Why Do Rats Have such a Bad Rap?

[Nico-Nico Friendo]

I wish I could have a pet rat. My parents tell me I cannot have one (or a pet mouse either). My mom is especially afraid of them. She says she does not like their long, 'ugly' tails. She makes this out to be her justification for allowing hamsters and guinea pigs, but not rats and mice.

From what I've heard from people who have owned rats as pets: rats are sweet, intelligent, affectionate and entertaining. But a lot of people HATE rats and are scared of them. Why do people think rats are so nasty, dirty and evil? I know, I've heard of the black plague, but PEOPLE back then were not at all sanitary either, and rats died from the plague too because of the FLEAS that carried the plague and infected them with it. Maybe WILD rats can be dirty and carry diseases, but PET rats are generally clean and if you take care of them they should not carry any nasty diseases. Besides, other pets can carry diseases that are infectious to humans too . . . rabies, worms, bacteria, psittacosis (in birds), and yet it's always the RATS that get the bad rap. Even MICE (who are also 'pests' in the wild as rats are) are thought of as 'cuter' and are often the heroes in animal stories (while rats tend to be the villains). Why is that?

Just look at this book and the customer's review:

http://www.amazon.com/Attacks-Animal-Attac...47&sr=1-271

Are rats REALLY so dangerous? Are they really that evil?!

My parents think that pet rats will attract wild rats into the home. I find that hard to believe. Just as a wolf or coyote and a domesticated dog tend not to get along, I doubt wild rats and domestic rats want to hang around each other, either.

I want the truth about rats.

On one side I hear they are wonderful and intelligent creatures who are friendly and affectionate, and on the other side people are saying they are ugly and dangerous and disease-carriers and ought to die.

How can such cute creatures be despised so much?

Rats Laugh When You Tickle Them:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=myuceywaOUs&...feature=related

Rats Will be Rats:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=EoSrrPIaoMM&...feature=related

Relaaaaaaxed . . . :

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=YwAt7kyTJJo&...feature=related

[Guest Fosco]

Pet rats are very clean, and in generally 'wild' rats are clean too, it's the flea's on the rats that cause all the issues!

It's the tail that does it for me. :(

[Nico-Nico Friendo]

I just learned that a rat's tail helps it to keep cool . . . it sweats through its tail (as well as through its feet -- and sometimes it may pant in emergencies to get cool). The tail also helps the rat to keep balanced (like a cat or monkey's tail does). I see rats use their tail to support themselves when they stand up on their hind legs.

I would like to have a hooded rat, like one of these:

[Shockwave]

I had a pet rat when I was in high school. He was all black and I named him Norman Bates. He was a lot of fun.

[Guest Fosco]

Yhe, but a cats tail is nice a fluffy, and mine uses it as a pillow. :)

But a rats one is all skinny, and wormy.

Why not get a hamster?

[Nico-Nico Friendo]

I have already had hamsters before. But my friend had a pet rat and I thought it was very intelligent and entertaining to watch and interact with. It also seemed very clean and well-behaved (though a bit hyper).

[stormwind]

Oh, I love rats! All the good things that people have mentioned about them are true. I had a pet rat in high school, a black-and-white hooded rat that looked like the one in the fourth photograph. She was a fun pet. I'd let her run around my bedroom, and she'd come when I called her name or tapped on the floor. If I was laying on my bed reading or something, she'd lay beside me, or on me, or...crawl under my shirt and go to sleep. Her name was B.G. She died of old age. :( I had a couple others after her, but she was my favorite.

You have to be careful of their tails, though. Once I was playing with her, and grabbed her tail, and the skin slid off the end of it! She had to be taken to the vet for the bone to be amputated, so for the rest of her life she had half a tail. Later I learned that that's a common injury for rodents.

My mom is petrified of rodents. I remember that she had put up with the hamsters and gerbils I'd had before the rats, but a rat or mouse was a big NO!!!!! One day I was with my dad in the mall, and he let me get a baby rat. I told mom that it was a mouse. She wasn't happy about it, but let me keep it. But then she was onto me when it started growing...and growing...

If you get one, get a baby. (I think that's the age that pet shops sell them at, anyway.) And get a female. I had bad luck with the male I had. He'd pee on me whenever I picked him up, and he didn't seem as friendly or tame. And male rats' privates are gross, they're bald and drag on the floor behind them.

I never had good luck with hamsters. The few I had either died within a week, or they were mean. A rat is the way to go for a rodent pet.

[Dame du Lac]

Rats, mice, even cockroaches are only pests in certain contexts. They are all part of the ecosystems they evolved in same as any other creature. They only become a problem when they move into areas we'd rather they weren't living in (e.g. our homes, restaurants) or where they replace other species. Rats and mice are problems because they have similar diets to humans, i.e. they can pretty much eat what we do so they follow in our footsteps. Humans farm a large amount of grain and this attracts thousands of mice making them pests. But we are supposed to have field mice and wood mice. I seem to remember a few years back that many country mice were becoming scarce. Unfortunately, their town and city cousins are growing in their place and wreak havoc on households. Although these animals can cause diseases (especially the pest types of cockroaches) its mainly through large numbers living in close proximity to large numbers of people.

Pet rats aren't going to cause you disease problems, not least because they are bred as pets and would never come into contact with wild rats. As they have similar diets to us, its worth checking this as a cause of any aggression or hyperactivity. You know, giving them whole grains and raw cheese rather than refined and processed junk.

I personally hate seeing any of these creatures near my home, but I wouldn't freak if I saw a mouse running through a wood or field. In the UK mice are quite common as pets and I have known someone keep rats. Apparently rats aren't very keen on change so you can't move them around much. Best to find them a permanent spot right away.

Did you know there's a temple in India where rats roam freely and people think it is lucky to eat from the same plate? They don't seem to have too much trouble with disease from the rats.

[Guest Pelagic]

Rats are incredibly intelligent. They can count up to forty! (how they figured this out, I do not know).

My friends have pet rats. They will sit on your shoulder and remain there as you carry on with chores or just watch TV.

Mice disgust me more than rats, actually. I love all animals, but I consider mice to be snake food. Rats, however, I value them as intelligent, clean, amazing pets. I want to have a pet rat when I am older.

They only live for four years or so, though, which is sad...

I don't know why they are considered evil.... I do not mean any offense, but it may be due to some religion or something (m...sorry..Christianity made snakes "evil", when they are actually amazing and beautiful animals. But modern Christians didn't write the bible, so they aren't held responsible. I'm just saying..). Rats, snakes, sharks, wolves, almost everything is considered evil. Even certain breeds of domesticated dogs.

The true evil is humanity.

[Guest Pelagic]

Please adopt a pet rat. SARS (Small Animal Rescue Society, not the disease) allows people to adopt their pets. Petfinder.com will tell you about other shelters in the area. If you get a pet from a petstore, it will be unhealthy and you will be supporting overbreeding and evil. I'm sorry, but it's true. Opt to adopt, you will save a rat from loneliness and abuse.

But yes, females are better...males are too aggressive!

[ily]

I've always liked rats. Maybe because I was born in the year of the rat...mice, also, do creep me out a little. Anything that's so small.

[Forensic]

How can you NOT love rats?

They're such sweeties!

I have five ;)

Bacardi (poor love's sick right now... :( )

Guinness (he's the lazy one!)

Baileys (the camera ham!)

and Puck and Jack (the twins with opposite personalities, puck's a love, jack's a loner)

They are all boys, and live together and are NOT AGGRESSIVE. Don't let anyone tell you male rats can't live together.

Boys are more cuddly, females are more hyper.

They do need stimulation, though, so you have to get them out of the cage and play with them and they need a friend...

There are many rats in rescues and shelters because of people buying them as throwaway pets or not realizing the stimulation and space they need...

Boys can get big too, mine are all over a pound, but for Bacardi...

Why are so many people freaked out by the boy bits? :lol: Boys are at a much lower risk of mammary tumors, anyway.

[ily]

Aww, poor Bacardi! They're all so cute. And I agree, adoption is the way to go for any pet. Although, I know rodents don't have very long life spans to begin with, so I guess you'd have to make sure they're pretty young...

[Forensic]

3 years... maybe four depending on genetics and care... Yeah, they aren't too long lived... Bacardi's about 19 months, Guinness is 17 mnths, the rest are 16...

The twins are rescues and very sweet.

They're all litter box trained! And they rarely dribble on me any more (sometimes they do to 'mark' me as theirs, same reason a cat will rub its head against you.)

I see the OP likes hoodies... Baileys is my only hoodie left... But I had a black hoodie (Perry)... he wasn't handled as a pup, so he was afraid of people... :( He went to the Rainbow Bridge a few months ago... sudden heart attack as far as we can figure.

[Nico-Nico Friendo]

Please adopt a pet rat. SARS (Small Animal Rescue Society, not the disease) allows people to adopt their pets. Petfinder.com will tell you about other shelters in the area. If you get a pet from a petstore, it will be unhealthy and you will be supporting overbreeding and evil. I'm sorry, but it's true. Opt to adopt, you will save a rat from loneliness and abuse.

But yes, females are better...males are too aggressive!

I think it's better to get them while they are young, though, so they get used to people. I'm not sure if the rats at an animal shelter would be young enough.

I actually heard that male rats are more cuddly with humans (and lazy like human males. lol. Just kidding! :lol: ). I also heard before that two male rats will get along with each other just as well as two females will. And I also heard about female rats being the more 'hyper' ones that like to run around and explore more than cuddle. Females are also prone to mammary tumors (very much so). Either one would probably be fine. I asked someone if the males have a stronger odor than females and he said that neither one should have an odor if you clean the cage at least once a week.

Right now I have a guinea pig, so I don't really need a rat right now. But I think my next pet should be a rat. The sad thing is, I doubt I can convince my parents to let me have one. Maybe I'll be out of the house by the time I need to fight for a new pet . . . I hope.

[Guest the_random_squirrel]

i think rats are awesome. i've always wanted a pet rat, but i just never got around to doing anything about it...

maybe soon

[Forensic]

Right now I have a guinea pig, so I don't really need a rat right now. But I think my next pet should be a rat. The sad thing is, I doubt I can convince my parents to let me have one. Maybe I'll be out of the house by the time I need to fight for a new pet . . . I hope.

That's what I did... my father's terrified of them, but now that I'm on my own, they don't care (he just ignores them when he comes over).

And it should be 'rats' not rat. :lol:

[SorryNotSorry]

Lunamoth is right, if you're going to adopt a rat, do so when it's young, like you would a puppy. Up until I was about 7 or 8, my mother had a white rat named Tony. The only frustrating thing about him or any other rodent is, they need to gnaw on things to wear down their teeth, which grow constantly. My mother and I used to find all kinds of things Tony ground his teeth on---her brush handles, my Tinkertoys and crayons, you name it. There's a wild grey roof rat who sneaks into the garage and likes to gnaw my bars of polishing compound because of the diamond dust in it.

I think rats have faces that look like little dog faces... as for mice, they'll rarely attack unless they're starving. I've read about a drought in the San Joaquin Valley back in '26 when there were reports of mice biting people. Norway rats are probably the big boys on the block... roof rats are smaller with bigger ears, and Norway rats tend to give them the happy eviction when the two meet.

Rats, like pigs, are pretty smart... though if I didn't have my mother's dog Pearhead, I'd get me a pet pig and keep him in the yard. A pig can cream a burglar or a pit bull, and like a rat, a pig can eat just about anything that's food to us. Dogs and cats can't.

[Neabsco]

I have two healthy 18 month-old female rats:

They are quite hyper and usually not very cuddly. But they are also rather small, have soft, non-greasy fur, and don't have a scrotum the size of their heads, unlike most male rats I've known.

They're really easy to train! Easier than most dogs I've worked with. They come when I call them, are litter-trained, and will pirouette, heel, walk on their hind legs, and go back into their cage on command.

My parents wouldn't let me have rats or mice as pets when I was a kid, either, so instead I had hamsters and gerbils. Gerbils are nice because they hardly stink at all (and don't make much waste), and hamsters are cute and soft, but you can't beat a rat for trainability. I think my parents also thought that rats and mice have diseases, even though you're far more likely to get a disease from a pet dog or an indoor/outdoor cat than you are a house-bound rat.

My sister has guinea pigs - I don't know where people get the idea that guinea pigs are clean; they don't tend to use a corner for their toilet and just mess wherever they happen to be standing (sitting? lying? it's hard to tell with guinea pigs!), unlike other small animals. And they create a lot of excrement, and it cakes on their feet even if you've just recently cleaned the cage.

[BunnyK.]

Rats are adorable. I used to take care of the rat colony for a museum that kept them as snake food, and they were all very tame and friendly. As long as you clean their cage regularly, they shouldn't cause any problems with disease or smell.

If your mom absolutely won't allow a rat, go for a gerbil - they are MUCH more friendly than hamsters, can be trained to climb right onto your hand if you want to pick them up, and are minimally smelly. They're dumb as doorknobs, but totally loveable.

[Islander9]

I am slightly conflicted about rats...all 3 varieties here are introduced species, and all 3 have wreaked considerable havoc on bird & invertebrate species.

So, I happily set traps and lay out interesting poisons to get rid of the bastards-

(I live in a bird-rich, invertebrate-rich area.)

BUT- one of my maternal uncles kept rats & they were wonderful! Excellent pets, clean, intelligent (and rather short-lived aue...)

And I know from other personal experience, they learn quickly-

if I was in a city/suburban area, had good cages, I had have two or 3 rats for sure-

[Nico-Nico Friendo]

My dad claims he used to raise rats and says that they have a strong odor. My guess would be that he probably had too many and didn't clean their cages properly.

[Islander9]

Luna Moth (they're beaut! -I raise allied species - like gum emporers)

-rats actually do smell (paticularly ship/black rats) - it is a sweetish musk and very distinctive.

Shakespeare's "I smell a rat" is right on the button-

[Neabsco]

My female rats don't have that musky smell - I wonder if it's another male-rat thing.

[Forensic]

My boys smell a little musky, but it's only if you bury your nose in their fur. Most of the time they don't smell at all.

All the hating on the boys. :(

[Skylark]

Rats are portrayed to be much worse than they really are, and you're right, it is unfair. Unfortunately, you can blame a great deal of it on children's popular culture written/directed by authors who are too uncreative to come up with a better villain a lot of the time. A great deal of negative stereotypes come largely from kids' pop culture, actually.

Likewise, there's a stereotype perpetuated by the media that girls/women are scared of rats and mice, which is completely false and not only unfair to rats, but also very sexist.

Personally, I actually dislike rats, but that's because to me they smell repulsive. I couldn't sit through a whole two weeks of high school science classes because the class was taking care of mice and the smell made me physically sick. But I don't think they're bad creatures. If only they smelt less strong, I wouldn't have a problem with them.

[Jordan]

We should have a National Rat Day. Thousands of rats dies each year for them evil animal experiments.

I once had a strong desire to own a kangaroo rat.

[Kelly]

My female rats don't have that musky smell - I wonder if it's another male-rat thing.

Musk is similar to testosterone, and is a pheromone. Males tend to be musky in many animal species, including humans.

http://www.anapsid.org/pheromones.html

Men secrete musky odorants in abundance. The -3-ol precursor of boar taint substance is found in male urine, and substances similar to testosterone, such as androstenone, are secreted in the smegma and from the apocrine glands of the underarms and pubic area of males.

If you smell an old tee-shirt, you may be able to determine the person's sex by whether it is musky or not:

Twenty-nine college age students, 16 male and 13 female, were asked to wear a clean undershirt for twenty-four hours without using soap, deodorants, or perfumes. After twenty-four hours passed, the shirts were collected and put in buckets with the armpit right above a strategically placed sniffing hole. Two tests were then performed: the subjects were presented with three shirts, one theirs, one from a strange female and one from a strange male. The subjects were then asked to identify which shirt was theirs, taking as much time as needed. The subjects were then asked to identify which shirt belonged to the strange male and which shirt belonged to the strange female. The subjects generally sniffed each bucket once in succession, and then repeated the process. The results were impressive: 81% of the males and 69% of the females identified their own shirts correctly, for an average success rate of 75%, which is highly significant when compared to the chance percentage of 33%. In the second sex-identifying test, the subjects performed just as well: 81% of the males and 69% of the females were correct, for an average of 75%. Once again, this result was very significant, as chance would dictate a 50% success rate. When asked to characterize the odors of the shirts, the subjects generally said the males' shirts smelled musky and the females' shirts smelled sweet.

[oneofthesun]

I've had many rats, they make great pets. I talked to a small animal specialist vet once who said she wished people would get rats instead of hamsters and gerbils. And their tails are really cool - Silky if you pet them one way and spiky the other way.

[Vampireseal]

My boys smell a little musky, but it's only if you bury your nose in their fur. Most of the time they don't smell at all.

All the hating on the boys. :(

You can have rats neutered. At the vet clinic I worked at in S. Carolina, rat neutering became a routine surgery for us. It cuts out that smell and increases their lifespan.

Rats are fabulous pets. My brother had one male and two females (at different times). None of them were aggressive, and all were intelligent, sweet pets.

Of all the rodents, I feel they are the most docile. Given that most pet strains were bred for laboratory research originally, this is usually the case, since lab animals are bred for docility and managability. The "hooded" or Sprague-Dawley rat is probably the best known of the laboratory strains kept as pets.

I think people hate rats because of the association of disease. Also, anything that got into human granaries were considered "vermin" and hated, and that hatred has been passed on.