#pr-d

This one is fairly straightforward, simply because we don’t have a whole lot of information about this pokémon as of yet. Due primarily to their large size and somewhat formidable psychic abilities, a farigiraf would not be the best pick for every owner. However, consider this a light “D” ranking, the system I use to calculate my scores was not playing nice with this one.

Like a just mentioned, farigirafs are certainly too large to live inside most human homes. Standing at ten-and-a-half feet tall and weighing over three hundred and fifty pounds, they aren’t the easiest pokémon to accommodate. However, there is always the possibility of making a home for them outdoors: the pokédex doesn’t make any indication of farigirafs needing a particular kind of environment to survive and thrive, so as long as you can provide them the food they need and some sort of cover from the elements to rest under, you should be able to accomodate them. This won’t apply to everybody, but it doesn’t disqualify everybody either.

As far as their personalities go, the pokédex honestly doesn’t give us much to work with. It makes it clear that these pokémon are far stronger than their pre-evolution, girafarig (Scarlet) because their head and tail brains are synced, but it doesn’t give us a read on how aggressive these pokémon may be. We do know that they use their hard head covering to headbutt enemies (Violet), but we don’t know if this is for territorial disputes or simply for self defense.

In the off-chance of a farigiraf attack, you might be a little trouble, but not immediate lethal danger. These pokémon can use their formidable psychic abilities to do some damage with moves like Psychic, Psybeam, and Twin Beam, but these abilities aren’t necessarily disqualifying. I would certainly recommend training your farigiraf, but working with what we know so far I can’t say that much more danger comes from anything other than their large size.

Durant is one of those tricky cases where the biggest problem you’ll come up against is space. If one is able to accommodate a durant’s needs, and is willing to take on the physical danger they pose, they could make it work, but I can’t recommend one of these pokémon to just anyone.

Durants’ own size isn’t really the problem here, though it can be startling to those who don’t expect it. These pokémon stand at a foot tall and weigh over seventy-two pounds, quite a hefty weight compared to their size which can be attributed to their steel armor. Usually, this is where I would comment on a pokémon’s ability to move around inside a human home, but in this case keeping a Durant inside your home is ill-advised: you will need to provide them with a space to make their own home. This comes with its own critical problems, which we’ll get into more later.

We don’t have any indication that durants get along with anything other than fellow durants. These pokémon live in communal colonies, working together to drive away natural predators like heatmor or sandacondas (Black, Black2/White2, X, Y, Omega Ruby, Alpha Sapphire, Sword, Shield). Within a durant colony, individuals take on different roles (Black2/White2, X, Omega Ruby) in order to protect the nest. Adopting a durant requires adopting more than one, I’d wager, in order to maintain their social needs. It will also require distance; approaching a durant nest is a bad idea, especially considering how formidable these pokémon are.

Durants have powerful mandibles, which can use moves like Fury Cutter, Vise Grip, X-Scissor, and Guillotine to chomp with enough power to crunch through rock (Shield). A swarm of durants, all working together, could easily prove lethal to a human, so approach a nest with great care.

And speaking of the nest: considering this pokémon’s size, their habitat will need to be pretty huge. Wild durants construct nests in mountains, forming “complicated, interconnected tunnels” (White). They hide their eggs deep in the earth in order to protect them (Sword). Providing a colony of durants the space they need will require you to have access to a lot of land, a resource that is not available to a lot of owners.Keeping them in your home runs the risk of them claiming it as their nest and forcing you out, causing immense damage to the structure by digging through it.

This one hurts, it really does. Despite how cute and unassuming sandshrews are, I cannot recommend one as a pet to most owners due to the particular environment they need to thrive in and the destructive potential of their move pool. It’s a tragedy, but a sandshrew should only be taken on by an owner who not only has intense dedication to doing so, but has the resources to keep them happy and healthy.

To start off on a positive note, these little guys are the perfect size to be a house pet at just two feet tall and under thirty pounds. There isn’t much in the pokédex that indicates that sandshrews have an antisocial or hostile personality, though it also doesn’t confirm the contrary. Where problems come in is where wild sandshrews spend their time, and how difficult this would be to accommodate in the home.

Wild sandshrews live almost exclusively in arid, sandy environments due to their hatred of water, which causes their skin to wrinkle uncomfortably (Red/Blue, Yellow, Silver, Crystal, Diamond/Pearl/Platinum, Ultra Moon). They have evolved to survive by conserving water, meaning that they require very little (Ruby, Omega Ruby), presumably surviving off of dew that gathers on their dry bodies during the night (Yellow). They make their homes in sandy environments for many reasons. For one, they can use their claws to dig burrows in the sand to keep them safe when they rest, which is most of the time when they aren’t actively hunting for food (Red/Blue, Silver, Crystal, Shield). Sandshrews also love to take sand baths, keeping them clean and, most importantly, dry (Sword).

In order to mimic this natural environment for a pet sandshrew, you would have to provide them with a sand pit with enough depth to satisfy their burrowing instincts and that is dry enough to keep them comfortable. Even if you are able to accommodate for this need, keeping your sandshrew from burrowing beyond your home and getting lost would be a headache of its own. Despite the small size of their claws, sandshrews are powerful diggers, able to scatter hard stones in their way to burrow where they wish (Shield). All in all, creating the right environment for a sandshrew to be happy, healthy, and safe is more of a task for a wildlife professional than the average pet-owner.

And none of this is to speak of how dangerous these pokémon can be in a pinch. While its true that sandshrew are much more likely to protect themselves or flee if trouble comes their way—something they are quite adept to with their ability to role up, bounce, and roll their way out of trouble (Gold, Silver, Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald)—their ability to use the home-destroying move Earthquake, the Poison-Type move Poison Sting, and a variety of claw-based attacks makes them a bit of a liability nonetheless. While I’m sure that these behaviors could be trained, they must be taken into consideration alongside the intense environmental needs this pokémon has.

While I, like many pokémon enthusiasts, find fossil pokémon to be really cool, there are many factors that can make them entirely unsuitable for being a house pet. Unfortunately, anoriths are no different. Caring for one of these pokémon is going to be exceptionally difficult, meaning that even a “D” rank doesn’t really save them from being a bad pick for anyone but an absolute expert in caring for them.

To begin with, though, size clearly isn’t an issue. Anoriths only weigh about twenty-seven pounds and measure in at two feet long. This means they certainly aren’t too big to be a pet outright, though providing them with an aquatic habitat will be beyond the means of a fair bit of owners (its actually a bit worst than that, but we’ll get into that in a minute).

We don’t have very much information about this pokémon’s temperament or relationship with humans, mostly because they lived long before humans walked the earth. Any modern anoriths you see have been regenerated in a laboratory from a prehistoric fossil dating to over 100,000,000 years ago and is in fact an evolutionary ancestor of many modern Bug-Type species (Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, FireRed/LeafGreen, Diamond/Pearl/Platinum, HeartGold/SoulSilver, Black/White, Black2/White2, X, Y, OmegaRuby, AlphaSapphire, Ultra Moon, Sword, BrilliantDiamond/ShiningPearl). In addition to making it difficult for us to determine how well one of these pokémon would get along with a human, it also makes them a difficult one to adopt. While not as rare as a legendary or mythical pokémon, it will still take a lot of luck and probably a lot of money to adopt an anorith, which may price out a lot of potential owners.

While they historically were avid hunters of smaller prey (Ruby, FireRed/LeafGreen, Diamond/Pearl/Platinum, Black/White, Black2/White2, X, Y, OmegaRuby, Sword, BrilliantDiamond/ShiningPearl), they don’t pose an exceptional threat to humans, especially if you stay out of their tank for the most part. Which brings us back around to the single problem that makes an anorith an almost impossible pet to care for for most owners. Because their bodies were evolved to live in the seas of 100,000,000 years ago, these pokémon are unable to survive in modern seas; wild populations of this pokémon never last long due to their incompatibility with the composition of modern seawater (Ultra Moon). This means that maintaining a tank for an anorith not only requires specialized seawater, but seawater that matches the composition and conditions of millions of years ago. While this is something that a well-funded and well-researched laboratory may be able to manage, the typical pet owner will be entirely out of their depth.

A qwilfish, unfortunately, would not make a great pet for what I assume are some pretty obvious reasons. Given their poisonous nature, they aren’t going to be a good pick for most owners unless they have the needed expertise to care for one safely.

Now, normally, a pokémon measuring in at just over a foot-and-a-half tall and weighing eight-and-a-half pounds would be no problem as far as space goes. It’s right in the range we’re looking for, after all. The problem is that this is an aquatic pokémon, meaning that you will need to provide them with an underwater habitat with plenty of space to move around in. Given the shape of their bodies, qwilfish are known to have some difficulty swimming despite their aquatic nature (Ruby/Sapphire, Emerald, Diamond/Pearl/Platinum, Black/White, Black2/White2, OmegaRuby/AlphaSapphire BrilliantDiamond/ShiningPearl), which only means that they will need more space to navigate safely than other Water-Type pokémon of the same size. Such an aquatic habitat isn’t something that all owners are going to be able to provide, meaning that right off the bat their size and environmental needs make them a poor fit.

While size might not make them terribly difficult to transport from place to place, touching them is very much ill-advised. These toxic pokémon are covered in spikes filed with dangerous venom. When they feel threatened, qwilfish can inflate their bodies by sucking in water, launching these venomous spines as potentially deadly projectiles (Gold, Silver, Ruby/Sapphire, Emerald, FireRed, LeafGreen, Diamond/Pearl/Platinum, HeartGold, SoulSilver, Black/White, Black2/White2, X, Y, OmegaRuby/AlphaSapphire, Shield, BriliantDiamond/ShiningPearl, Scarlet, Legends: Z-A).

There’s a little bit of a silver lining to this of course, that being that they give a pretty obvious visual cue when they are about to do so, but it still makes them dangerous nonetheless, capable of using concerning moves like Poison Sting, Poison Jab, Toxic Spikes, and Toxic at a distance. But that’s not all! If a qwilfish has the Poison Point ability, then you could become poisoned just by touching them, making handling these pokémon quite risky.

How about zamazenta?

Like many legendary pokémon, there isn’t much objective information about Zamazenta, which makes them a little bit of a puzzle to assess. It seems to me that they wouldn’t be the best choice for a house pet, though it would be an honor to befriend them.

I suppose it’s not a surprise, given their size alone, that they aren’t receiving a glowing grade. Zamazenta stands at a towering nine-and-a-half feet tall! This would make it difficult for them to get through doorways, let alone stand at full height in many rooms! If they are equipped with their signature shield, they would likely be too wide as well! While wearing their shield balloons Zamazenta’s weight to almost two tons, their normal weight of over four hundred and fifty pounds is going to make them a pretty unwieldy house pet. Getting Zamazenta around is not going to be easy, and their size makes their move set just the more dangerous.

Given their status as a legendary defender of the Galar region, Zamazenta is, to put it lightly, quite dangerous. Considering their size and weight, their signature Behemoth Bash is enough to raise everyone’s eyebrows. This is a pokémon that once went toe-to-toe with Eternatus, so it’s needless to say that they’re a bit too powerful to keep as a house pet.

And that’s assuming that they would want to be your pet in the first place. As we always must keep in mind with legendary pokémon, there is only one Zamazenta. They are a mighty warrior, once feared and respected by all the people of the Galar Region aeons ago (Shield - Hero of Many Battles, Sword - Crowned Shield, Shield - Crowned Shield). While they are known to work well with humans (Sword - Hero of Many Battles), they may simply have duties too important for domestic life. Adopting the one Zamazenta in the world would require traveling to Galar and taking away one of its protectors, something Zamazenta might not even want to do.

It’s been a while since I’ve covered an Ultra Beast! These one’s are tricky: we know so little about them, since researchers have had such little contact with them. Their biology and behavior is often so… well… alien that they are difficult to assess. Considering their general aggression in our dimension, I would wager that a pheramosa would not make the best pet.

Pheramosas stand at just under six feet tall, though I doubt that they would have much trouble navigating a home considering that they are roughly the shape of a human. While they only weigh fifty-five pounds, this height will make them a little difficult to transport, though taking them on errands to the vet or a groomer or whatnot might be futile anyway given their alien biology. The pokédex isn’t able to give us much information about their ideal habitat: while pheramosas are a common pokémon in their homeworld, Ultra Desert (Ultra Moon), we don’t know a whole lot about it as humans have only travelled there on extremely rare occasions. Its arid, rocky environment might dictate that a pheramosa would be more comfortable in drier environments, but I can’t say for sure. We do know, however, that they feel uncomfortable with a perceived “uncleanliness” in our world (Moon), which I’ll get into more later.

What I can say for sure is that pheramosas don’t have a good temperament for living alongside humans. The pokédex refers to this pokémon as a danger in our world (Sun, Ultra Moon), due to their aggression upon traveling here through an Ultra Wormhole. While pheramosas aren’t the “nstantly vaporized you” type of dangerous, they still pose a serious threat. Despite their thin appearance, pheramosas aren’t incredibly strong (Ultra Sun) and can move about “at terrific speeds” (Sun), using kicking moves like Low Kick, Double Kick, Triple Kick, and High Jump Kick to brutalize their opponants. Being attacked by a pheramosa is no joke: there’s a reason why the authorities are so keen to get them under control when they make their way to our world! I wouldn’t count on being able to train a pheramosa very effectively, given their discomfort with our world, so I’m not sure if there is a way to get around how dangerous these pokémon are.

Well, this one is certainly a mixed bag. While, like other eeveelutions, glaceons are quite friendly, their unique biology presents some peculiar concerns about keeping one as a house pet. While some owners will certainly be able to handle a glaceon, I can’t say that they would be the perfect fit in every case.

Thankfully, with a size that doesn’t exceed that of a pretty average sized dog, glaceons are far from too big to ever live in a home. If you live in a smaller space, a glaceon might not be your ideal option, but said cases are probably few and far between. Despite their icy appearance, the pokédex actually doesn’t indicate that glaceons need to live in a cold environment to be comfortable. Rather, this pokémon runs cold, to say the least: glaceons can lower their body temperature to as low as -75 degrees Fahrenheit (Sun, Ultra Sun). You might not need to keep your home freezing for a glaceon, but you can count on them making your home freezing for you, for better or for worse.

Glaceon’s body temperature is so low, they can instantly freeze the moisture in the air around them, which could leave your home fillies with a flurry of ice and snow (Platinum, HeartGold/SoulSilver). This can cause needle-like ice to form on their fur, which they use to attack their prey both with physical contact and at a range (Diamond/Pearl, Black 2/White 2, Moon, Ultra Moon). It probably goes without saying that this is all going to be a bit too much for some owners.

-75 degrees is well below temperatures that are dangerous for human skin, meaning that contact with a glaceon could result in frostbite. That’s without even mentioning moves like Freeze-Dry and Blizzard have the ability to freeze someone or something solid from a distance. As active predators, one can assume that glaceons would need to engage in a lot of active play: without very special training, their icy instincts could cause you and your home a lot of harm.