Current Events > Rats being SSS+ tier pets has to be one of the strangest discoveries for me

(+) Yeah! (+)

Why are they so damn affectionate and intelligent compared to all the other non-dog/cat pets? It's legitimately weird, especially given their stigma.

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Pics?

Just don't open up a drug dealing business with it.

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Are mice as smart and affectionate? Bc they're cuter.

How long do they live as pets?

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Kanaya413 posted...

Pics?

White one = Oreo
Brown = Socks


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Wetterdew posted...

Are mice as smart and affectionate? Bc they're cuter.

How long do they live as pets?

I don't know about intelligence, but I do know they are much less affectionate because they are not pack animals in the same way rats are.

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DarkRoast posted...

White one = Oreo
Brown = Socks

OREO IS SUCH A LITTLE NUGGET

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Ok those are very cute.

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Oreo is 100% tsundere. She will play hard to get in the cage, but if I start playing with Socks, she'll get jealous and immediately run up my arm and sit on my shoulder. She also acts like she's gonna run off and explore, but she never goes more than maybe 10 feet from you before she scampers back.

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Socks is interesting. She's very affectionate and docile, but if you leave her to her own devices, she'll do the craziest shit

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my 6th grade teacher had class pet rats and the students could volunteer to take them home on weekends. i was fuckin obsessed with them and ended up taking them home like ten weeks in a row towards the end of the year because nobody else wanted to towards the end

they're cute as hell

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Cute precious babies

You ever put them in an unrelated picture you sent to a friend? Someone who didn't know you had rats yet.

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PatrickMahomes posted...

my 6th grade teacher had class pet rats and the students could volunteer to take them home on weekends. i was fuckin obsessed with them and ended up taking them home like ten weeks in a row towards the end of the year because nobody else wanted to towards the end

they're cute as hell

Plus they're extremely easy to take care of, because they're very easily litterbox trained and they don't run away from you.

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cuh posted...

Yes they are cute but how is the poop situation

You can litter box train them. About as easily as cats, actually.

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Wetterdew posted...

Are mice as smart and affectionate? Bc they're cuter.

How long do they live as pets?

Roughly 3 years. Very prone to cancer in my expierence.

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They don't live long that's why
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Rats are so cute, but theyre illegal here.

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Three year lifespan, if they don't get some horrific cancer in the meantime.

DarkRoast posted...

Plus they're extremely easy to take care of, because they're very easily litterbox trained and they don't run away from you.

exactly, so easy they would allow a freaking 6th grader to handle em. even my parents were fine with me taking full responsibility after the first run, they just left them up in my room with no problems.

short lifespan sucks but yeah that's life with rodent pets

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Keeping literal vermin in the house for fun

Why

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WizardPowers posted...

Keeping literal vermin in the house for fun

Why

A pet is just a vermin that you feed willingly is why.

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It's crazy because hamsters a lot of the time, especially Russian dwarfs, will bite the shit out of you and don't make great pets, yet they remain the most popular pet rodent that people buy for their kids.

I work for Petco for 7 years, i've been bitten by hamsters dozens of times, maybe close to 100. I sustained one single rat bite the entire time I worked there. I probably handled more rats over hamsters also over that time.

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BloodMoon7 posted...

A pet is just a vermin that you feed willingly is why.

i too am so grossed out by even the sight of rats. these pictures to me are not cute. But I love dogs and if these rats are apparently as affectionate as them then I can understand why TC is fond of them.

really makes you think how big an impact social conditioning(dunno if that's the right phrase) has on the brain

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haloiscoolisbak posted...

i too am so grossed out by even the sight of rats. these pictures to me are not cute. But I love dogs and if these rats are apparently as affectionate as them then I can understand why TC is fond of them.

really makes you think how big an impact social conditioning(dunno if that's the right phrase) has on the brain

But look how cute he is



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Yeah, my ex got a couple of pet rats years ago and I was surprised by how nice they actually were. Even took care of the surviving one for a few months after we split up.

Neither lived very long though, less than 2 years for the oldest.

Tyranthraxus posted...

But look how cute he is

That's a meme-worthy picture right there.

I dislike rats, but really good shot though.

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TetsuoS2 posted...

That's a meme-worthy picture right there.

I dislike rats, but really good shot though.

I made this with it:



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They'd never replace my Ferrets, but I've kept rats in the past and they are amazing creatures.

I kept a pipe attach to the cage door that led to the back of my sofa, I'd pop the door open and watch TV and wait for the little scuttle of feet and then I'd have shoulder rats to watch TV with, before they went off and did ratty things with little ratty toys and hidey holes.

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lol, that's great

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Sucks that mice/rats dont live too long

I had a pet mouse as a kid and he died at 2 years and some months old. I used to take him to the
Playground and let him walk around the woodchip area. Never bit me when i carried him and was very docile. One day i found him dead in the cage after taking a shower. We buried him in the front yard inside a matchbox. A few days later i dug him up to see him one more time but it looked like something had broken into the matchbox so his body was gone.

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As long as they're not some gross old dude pretending to be your pet

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Tyranthraxus posted...

But look how cute he is

DravenRainrix posted...

They'd never replace my Ferrets, but I've kept rats in the past and they are amazing creatures.

I kept a pipe attach to the cage door that led to the back of my sofa, I'd pop the door open and watch TV and wait for the little scuttle of feet and then I'd have shoulder rats to watch TV with, before they went off and did ratty things with little ratty toys and hidey holes.

I miss that. Id walk all over the house all day with a rat on my shoulder. When I went to bed hed even curl up on my shoulder and sleep.

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mooreandrew58 posted...

I miss that. Id walk all over the house all day with a rat on my shoulder. When I went to bed hed even curl up on my shoulder and sleep.

AWWWW

mooreandrew58 posted...

I miss that. Id walk all over the house all day with a rat on my shoulder. When I went to bed hed even curl up on my shoulder and sleep.

I had long hair when I had rats, one of my boys liked to make a kind of nest in it on my shoulder just below my left ear. "Chaos" his name was, if I listen very carefully, to this day, I can still hear his little ratty snuffly snores in my left ear. . .

(And now my eyes seem to be leaking...)

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I had a hamster once... I named him Pikachu since it was the 90s and pokemon was all the rage. One day I put him in his ball and he jumped down the stairs. Ball broke open, he lived and proceeded to climb inside the wall. Got him out, only for him to die a week later because our broke ass couldn't be bothered to fix the hamster wheel properly, so we secured it with a bobby pin and he ran so hard that night, it popped off and yeah....

He was a proper asshole though, had no problems biting fingers.

Rats are vaaaaaastly better pets than hamsters

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imagine owning vermin as pets

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Rats are awesome. Garter snakes are also great. They also have social behaviors and will seek attention, make eye contact, and will sleep in your shirt sleeve. They live 10+ years too.

These topics are really making me miss having ratties.

So smart, so affectionate, so sweet.

I *really* miss having em.

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I would have never known about rats as pets if it wasnt for CE I wouldve never figured they could be emotionally attached to humans like that but I guess so lol

Tyranthraxus posted...

I made this with it:

lmfao

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https://youtu.be/iMVh5uO3FSA

My ex had rats. They are very cute and clean and fun but they die, all the fucking time. Like in our house there was another rat death like every month or so. It got too mentally overwhelming for her and so she stopped having rats.

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pinky0926 posted...

My ex had rats. They are very cute and clean and fun but they die, all the fucking time. Like in our house there was another rat death like every month or so. It got too mentally overwhelming for her and so she stopped having rats.

Yeah, thats why I stopped having them back in the day. I still remember when my first rat died. She was an incredible little thing. I tried to teach her to associate a bell being rung with getting a treat.

She uh, started ringing the bell herself, then would stick her paws out like gimme!

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I'd prefer a long rat aka a ferret

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In honour of this topic I found an old pic of me and her most unusual ever rat. An eyeless, albino, patchwork rat that was called threadbear. Lord knows how he found his way around but he did.



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I am sure Threadbear was an absolute sweetheart, but that is one terrifying rat.

Reminds me of a late night horror TV show I saw once with super intelligent rats

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pinky0926 posted...

In honour of this topic I found an old pic of me and her most unusual ever rat.

Why is that rat made out of a towell?