Child dies from rat bought from Petco

[waggy]

I only read the first page of this thread, but I want to clear up some of the false information that sickened me on that page.

1) Rats did not cause the Black Death, Bubonic Plague, Plague of Justinian, or any other plague in human history. The bacteria was carried on fleas which rode on the rats who thrived because of human refuse and after a human religious culling of felines.


2) Rats are extremely good pets, but not ideal for a 10yr old or younger children in general. They are smart, social, interactive animals, they love to be pet, love to cuddle, love to eat, and the owner will need to handle and play with them daily. With proper care, they carry no diseases or infectious agents than a dog or cat.



Statements like that ^ are just pure, uneducated, stupidity.

3) PetCo gets their animals, rats included, from mills. They are bred indiscriminately in bulk, with no social interaction with humans and minimal veterinary care.

4) This 10 year old kid had a single rat, which any semi-educated rat owner who did 5 minutes of research before buying would know is MAJOR no no. Rats are extremely social animals and its absolutely critical for their mental and physical well being to have a companion.

5) This 10 year old kid wanted to breed Oreo, the name of the pet rat. A child of his age is not responsible enough or financially capable of breeding rats. With an average litter of 8-10 rats of mixed gender, the neuter/spay bill alone would wipe out any savings or allowances he might have. And if he didn't fix them, he would see 'oops' litters from those offspring, and then litters from those offspring, and so on. That doesn't factor in vet bills. For 10 rats with a myco flare up, the vet bill would run close to a 1000 dollars. For me to take a single one of my rats to the vet costs about 100 dollars, and thats only for the exam and an Rx to Baytril.

It honestly doesn't shock me that PetCo's animals had an infection or that they bit him. As I said, the mills they get their rats from offer no human interaction, which coupled with the lack of training and knowledge from the PetCo employee, likely created an intense fear of humans in all their small animals. When their only experience with humans in negative, what do you expect? Hell, I once watched a PetCo employee pick an adult rat up by its tail! The PetCo near me is horrible about cleaning or maintaining their small animal aquariums, last I was in there, their ferret tank had a mound of poo nearly a foot high. Their mice and rat tanks had mixes of both genders, ages, several pregnant females, etc. If a pet store, an pet store, cannot ensure a basic level of care for their animals, they should not be selling them.

Great post!

I never buy any living animal from petco (only get frozen mice when i need it).

you make a great point about only buying 1 and that the rats have no interaction.

I have seen people with very friendly and gentle rats. but they have 2-3 and are held all the time.

the tail on them though disgust me..lol

 

[Bateluer]

the tail on them though disgust me..lol

It does for a lot of people. Just remember they don't normally drag it along the ground, its held up when they run. It'll stay clean so long as the human is diligent about cleaning their cage as well.

 

[zinfamous]

Disgusting vermin that was responsible for the Black Death make great pets! People are so out of touch with nature and reality it's scary.

actually, rats are damn smart and make excellent pets. It's actually weird that this bit him, because rats rarely, if ever, bite. My guess is the kid was abusing it.

Mice, on the other hand, will bite the fuck out of you just for looking at them

<--years handling mice and rats in research.

 

[zinfamous]

Only in America people buy rats.

Seriously, at what point in the history did "owning a rat" became ok or rats became pets?

Unreal.....but more power to Petco

Sucks for this family though....not cool

that's weird. when I was living in Switzerland, the family that hosted us had 3 pet rats kept by their kids.

So, I guess only in America and Switzerland?

 

[zinfamous]

I lived in Europe for many years and never heard of Rats as pets. Hamsters? Sure, but rats......never.

I'm not going to educate myself on the subject as it is "no way in hell" when it comes to my household.

And this thread/news doesn't really help that.

Rats are far, far better pets than hamsters. You probably think: grey, pink tail gross Norwegian "sewer" rat when you hear the word "rat."

If you're going to keep a rodent as a pet, might as well be a rat

 

[Gooberlx2]

Worked with enough lab rodents (mice and rats). Could not imagine them as pets.

I can see how that would affect your perspective. I was a public aquarium biologist for years. While I can see how people enjoy owning fish, to me it's just work. Same with scuba diving. Dive in a tank for hours on end everyday, and the activity loses its luster. (I sure do miss the calorie burn though). Snorkeling is pretty much the most I care to do on tropical vacations anymore.

 

[BikeJunkie]

I guess "because I say so" is your argument approach for everyone and not just your kids.

It's amazing how some people are actually proud of their ignorance. You don't necessarily have to abandon a personal distaste just because you find out it's not objective. No one's telling you to let your kids have rats.

LOL listen to yourself. How about you get just a LITTLE more worked up over my "ignorance" of rats HAHA.

Oh nos I fail as a parent because I don't want to deal with rats!!!!1

 

[BikeJunkie]

Better not be driving with them in the car either, or attend school. You want to know how many human contagious diseases the other kids are carrying?

Sorry, you only get one stupid analogy per thread, and you used yours up with "lightning".

 

[Exophase]

LOL listen to yourself. How about you get just a LITTLE more worked up over my "ignorance" of rats HAHA.

Oh nos I fail as a parent because I don't want to deal with rats!!!!1

I don't have a problem with people being ignorant and I'm not worked up over your ignorance of rats. I'm just amazed at people who react to a simple correction of a common misconception by plugging their ears and singing.

No one ever said you fail as a parent. I even agreed with you, if you're not willing to be open minded about a pet you shouldn't let your young children have it. But "you'll understand when your older" is a really strange thing to say to them in this situation, I'm having a really hard time getting what it is you think they'll understand. If they think rats would make a good pet now they'll probably think that when they're an adult, you don't generally go from thinking animals are cute as a kid to gross as an adult.

 

[WelshBloke]

that's weird. when I was living in Switzerland, the family that hosted us had 3 pet rats kept by their kids.

So, I guess only in America and Switzerland?

They are pretty popular in the UK as well.
I've never owned one but I've been in shared houses with people who did, they always seemed affectionate little things to me.

 

[BikeJunkie]

I don't have a problem with people being ignorant and I'm not worked up over your ignorance of rats. I'm just amazed at people who react to a simple correction of a common misconception by plugging their ears and singing.

Because we're talking about RATS, not anything important. Maybe this is a super duper critical important issue for you, but most people just don't GAF.

 

[Exophase]

Because we're talking about RATS, not anything important. Maybe this is a super duper critical important issue for you, but most people just don't GAF.

I'm amazed about people who do it in general. Like I said, I don't really get why people are actually proud about their ignorance. It's like they think they're standing up for themselves or something.

You GAF enough to post and keep posting in this thread. Here's what happened: you said some stupid things and you're being abrasive to anyone who points out why what you said was stupid. And apparently I'm not the only person doing it. I'm not sure how much of this is typical forum ego or how much of it is because you don't like rats. Do you have any pets? If you do, do you think it's called for for someone to say your pet isn't important?

 

[zinfamous]

Because we're talking about RATS, not anything important. Maybe this is a super duper critical important issue for you, but most people just don't GAF.

Translation:
"I don't really understand the subject matter at hand to discuss it in a reasonable matter, and nor do I care to, so I'll just hit you up with some ignorance-based bias and tell you to STFU."

 

[OBLAMA2009]

Link to above story with photo of rat & boy:

http://www.chron.com/news/science/article/Child-dies-from-infected-rat-family-sues-Petco-5266967.php

im skeptical here. thats no lab rat, it looks like a freakin sewer rat, i doubt it came from petco

 

[akahoovy]

Rats are far, far better pets than hamsters. You probably think: grey, pink tail gross Norwegian "sewer" rat when you hear the word "rat."

If you're going to keep a rodent as a pet, might as well be a rat

Hamsters are balls of spite and vitriol. I go to the pet store and mess with them by picking up the little houses and watching them tumble out of their pile.

 

[Exophase]

im skeptical here. thats no lab rat, it looks like a freakin sewer rat, i doubt it came from petco

Pet rats come in lots of colors, they're not all pink-eyed whites like the classic lab rat (although some of them are). This one looks like a berkshire rat with a grey coat on top but white belly, legs, and tip of the tail.

 

[akahoovy]

I've had the pleasure of taking care of a friend's rat who was very social and liked to play. I've also owned 2 of the worst rats that could ever be had as pets. There was something wrong with them. They came from PetsMart.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Wow you'd think that the whole point of buying through a place like Petco is that they make sure the rats have no diseases. Though I guess, shit happens, this is a rather isolated incident. Really sucks though.

 

[surfsatwerk]

Wow you'd think that the whole point of buying through a place like Petco is that they make sure the rats have no diseases. Though I guess, shit happens, this is a rather isolated incident. Really sucks though.

http://www.harlan.com/products_and_services/research_models_and_services

This is where you buy disease free animals.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

Pet rats come in lots of colors, they're not all pink-eyed whites like the classic lab rat (although some of them are). This one looks like a berkshire rat with a grey coat on top but white belly, legs, and tip of the tail.

it looks like something his senile granny might have ripped out of a glue trap

labs rats are actually kind of cool pets. my sister babysat one when we were kids and they smell horrible but theyre friendly, didnt bite and are easily motivated to do tricks by almost any kind of food

 

[zinfamous]

Hamsters are balls of spite and vitriol. I go to the pet store and mess with them by picking up the little houses and watching them tumble out of their pile.

lmao. please tell me you actually do this, as part of your daily routine.

 

[Bateluer]

Here's the rattit subreddit.
http://www.reddit.com/r/RATS/

Its filled with cute pictures of people's pet rats, videos of them acting playful, etc.

 

[BladeVenom]

So be careful and don't get bit before you feed them to a snake.

 

[OCGuy]

Look, there are a whole host of psychological reasons human keep pets, including a surrogate for children either lost or never had, or companionship.

But you will never convince me that the basic human behavior of anthropomorphizing something like a dog is the same as a rat. For those who did not grow up around pet rats or on a farm, I would be very interested in what trigger in life lead them to choose rats over everything else.

 

[Bateluer]

But you will never convince me that the basic human behavior of anthropomorphizing something like a dog is the same as a rat. For those who did not grow up around pet rats or on a farm, I would be very interested in what trigger in life lead them to choose rats over everything else.

A rat is pretty much a tiny dog. Except their hands are dexterous enough to manipulate small objects. Little annoying when they're perfectly capable to figuring out how to open their own cage.

For me, I bought my first pair of rats because I wanted smaller animals that I could basically put in a cage when I wasn't playing with them, that I didn't have to take outside to walk, and that I wouldn't have to take to a kennel or a friend's house if I decided to take a long weekend trip somewhere.