Some people may wonder:
Why do I hoard? I'm not interested in trading for a complete collection, since I only want to trade for pets I actually like; now that I've already achieved most of the pets I want after playing for 10+ years, that means most of my current gameplay is gonna have to be trading for pets that I already own some of. Having a large group of the same cute pets can be aesthetically pleasing, and also fun: I can imagine the pets interacting with each other (the lair of my noodle dragons must be a riot), I can give them unique names or personalities, and I can even dress them all up differently (currently trying to do that 100% with my realistic ePPS seals).
I tend to choose specific pets to hoard based on how much I love them (am I really interested in trading for more than one or two?) and how easy they are to trade for (I avoid hoarding rare+ or high-demand pets; the rare+ hoards that I currently have were either originally uncommon when I started hoarding them, or event token pets that I bought with my own tokens, or acquired through one single trade or gift like my store rats and Rudolph rats).
If you do not support hoarding, you are entitled to your opinion, but it's my preferred way to play the game and I consider it perfectly ethical as long as every pet is acquired fairly (I am extremely opposed to ninja trading). Admittedly, hoarding retired store pets is iffier to me since they can be so hard to come by and they never get rereleased; but my store rats were acquired through a single trade from a user offloading their existing hoard all the way back in 2018 (long before they went OMGSR). I don't want to remove any more ratterflies from circulation, but the ones I already own are dearly beloved, and the pets I already own in general are not a public resource, so I will be keeping them forever <3 Fun fact, the 2018 trade actually included even more store rats, but I donated most of them to the Pound, so if you've ever pulled a ratterfly from the Pound there's a good chance it was from me!
My Rudolph hoard is for sentimental reasons since all of the OMGSR Rudolph rats were gifted to me by a very kind friend in 2018. I also really love/relate to Rudolph as a character, so hoarding Rudolph-themed pets reminds me of many happy memories <3 I don't proactively send out trades for anything other than forum-advertised swaps, though, so I would only get more Rudolph rats if someone chose to offer one to me (and I won't say no if they want to trade it away, but tbh I'm content with the ones I have already). I love them all!

Art by Vampiric for CS Advent, 15 December 2025 <3