Gifting pets is terrible. Unless the person being gifted to wants or at least can take care of the thing. My uncle got his son a dog and his son is a menace, he was pulling on it's ears grabbing it's mouth so much, the dog bit him and almost tore the little shit's ear off. And they had to abandon the dog. Please don't gift animals to kids, or to someone who hasn't agreed to having one.
I think it's pretty obvious the child is not the one who is going to be in charge of taking care of the pet and that the decision to give the pet was made by the family to stay in the family (or at least by the dad seeing the age of the photo lol).