Rats! Mans true best friend

Either if you love em' or hate rats. They're here to stay for a very long time. From pest, house pets and animal testing. Rats are proving that they're something special in the world. As a owner of pet rats throughout the years, I've had my hugs and heartaches with my pet rats. Yes, rats can seem overwhelming and I have become allergic to them over time to my pet rats. But anyone cannot deny falling in love with these marvelous creatures.




"When I can find a video in English and it's the entire video. I will post it."
COMING SOON!!



This is my pet rat that passed away recently. He was not very photogenic. But he sure love getting hugs.

Conclusion. If you ever want to purchases a pet. Please think about the rats!

[edit on 12-5-2010 by Romantic_Rebel]

[edit on 12-5-2010 by Romantic_Rebel]

I also have two rats and that's true : they're really smart !

They can recognize me for sure, and they now when it's time to eat ! And when I forget they start to make some noze to get my attention !

But they can't make surprizing things like basics maths...

They're just animals, but they're smart for their tiny brain !

My father is a neuro-biologist and sometimes he is using rats for experiments.

In the rat box there are up to twenty rats.

He told me when he wanted to take all the rats, the first one do nothing. He just killed him rapidly.
He took the second one, and kill him the same way...

...

When comes the number 7 or 8 or 9 they totally understood what happened and all started to go in the same corner with such panic and force that the ones who where the firsts in the corner just died because of the pression from the other rats...

Strange story but I believe it !

For some reason I can not post the link. Once youtube has a upload I will post one.

Except for that whole spreading the bubonic plague that killed half of Europe thing. Although they have been important as far as certain tests scientists do, but they would use other animals if there were no rats.

I love rats. But I love just about every mammal, to be honest. But I have had pet rats, and I agree. They are loving, intelligent, and wonderful little animals.

And as for rats spreading the plague, that wasnt their fault. They carried the fleas, and the fleas were unwitting participants too. Humans spread diseases too, after all. If you have to lay blame, I guess you have to go all the way to the root organism and blame it.

reply to post by Romantic_Rebel

Either if you love em' or hate rats.

My vote is love them.

Most rodents are adorable and cute, but rats in particular can be very affectionate. Everybody loves squirrels, but have you ever had a squirrel sit on your shoulder and lick your cheek? Some rats will do that.

Rats are fascinating animals. First mammals were similar to rat/mice. But when one rat mom decided to nourish her family inside my kitchen-stove ... From this encounter I use poison at autumn when rodents are migrating from fields into houses. Cleaning of stove was terrible task. Smell ... Terrible smell. We drinked one liter of vodka during it ... it was terrible.
Bubonic plague is almost eradicated thanks to antibiotics but there are other health risks connected with rats: link

I love rats, too. I've had several as pets and always allowed them to run around the living room in the evenings. I soon found that if something wasn't bolted down, they'd steal it.

You've brought back so many happy memories, I wish I'd known that they liked to be tickled though.

I did kiss them and occasionally I'd get a little tongue poked in my mouth

I think they felt protective towards me, too. My last little one used to curl up at the end of the bed when I was sleeping, just like a tiny watchdog.

Happy days.

Originally posted by Romantic_Rebel
For some reason I can not post the link. Once youtube has a upload I will post one.

You have way too many characters between your yvid tags. If you would post the entire url here, we can fix it.

Rats in cages= Acceptable
Wild Rats= Terrifying


I recently helped clear out a garage where an old lady neighbour had not used it in about 5 years and had been storing all her old curtains in there.

We had an initiall reccy and spotted some rat droppings so brought a cat in to have a nosy around...after several patrols it found nothing and left unamused.

All went well untill we got to the back of the garage and suddenly about 15 large rats broke for cover with one of them trying to get up on of my neighbours trouser leg...

We'd been toiling through what we thought was sitting rain water that had leaked in thorugh the roof and covered all the boxes and it was only when we discovered the rat city at the back of the garage did we work out it was probably rat urine...

5 big guys all ran out screaming and we had to call in a guy with three terriers to clear it out.

All I can remember s the sound of their claws on the concrete floor and their grotesque wiry tails slithering behind them...

Hate em .

Rats are great company and wonderful fun pets to have.
We had two Caramel and Toffee, the Female was a little more independent than the male, but Toffee the male knew how to make a cup of coffee.

I would often carry him around as he hated being left alone, he loved human contact.. typical male..loved attention

I would have him on my shoulder and he would walk down my arm, lean over the bench and try to reach the draw handle to open it.
I would open it get out a tea spoon, then he would push the sugar canister around until I opened it and added it to the cup using the spoon, then he would do the same with the coffee decanter, once I had a spoon full of coffee in the cup he would climb back up my arm and wait till I poured the water in the cup then he would scamp across my shoulder all crazy until I got the milk from the fridge lol

The female Caramel was funny our border collier would be asleep on the couch and Caramel would sit up on the back of the couch.
She would wait till the dog was asleep , run down to the dog and flick her on the backside and quickly scamper back up. The dog would wake up and look around as if to say what was that, this would go on for ages, was very funny to watch.

Thank you for bringing back these wonderful memories of our beloved Caramel and Toffee. I now have a smile remembering them.

reply to post by time91


As already stated rats did not exactly spread the plague. It was the fleas.

Humans actions are also partly to blame.
For some reason they thought maybe cats (being evil and all) and familiars might be the cause, so massive numbers of cats were slaughtered to try and ease the numbers of plague sufferers. Then for some reason plague numbers went up.

Before people call me on it I realise a massive rat would rip apart a cat that attacked it, cats do prey on juvenile rats and thereby keep the numbers somewhat in check.

For the record, I like rats (and cats) and love the band ratcat.

Don't go now.

Cheers,
Pablo

My only experience with rats has been the dead ones that are occasionally presented to me by my cats as gifts, and the ones that were fed to the snake in biology class in high school. We used to stay after school especially to watch the snake being fed. I suppose they would make good pets if you only have a very limited space.

I love rats; they are so cute and intelligent. Darling little mammals, they make great pets. I am grateful for the contribution rats have made to medicine, science and technology, paying with their little lives for our advancement (though I wish there was a better way.) When I see one in the wild I love to watch them.

That said, I have to admit: last summer I killed a bunch of rats. It grieved me to have to do it, I actually said a prayer for the little guys, but I had to do it. A family of rats had taken up residence under my house and they were decimating my vegetable garden, especially my corn (which they utterly destroyed) and my grapes. Also we live in an area prone to hantavirus and I just could not risk them living around my property. It made me sad.

reply to post by Whateva69


That's so sweet. Mine were never allowed into the kitchen but the first two used to hover on the threshold hoping for a chocolate button from the fridge.

One of them used to get under my feet when I was carrying a cup of coffee from the kitchen to the living room, causing me to spill it.

As I stood there swearing he used to lap up the droplets. A suspicious person might think he'd done it deliberately

I too, love rats.

Had many rats as pets when I was a youngster.

Also, let's not forget the cadillac of rodents: the guinea pig.

Love them too.

And since this is a conspiracy site: rats spelled backwards is star. Whoa!

Edit to add mind-shattering conspiracy.

[edit on 13-5-2010 by univac500]

reply to post by warpcrafter

My only experience with rats

I once found a half-drowned rat in a toilet. I looked at him, and he looked at me with anguish...too helpless even to be scared.

I got something to fish him out with and held him in the sink, warmed the water first and cleaned him off with it. He sat there, unmoving. He seemed to understand that I wanted to help him, so he let me wash him and warm his body. I dried him off and placed him in an empty wastebasket with some lunchmeat and walked him to a nearby park. Then I looked at him and explained that I thought he was wonderful and that I'd love to have him as a pet, but that I wasn't going to keep him against his will, and he was free to go if he wanted. Then I gently tilted over the wastebasket so he could get out and simply watched and waited to see what he'd do.

After a few moments he wandered out of the wastebasket and into the bushes.

I sometimes wonder how the rest of his life turned out.

Originally posted by Terviseks
My father is a neuro-biologist and sometimes he is using rats for experiments.

In the rat box there are up to twenty rats.

He told me when he wanted to take all the rats, the first one do nothing. He just killed him rapidly.
He took the second one, and kill him the same way...

...

When comes the number 7 or 8 or 9 they totally understood what happened and all started to go in the same corner with such panic and force that the ones who where the firsts in the corner just died because of the pression from the other rats...

Strange story but I believe it !

Uhh... I think it's quite obvious that most animals can sense danger. Strange experiment indeed.....

reply to post by Terviseks


So, your father is neuro-biologist and he needed to kill animals and put the others in shock and fear for the express purpose of...what? To determine if livings things have an impending sense of fear when presented within a context of anxiety and doom?!

How about this experiment. We starve about 50 rats for a few days in a nice enclosed chamber. They we throw your brilliant scientist father into the chamber and see what happens.

Do you think the results will be useful for humanity?

Stuff like that sickens me. I love rats. Very personable and very friendly and loyal animals. I've never owned any myself but a few friends over the years have had pet rats and swear by them.