The Rat Lovers Club! ~MODS PLEASE LOCK!

[Sadies]

I WOULD NEVER DO ANYTHING TO MY ANIMALS THAT WOULD HARM THEM! I AM NOT AN EXPERIMENTER! I AM AGAINST ALL ANIMAL CRUELTY! TO BE QUIET HONEST IT IS MORE DANGEROUS AND CRUEL TO BE BREEDING ANIMALS THAN TRAINING A HAMSTER AND RAT TO GET ALONG.

You people make to much of a fuss out of nothing.

I quit this forum. I will leave you with video proof found on youtube that rats and hamsters can get along and co-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBQzGVfIwGQ

[Centri]

Of course some individuals can get along with other species, but many don't, and it is safer not to try.
I mean, one of my rats try to get in to my guinea pigs sometimes when he is out of the cage, and sometimes he gets there before I notice it, but he has never harmed them, nor they him. All they ever do is sniff each other. (And then I have to bath him to prevent any lice from the hay getting on him)

[MochaTheLlama]

Just butting into the subject, I'd like to say that my one dog was TERRIFIED of Zeus and never came in my room. I decided to introduce my Yorkshire Terrier to Zeus just to see, completely forgetting that Yorkies were first bred to hunt rats. Well, luckily I had my hand on his collar because he perked his ears, raised his tail, and then lunged at Zeus. Good thing I had a hold on his collar or Zeus would've been a dead rat.

[Centri]

Yeah, most terriers were originally bred to hunt rats and mice. My cat just thinks that the rats are weird and refuses to go near them.

[rachaelandrats]

If we're posting links then what about this, http://www.ratztails.co.uk/supportforum ... 299950739/
Still worth it?

[Centri]

I think she has left this thread.

[skrapple]

Yesterday I had a really sore throat. I got Monkey out and she laid down next to me and fell asleep while I was holding her, which is weird because she's usually so jumpy. I think she actually sensed I was sick and wanted to comfort me or something. <3

[ru.]

In those pictures the animals aren't actually sitting together... pictures are taken against a blank background and put together.

I love rats and I've had over 100 of them, but you can't train them to 'get on'.

My dog has a high prey drive, I can't 'train him' to get on with my cats.

Rabbits and guinea pigs... sure they used to be kept together, people thought that was fine, but if you ask anybody who knows about either guineas or rabbits, they would reccomend you keep them completely separate at all times. I didn't say domestic rats and wild rats are completely the same. Yes a wild rat would run away from people..., but it would also kill a hamster in the wild. They are domesticated with us, but their instincts? Completely the same as in the wild. They are the exact same breed, just domesticated.

Yes, domestic rats and wild rats are the same species (not breed), but I've heard that domestic rats are as far removed from wild rats as dogs are from wolves.
Any breed of dog can get along fine with cats and other small animals if socialized/raised correctly. I've seen breeds from Chows, to Heelers, to Collies, to Jack Russels and other Terriers, to Retrievers, to Rotties, to Hounds get along with cats and small animals. It's a matter of good socialization, not necessarily "training" although sometimes that does play a large role. Ultimately any and all well socialized animals should easily get along with or at least tolerate other animals.
Yes, there may be nothing to necessarily gain by allowing different species pets to meet in an attempt to have them get along. But in your everyday home in modern day society a lot of people have multiple species of pets and it's difficult to keep them apart. You see this all of the time with cats and dogs. So why should it be any different with another highly social animal such as a rat? And yes, it's not natural for them to get along, particulary if they were wild, but it's not natural for humans to live with them or keep them either. We do a lot of unnatural things.


EDIT to add:

Rats never had their instincts bred out of them... why would a lab find them hard to work with. If a lab was using them for testing, they aren't exactly going to be handling them or introducing them to other animals. You can't breed out their instincs. Domestic rats still do the same things as wild rats. They stash food in the same way, need to live in groups in the same way, all those little things like that. You can't change the animal. I just don't see why on earth you would risk putting your pets together.... to what, say that you 'trained them to'? Sorry but you can't train rats and hamsters to get on with eachother and you can't train them not to have certain instincts. It comes down to one thing and that's just luck. The fact that people have had pets die from introducing them is reason enough to prove that it is wrong to even put your animals in danger like that. You should protect your pets against any possible danger, not use them as some kind of experiment to see if you can train them to get along.

Deeply engrained instincts don't vanish. You're right. However, most of the ones that make them difficult for us to keep have been minimized during the domestication process. Why do you think that it's illegal to keep wolves and wolf-dogs in so many places? Because wolves are different from dogs in the same way that domestic rats are different from wild ones. Their instincts may be the same; i.e. wanting to keep company because they're highly social, same body-language, barking and howling, digging, amazing sense of smell, to chase and kill, etc. However, there is one main difference; in domestic dogs those instincts still exist but they have been toned down a lot during the domestication process to make them easier to work with. The same goes for other domesticated animals.

Yesterday I had a really sore throat. I got Monkey out and she laid down next to me and fell asleep while I was holding her, which is weird because she's usually so jumpy. I think she actually sensed I was sick and wanted to comfort me or something. <3

That's. Adorable! :3

[skrapple]

Thanks! I've heard of things like that in dogs, but never in rats, which is pretty cool~ That made me love Monkey more than physically possible.

[rachaelandrats]

I don't know if you meant that my dog could be socialised to live with the cats. I know that generally, cats and dogs can get on along. Our labrador isn't kept in the same room as the cats but if he meets with them, doesn't bother him. As for the dog (GSD) I mentioned... that isn't anything to do with his socialising. He met 2 of our cats when he was a puppy and continued to meet them. Because of his high prey drive, he has to be kept completely separate from them, we have to get them all in the house before we take him out... bit of a nightmare but not every single cat and dog are going to get on for whatever reason. Obviously that's more than just them not getting on though.

Sorry but rats and dogs/wolves are completely different.
Domestic rats are 'norway rats', just domesticated. Same as your usual wild rat (obviously you do get overs too, roof rats etc).
There's been a lot of situations on rattie forums that people have found young rats, or had half-wild rats (irresponsiable people that have somehow let their rats breed with wild rats, then these people have to clean up the mess)... they may be a bit more skittery but aside from that, these people have kept them as pets... wildies/half wildies. Sorry to go on a bit, guess my point is that they are really identical to wild rats. There's no real difference.