Currently I have five dogs and seven cats. All are delightful, but some are more work than others. While by personality our Shar-Pei, Gracie (see my avatar) was my favorite animal, I really wouldn’t want to pick out any of them as a favorite.
However, I have decided that the next animal with which I fall in love will be small enough to pick up (our American Bulldog, while delightful, weighs 120 pounds), short-haired (our “Golden Pei” cross needs daily brushing and frequent baths), tan, brown or black (white animals get dirty-looking way too easily), and female (not so much “accidental” marking inside the house).
The easiest pets I ever had were land hermit crabs. Even their names were easy because they were the Kings of England series: each of them was named Henry, and I had 8 of them. The Giant Madagascar Hissing Roaches were almost as easy, but they had a tendency to escape, while the hermit crabs did not, and they did smell like roaches. And you really couldn’t take any of them for a walk. But none of them bit, chewed, barked, had accidents on the rug, knocked breakables off high shelves, tore up the furniture, or stole food off the table.