python - Writing less elif statement

I need help with this.

a = ["cat","dog","fish","hamster"]

 user = raw_input("choose your fav pet ")

if user == a[0]:

    print a[0]


elif user == a[1]:

    print a[1]

elif user == a[2]:

    print a[2]

elif user == a[3]:


    print a[3]

else:

    print "sorry, the aninimal you type does not exist"

What I want to do is a testing mobile app so I use animal as testing. The program did work but the problem is that there are over 100's of animals in the world and I put them in a list, I don't want to create many elif statements.

Is there a way to make it shorter and faster?