Pets expansion is alot of fun... but for some reason ever since I got it, my sims no longer have much of a social life.... lol

Dogs are great and cute, and walks are fun... (that is if a park is nearby... >.< ) but then they pee on the floor.... or get lonely.... so you get them a friend.. maybe a cat (less work right?) then there is a kitty box to be changed, scratching posts to be replaced, the animal toys are so boring.. I really feel sorry for these bored pets, (9/10 times these poor animals would rather guard objects then romp around/be playful) btw how annoying is guard objects every 1-2 mins........anyways, there are also dishes to be filled (yay for the mods that fixed that annoying part)
Let's not even get into.. teaching tricks... gaaah!

Cats give my sim more freedom, but, dogs.. wow.. I dunno they are just so hard to take care of, lol
Just me? ugh....Maybe I just have issues with letting my animals roam the neighbourhood... cats get the run of the house... dogs get the back yard....or balcony... poor puppy..
Have a kid or two on top of that... crazy!
you can just about forget about horses...

Where does my sim find the time... lol

Ahahaha, I see, I agree completely. I prefer cats in the Sims, though, in RL i'm a dog person all the way.

Yeah but you don't need to dedicate more time to them than you want. You don't actually HAVE to teach them tricks. And if peeing is a problem, train them or give them the neat trait. As for social, go for the independent trait.

Also, try sending them to the dog park by themselves, or give them the adventurous trait. Personally, I give them a skill point of hunting and then just stack a bunch of "Find _____" commands.

Good point! My Sims do spend more time with the animals now. I was thinking that not every household would be so pet obsessed. However, I just don't play Sims 3 enough to have gotten to that point yet.

If you have more than one pet per household and have free will on high then really you don't have to spend anytime with your pets, they will entertain each other and look after their own needs. Then really you just spend as much time with your pets as you would other sims.

Also, you can avoid litter boxes and just make the pet do it outside. Also, it is easier with multiple pets.

Actually one of the buyable litter boxes is autocleaning so that isn't an issue.

Also look into the self-bathing gadget lifetime achievement reward if you're having flea problems.

I love this thing, one of my dogs is obsessed with the ball thing and gets fleas most days.

I cheat most of the time and make the pet's needs static.

they get free run of the entire neighborhood, make other people's pets preggers and just cause a menace

Then when I have "respectable" sims their in the backyards and OTHER dogs break in.

I don't have Sims 3 Pets, and it sounds a LOT more realistic than Sims 2 Pets (which I have)!

I usually have more than one pet per household, and before I was running my sim ragged trying to take care of them all, but you really don't need to. Besides social, they can take care of themselves, and if you have more than one, then social is not a problem.

It really is MUCH more realistic, yes

But I would agree with the above posters... if you micromanage your pets they can take all your time, but with a little care and possibly a little cheating, they can be completely autonomous too (You can get the self-filling litter bowl and flea-removing hygiene lifetime rewards from buydebug if you don't want to wait.)

And, since both dogs and cats have potentially very lucrative hunting skills, your sim can give up their day job, which frees up a LOT of time

At the beginning I was kind of annoyed that pets don't have lifetime wishes, but on balance I think it's better this way... the reason I can never stand to let any of my sims be autonomous is because I feel guilty if I don't get everybody's LTW :/