Rent-A-Pet

If you feel that New York is an inappropriate place for your garden-variety Newfoundland or Irish Wolfhound, fear not — you can now rent pets, affording one the chance to simply return them before they slobber up the place:

Jared Wasserman’s parents aren’t wild about his current crush. One recent morning as this long-lashed 5-year-old sat tugging on his big toe in the pristine den of his parent’s duplex, he announced he had fallen in love. “I’d like to marry Rudy,” he said.

It is an interesting choice; Rudy is male and can’t talk. He is Jared’s hamster. Jared and Rudy, however, have not moved in together yet. This is because the parents Wasserman like having their home pet-free.

“I’ve never been an animal person,” said Jared’s mother, Marla Wasserman. “I could do without the flies.”

Rudy is part of a small population of pets in New York that can be leased or adopted part-time. He lives in a cage with Jared’s name on it on East 91st Street at the Art Farm in the City, an indoor petting zoo and educational center that is home to 15 kinds of small creatures like millipedes and cockatiels, all of which can be rented yearly for $100 (for a tarantula or a frog) to $300 (for a chinchilla or rabbit, which require more upkeep). In general they live at the Art Farm and make occasional visits to their part-time owners’ homes.

Before you stomp your foot and sigh, “What will they think of next?” know that renting pets helps fight against a particular sort of scenario:

Sean Casey, the owner and founder of Sean Casey Animal Rescue in Brooklyn, has adopted out everything from wallabies to alligators and currently has cats, parakeets, hairless rats and a dozen other types of animals ready for adoption or part-time foster care. He said corn snakes and rat snakes are the ones people ask for the most. Cats and dogs tend to be the animals that are returned the fastest because they require more work and training than people expect.

Mr. Casey said he tries hard to screen out anyone who might take animals for dishonorable reasons, but he cannot always be sure someone is not just taking a puppy for a day or two in order to pick up women in the park. “I’ve turned away people who say they want a snake for a few days so they can freak out their roommates,” he said. “Or one woman asked me for a bird temporarily because she felt her cat was bored and needed something to swat at.”

At certain perfect moments, the Times channels J.D. Salinger. This is one of those moments:

Occasionally, when [Art Farm co-founder] Ms. [Valentina] Van Hise feels especially comfortable with the part-time pet owners, she’ll let them take the animal home for a short stay. Jared and his sister, Alison, who live on the Upper East Side, were allowed to bring Rudy home, at no extra charge.

After struggling to get the cage into a cab and getting home, lots of pictures were taken of Jared, in pajamas, cuddling Rudy on the kitchen floor. Jared even asked his mom if he could have a farmerlike red-checkered shirt and a pair of overalls like the Art Farm caretakers wear. He brought the pictures to school for show and tell, and gave one to his teacher as a gift.

Then two days later Rudy returned to Ms. Van Hise.

“I just kept thinking how they’re part of the rodent family,” Mrs. Wasserman said. “When I brought him back, Valentina said, ‘You’re welcome to keep him longer,’ but I said ‘No, it’s time for him to come back here now.'”