Rats!

[DeadlySin]

Who has or has had a rat as a pet?

I had one for almost two years. Her name was Cleo and she was my baby!
Sadly she died about a year ago. =/
I miss her.
I know a few people will probably say ewww, and I thought the same till I got one.
They are like mini kitties and give soooo many kisses.

So am I the only rat freak on this site?

Pretty sure Playing Pretend will find her way on this thread. =P
Miss I HAVE THREE RATS.
I wanna steal one of hers >.>

Anyway! Feel free to posts pictures as well. =D

Here's mine!

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._3918584_n.jpg

[ChaosControl]

Awww, Cleo looked adorable. I'm sorry she died.
I love rats, as pets, but I must admit I'd freak a bit if I saw one in my garage or the back garden. I've never had any pets, but a friend of mine has two black rats and I'm jealous xD

[MegaMadness]

I think my mum would kill me if I had rats. And I'm sorry to hear about Cleo.

[i_am_waves]

Aw, Cleo was cute! I used to have a white rat named Astro, lol. I think rats are great as pets, but I'd freak the hell out if I just saw a random one in my apartment or something, lmao.

[Whisperer]

I love rats! I work at an animal shelter and they have like 7 baby rats! They were adorable. During one of my driving lessons I brought up the shelter. When I mentioned the rats the lady was like gross! We spent the entire hour arguing about how rats can be cute she was mean lol

[LittleMiss]

For those who are interested, here's a great page from a lady who keeps rats.
Her Journal has heaps of facts about keeping them and making them happy.

http://dianephotos.deviantart.com/

And a website she linked to about why you should NEVER buy a rat from a pet store.
http://www.brecklagh.com/petshops.html

[Rosalie]

My parents won't let me get a rat (we have cats) but I LOVE them! They're such interesting and intellegent animals. I like to spend time at the pet store just watching them...

[Morgan.]

I have never had a pet rat, but i would love one. I think there adorable. But im pretty sure they are illigal where i live.

[actingpassion123]

rats are amazing pets. I had a bunch growing up, and recently had two but one passed away. the other is living with my friend since i'm at college. I get the same reactions too!

[rac146]

I have had tons of rats, I currently have 5. Rats are super social creatures, so if anyone on here is thinking about getting rats, keep in mind they are pack animals and are happy with at least one companion (of another rat) I have a huge cage and take my rats to the vet and get them surgeries when they need em too so Im even extreme to some ppl. Some ppl like my rats but wonder why I take my best care of them....its because they are so awesome

[TheBabyEater]

I would love to get a rat one day. I almost got one about a week ago, but ended up getting four mice that were being horribly abused But I was petting a rat at Petsmart, and she just about crawled up my arm asking me to take her him

Right NOW though, I'd die if I got another pet. I already have to figure out what to do with all mine when I go to college. ._.

[mint-eh]

Where I live rats are illegal to own and someone can get a $5,000 fine for owning one. I live in Canada in the province of Alberta by the way. I have never seen a rat in real life, just on tv. Alberta has been deemed a rat free zone for WAY longer than I have been alive. They kind of creep me out and I don't see the use in them. But I guess they are like any other rodent pet. We can have pet mice though. Kind of the same.. Just much smaller. Cx

[C0co]

I had two pet rats named Riley and Chubby, but unfortunately one of them died in August 2008 and the other one died in January 2009. I still miss them though.

[OMFG!You'reActuallySmart!]

I never actually owned any rats but because of the area I study in (neurobiology, neuropsychology & pharmacology), I've done, read and watched experiments done on live rats. I've also dissected dead rats. I think it'd be unusual owning one because I'm used to them being used in scientific experiments. However, I do have dogs and although a rat cage would be out of my dogs' reaches, they can jump up and have knocked things down that were out of their reach before.

[TheBabyEater]

One of my mice is getting so big I might just start calling him a rat to make fun of him

[Jaden89]

I absolutely love ratties, they are the best pets aside from dogs, in fact they're like mini dogs! They love to give kisses and cuddle. Currently I have 5 boys and 4 babies are being transported from Ohio this weekend, all 4 are rescues, all of my rats are rescues. Anyone interested in rodent pets should definitely consider these cuddly little guys. They really aren't so icky!

[OMFG!You'reActuallySmart!]

For those of you who own rats, do you train them or do any non-invasive tasks for the rat (such tasks don't hurt the rat at all)? If I had rats, I would definitely do these, such as Morris' water maze task, conditioned place preference, etc... .

[Jaden89]

I'm not sure about whatever it is you're talking about their but my rats are litter trained, come to their names, play dead and dance >.>

[WillO'Wisp]

I think mice and rats and all animals are cute furry little guys.
I've never owned any though. They just don't interest me enough for me to own any.
I would like to own a python and some frogs and toads, and some tarantulas. Those fascinate me the most. I am strangely obsessed and in love with spiders and big creepy crawly things. I guess that's what makes me different from most girls haha. xD

[OMFG!You'reActuallySmart!]

Originally Posted by Jaden89

I'm not sure about whatever it is you're talking about their but my rats are litter trained, come to their names, play dead and dance >.>

That's not what I'm talking about at all. The things I mentioned are used in scientific research to understand memory and learning. Morris' water maze task works like this: you take a very large circular (ideally) tub and put it in a room where you place certain coloured objects on the wall, preferably large objects (i.e. can paint some cardboard and use those). You fill the tub with water then add stuff in it to make the water opaque so you cannot see the bottom of the tub at all. Next you put in a small platform that is just under the water level but do not put it right next to the walls of the tub. The water should be a luke warm but a little bit cold also. This is a video showing how the water tub could look, its rough size and how some items on the wall may look (these guys are using only black-and-white items on the wall). Cut to 1:06 of the video just before where Brooke starts and watch until the end, the stuff before it just ignore: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24kDZ...eature=related. When Yves starts (before Brooke), he doesn't take a walk around the room and when the camera tries to focus on the room, Yves puts his face in the way

The idea is when you first put the rat into the water, it'll swim around randomly trying to find the platform. Once it stands on it for a few seconds, you take it back to its cage. Later (i.e. hours or 1-2 days) you use the same rat and you'll notice the rat will swim pretty much straight to the platform because it is using the same visual cues from the items on the wall to gauge the platform's location. The water must be cloudy so the rat cannot see the platform when you first put it into the water. The first experiments used milk but that is costly and cannot keep for a while, so people usually use powdered substances with water.

Conditioned place preference is an experiment you may not want to do because it is more complicated to set up and if you don't do it right, you will hurt the rat pretty badly.