Community Chat

[Shorty2U]

I cant see the pictures in the original post but I am not a fan of mice OR rats. Brrr. I don't even like my grandkids hamsters. lol. They each have one they take care of. Well, they keep telling me to hold them and try to put them near me and I say no that's OK. :-)

[mistriTsquirrel]

On 1/23/2014 Shorty2U said:

I cant see the pictures in the original post but I am not a fan of mice OR rats. Brrr. I don't even like my grandkids hamsters. lol. They each have one they take care of. Well, they keep telling me to hold them and try to put them near me and I say no that's OK. :-)

My mom felt the same way about my pet rat when I got the first one. By the time he passed away, she had become very fond of him...and she no longer thinks it's unsettling that she has "grand rats."

To be honest, I had a friend in high school who had a rat, and I thought she was crazy. (As it turned out, she did have mental problems, but the rat as a pet thing was unrelated. ) Anyway, I thought her rat was gross, and couldn't stand the tail.

When I started working in pet stores, I was fascinated by how smart they are...and I was also endeared by their behavior towards one another. (They would groom each other and cuddle with one another.) The fact that they are so smart was probably the main thing for me. I worked in a small pet store, and we had a couple of rats get loose in the store. We set up a live trap, and never trapped any of them, but the "bait" food was always gone. One day, I stood around the corner and watched one of them come out of hiding. She stuck her little arm through the side of the live trap to get the peanut butter. I started laughing when I saw that, and she ran back to her hiding spot. I couldn't help but have a greater respect for rats after seeing that, as well as seeing/reading other evidence of their intelligence.

[violann]

A clean, well trained rat can make an endearing pet.

[HisElk]

On 1/23/2014 croemer said:

On 1/23/2014 HisElk said:

Aww, croemer, I wish I could see the pics, but it's not coming through on my computer; maybe it's me.

I will post the LINK and you can go there HisElk!

LINK

Thanks, croemer. Just got a chance to take a peek and those pics are so cute. Thanks for sharing.

[croemer]

Thanks for the information and the stories ladies!

HisElk...glad to see you were able to take a look.

[sfnative]

Croemer,

I love the pics! My first pet was an albino rat that I purchased from UCSF for 50 cents. Then a few months later another one that looked just like the one in the first photo. My dad was really great about this: he built them a two storey rat hotel! (My mother hated everything about it, but we didn't care.) We'd take them out to the backyard occasionally and let them chew on green stuff. As a treat, we'd also feed them bologna. Now that just doesn't seem right-the bologna part.

They were great first pets.

[croemer]

On 1/24/2014 sfnative said:

Croemer,

I love the pics! My first pet was an albino rat that I purchased from UCSF for 50 cents. Then a few months later another one that looked just like the one in the first photo. My dad was really great about this: he built them a two storey rat hotel! (My mother hated everything about it, but we didn't care.) We'd take them out to the backyard occasionally and let them chew on green stuff. As a treat, we'd also feed them bologna. Now that just doesn't seem right-the bologna part.

They were great first pets.

You are so welcome sfnative, how cool a 2 story rat motel. What a good dad.