New and Lovely Things

[maychorian]

Discovered something else about rats--like kittens, they will play with dangly string. I first found this out when I wore a shirt that had a little leather lacing at the neck that you could pull and loosen. Soon as I took Wallace out of his cage that night, he went straight for the dangly string and pulled it just as tight as he could, then tried

Comments

[archaeologist_d]

Rats.... I know they are pets but I can't get past the ratty tails and the teeth.

Sounds like you have great ones, though!

[maychorian]

Ah, I love their little tails and teeth. :D But I started with pet mice, which are unabashedly adorable, and worked my way up.

The thing that's hard to explain to people, though, is how different domestic rats are than wild rats. It's like comparing a dog to a wolf. And my ratties are fantastic, yeah. Very tame and smart, and affectionate as well. And always eager for attention. I love spending time with them.

[archaeologist_d]

Ah, see I had problems with pet mice. My kid got 2 mice and that quickly became 40 mice. All in one fish tank. We ended up taking them all back to the pet store.

To me, they looked like white cockroaches, jumping all around and squirming. Gave me the creeps. Two were cute. A whole bunch, not so much.

Now we have parakeets instead.

[maychorian]

Yeah, I can understand that. Too much is too much. I keep mine separated by sex, so there are only babies when I decide there will be babies. And they can definitely multiply really, really quickly. You never got a chance to enjoy their individual personalities, too, with so many of them crammed in too small of a space.

Pet store mice often have problems, too. They usually aren't hand-tamed, and can be biters. Mice take a lot of work to be good pets. Since I hold mine from the time they're a week old or so, they're very tame and enjoy spending time with me. I also like having different colors for variety, though I have some white mice, too. Good pet mice are wonderful, but bad pet mice are just annoying.

My family had parakeets, too. :) My sister Talitha is crazy about birds, and has three cockatiels.

[thehowlingwolf]

I really do not understand how people can hate rats. i think they are really adorable :) and if my mother and sister weren't so incredibly against it, i would probably buy one pretty soon :P but i guess i'll have to wait until i move out

[maychorian]

Yeah, the family can be a problem. One reason I got my own place when I did was because my dad hated the fact that I had pet mice and wanted me to get rid of them. But I was also a college graduate with a steady income, so that helps.

Do your mom and sister have a problem with hamsters and gerbils? They're all in the same family, only rats are much better pets, since they're more social and playful than hamsters will ever be. Hamsters will run away from a human hand, but a rat will run toward it. :)

[thehowlingwolf]

no, hamsters and gerbils are fine. i really don't know why they do not like the rats. i love to stay near the rats cages in pet shops and play with them, but my sister always wants me to go away from them. though, she's a bit afraid of our birds and rabbits as well, but that is because of their claws. mum doesn't have that problem, so i do not know why she doesn't like rats...

[maychorian]

It's a cultural association thing, I think. In Asia and other parts of the world, rats are seen as symbols of good luck and wealth. But in the Western world, we're taught that rats were to blame for the Black Plague, which killed millions of people. Cultures have long memories about this sort of thing. And so pictures of rats depict them as evil-looking monsters spreading disease and filth, and you just grow up believing that. I know I did, too. Even in a Disney movie like Lady and the Tramp, the really evil villain is a rat that's sneaking into a nursery to bite the baby