Also pets. Gifting someone a pet does neither the recipient nor the animals any favours unless you know for certain that they both want a pet (and that it’s an actual informed want with all the required forethought and self assessment for both the advantages and disadvantages of having a pet, and not just “a puppy running around my house would be so cute!”) and have the means to support a pet.

Especially if the recipient is a kid and/or you’re giving them a fish or rodent or some other small cheap animal that is considered low maintainance or disposable. News flash, no pet is low maintainance or disposable and you might as well just step on the animal instead to spare them the suffering because a dumb little kid will kill them slowly and horribly. I see this happen all the time and it pisses me off so much. Pets aren’t toys, they shouldn’t be given to children who can’t even take care of themselves.

Actually, please just stop giving people animals without their prior input in general. If you truly want to gift someone a pet, you should be involving them in the acquisition process, taking them to the shelter to choose a pet for example, because the personality of the individual animal and whether it’s suited to the personality of the people that will be caring for them is absolutely critical. If you can’t do that but still want to support their having a pet, then see if a shelter will sell a prepaid adoption certificate, that way they can still choose to not go through with it, or just buy them pet supplies if you know for sure that they plan on getting a pet. There are even species agnostic gifts if you don’t know what kind of pet they plan on getting.