Shared responsibility complicates life, especially the lives of those people who receive the majority of the responsibility. When a job or chore belongs to a group of people, the responsibility sharing is rarely equal; more often than not one person is often burdened with all the responsibility.

Many people begin to overlook, or forget, the needs of their pets in a group situation, and let all of the responsibility fall on one person who is truly not responsible for all of the pets. The person, who unwillingly has all the responsibility left to them may begin to feel overwhelmed, and hard feelings can occur against their friends who have unknowingly taken advantage of his/her generosity.

As an overly caring person it makes me very mad when I have to see animals suffer, whether their suffering is small like missing one meal, or larger like when people neglect to feed, water, and care for their pet’s health.

Group responsibility often brings out peoples true colors of being very caring or overlooking. In the long run the person on the opposite side will appreciate you informing them of this possible conflict in your relationship. The responsible one in a situation like this should consider asking the others to take some responsibility and decrease his/her work load. Some suggestions are to ask the more overlooking people in your group to keep a list to help them remember their obligations or ask if they will take a part of the chores with you or consider switching off whose responsibility it is each month.