s mother shortly after birth and still had the umbilical cord attached. Tonie, a game ranger, knew how to create a milk formula that the baby hippo could eat. Ever since then the Joubert’s have been parents to “Jessica.” She plays with the dogs, walks through the house (although she has broken a couch and a bed) and even gets massages before to help her sleep. She has grown into a large (weighing close to a ton!), but gentle “daughter” who even has boyfriend hippos that come calling from the surrounding waterholes. Not a traditional pet but a pretty terrific one if you ask us.  

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