5 reasons a zombie would make an excellent pet

1) More intimidating than a rottweiler, yet quieter.
A lot of people keep guard dogs on the understanding that these razor blades with legs will intimidate a burglar enough that he won’t even think of smashing your window and making off with your porn-filled iPad. Barring that (or if you happen to have an extremely stupid burglar scoping out your house) a guard dog will still stop the burglar, but also splash blood liberally all over your carpet and walls. But your iPad will be safe. The down side to this sort of protection plan is that dogs bark. That’s part of the intimidation act, letting the bad guys know that there’s a dog waiting to gnaw on their femur in this house. But it also means that you have to listen to a lot of random woofing every time the neighborhood children run across the street, or the neighbor’s handbag dog takes a crap in your rose bushes.

On the other hand, a zombie serves many of the same functions as a guard dog – intimidation of intruders by standing menacingly in backlit windows or doorways, chilling vacant stare that puts fear in the heart of evildoers, leaving a twenty foot long smear of blood on your linoleum – but without the hell hound-style baying. Instead, there’s the much quieter (but still intimidating in its own way) moan of “braaaaaaaains.” As distinctive as the howl of the Hound of the Baskervilles, and twice as pants wetting, since it’s a zombie and not just a nice dog that’s been coated with glow in the dark paint.

2) Other than the blood, easy to clean up after.
Think about it. Have you ever, once, in all the zombie movies you’ve ever watched, seen one of the walking dead stop for a potty break? Their relentless pursuit of living flesh, unbroken by the occasional pitstop, is one of their most terrifying features. So yes, you may have to spend a lot of time spraying your carpets down with Nature’s Miracle to get out all the blood, but say goodbye to having to scoop poop out of a box of clay bits, or hunting for it in the overgrown jungle of your backyard. Personally, if I had the choice between slipping on a dog turd as I run through the grass or slipping on a bit of some trespasser’s intestine, I’d vote for the intestine every time.

3) No vet bills.
Zombies are like Hondas. You get one, and then you just run it until it falls apart. It doesn’t really matter what one eats – no more running your pet to the vet because the little darling thought that eating four inches of plastic tubing sounded like an excellent idea. No more vaccinations – once you’re a zombie, rabies is about the last thing in the world you’d be concerned about. A zombie will take a licking and keep on ticking, at least until someone destroys whats left of its brain with a well placed shovel blow or a couple episodes of Jersey Shore. And if that happens, it’s easy enough to find a new zombie once you’ve said a few words over the ashes of your former pet.

Bonus: Like other pets, you can name all of your zombies the same thing. They won’t care. They’re zombies.

4) You don’t have to walk a zombie.
Seriously, leading one of the undead around on a collar? If that sounds like a fun time to you, you’ve got some issues, man.

5) Save on pet food.
Your pet food budget basically drops to zero once you’ve acquired a zombie. Instead of paying good money for the meat that was too weird to be made into sausage, all you have to do is let your zombie wander the neighborhood. The neighborhood cat that keeps peeing in the bushes right in front of your house will make a lovely snack. Those awful children who think its hilarious to bounce a basketball against the side of your house at three in the morning when you’ve got a hangover? Gone. The weird guy that stole that pair of underwear you threw away because it was just some holes held together with elastic out of your trash can? I wouldn’t bet on those odds in Vegas.

Now, I’m sure there are some bleeding hearts out there that will say a healthy, happy zombie is an indoor zombie, and not one shuffling through the streets of your neighborhood and decimating the squirrel population. These people should go back to their hippy retreats where they can fondle their dread locks and convince themselves that tofu isn’t actually made out of styrofoam. It’s a freaking zombie. If it gets hit by a car, the zombie will likely come out just a little more ragged than it started and get a free snack on top of the deal. Want cleaner, quieter neighborhoods where nothing even survives to become roadkill? Outdoor zombie, all the way.