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I do. But I seem to want rats... Bernie would not like other pets. I wish I had a second rabbit for him, but why should he get a mate when I don't have one when he'll just chase her around and send fur flying.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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At Columbia, I was in a Behavioral Psychology class where we trained rats in Skinner boxes. Mine was a wonderful rat. Definitely Ivy League material. A Rhodent Scholar, so to speak.
Lab rats are all white, with pink eyes, ears and tails (because they are albinos). They are super-clean, and have no social associations with their sewer-dwelling, steamship-stowing, plague-carrying brethren. I begged Mom and Dad to let me keep him as a pet, but they wouldn't be budged. They were not interested in being the first in our neighborhood to introduce rats to suburbia.
So, if you are serious about getting a rat, see about adopting a nice lab rat.
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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Why are lab rats albinos? Was this deliberate? A result of inbreeding? It just happened that strains raised in the lab were albino?
Posts: 3546 | Registered: Jul 2002
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If you get a rat will you promise to not complain about work and money here anymore, since you can afford all these pets?
Posts: 1621 | Registered: Oct 2001
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Definitely the result of inbreeding: researchers want all members within a strain as identical as possible so that expriments run on them will produce the same results irrespective of who does them or where they are done. There are also many non-albino strains.
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
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I love my rats! They are awesome pets. I had hamsters before and I was going to get another one, but a few people suggested I try getting a rat. I chose to get 2 rats because they are socil creatures and like the company of other rats. Plus, taking care of one rat is not that much different than taking care of 2 rats.
I got 2 dumbo rats at a local pet store that often uses them for snake bait. I can tell you that rats honestly have personality. While most hamsters could care less about whether or not you existed, rats actually enjoy your company. You can even teach them things if you would like. My rats have it down pat when I make kissy noises it means to come to the side of the cage.
I know the tail thing freaks most people out, but even my grandmother, who dislikes rats, can't help but admitting that they have really cute faces.
If I knew how to do it, I could try to include a picture of my little Bean and Nugget.
Posts: 306 | Registered: Jun 2003
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quote:At Columbia, I was in a Behavioral Psychology class where we trained rats in Skinner boxes. Mine was a wonderful rat. Definitely Ivy League material. A Rhodent Scholar, so to speak.
Tante! I TA'd that class!!!
Oh, and the reason we used albino rats is that they are the nicest and easiest to train to be around people. They are definitely pet-grade rodents, especially when compared to some of the other breeds of rat available from suppliers.
Another "trick" we used (at least when I was there) was to get the rats at a very young age. We used to tell the students to come into the vivarium in their off hours and pet the rats. This makes a HUGE difference in their behavior overall, and in the ease which which they would learn to press the bar in the Skinner boxes.
quote:Originally posted by Bob_Scopatz: Tante! I TA'd that class!!!
Anyway, who was the prof when you took it?
Golly, it was long long ago, and I can only remember two of my professors from that period. And this class wasn't one of those professors. I'm 40, and this was back when I was in high school, I'm guessing junior year. Columbia ran a Saturday science program for high school students who were gifted in the sciences. You took an exam to qualify. My friends and I passed and took Columbia classes every Saturday with brainiacs from around the area.
The only professors whose names I remember are Honor O'Malley and Richard Kornbluth.
So. Were you at Columbia on Saturdays in the early '80's?
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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It could have been in '81. Gee, Bob and I go way back. Guess I knew him before you did, Dana.
Just to stir your memory, I was the brilliantly intelligent high school girl (also beautiful, witty and charming), who answered to the name of "Laura" and who kept telling you not to stand right over the Skinner box with your cup of coffee because the smell of it was distracting the rat. Which you insisted it didn't, they were used to it. But I knew you were full of it, because when the rat smelled the coffee, he would stop pressing his little bar and would sniff sniff sniff the air and look up, perhaps hoping that there would be some Danish to go with the coffee.
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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I would think that sounded like him (the coffee, anyway), but he was specifically working on sensory imput stuff, so I think he would have agreed with you.
He wants to know if your teacher was a short Jewish guy who wore Birkenstocks.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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I've never seen a rat with my own eyes, but they always look cute in photos---like little furballs. I wouldn't get close to them in the wild because they would probably have diseases, but I wouldn't say later in some freaked-out voice, "Oh my God, I saw the biggest rat on the subway platform today," as somebody (a girl) I know said once.
I don't see why a rat would be disgusting it was kept in a cage like a hamster or gerbil. What's so bad about its tail? Gerbils have tails too, right?
Posts: 781 | Registered: Apr 2005
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We had pet rats in one science class I took. They were very smart, good pets. The tails are a little gross, but the rats make up for it. Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
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Most certainly, in Thailand and China at the very least. I believe it is something of a delicacy these days...
Posts: 1368 | Registered: Sep 2002
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quote: Rats are disgusting. Period. I don't care how many people tell me they are cute and interesting, they will still be disgusting varmints.
Even Bean and Nugget.
AR-You better run because I will beat you to death! Nobody talks about Bean and Nugget that way! They are far from disgusting...just admit it...you like them
Posts: 306 | Registered: Jun 2003
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Ok. Bean and Nugget aren't the worst things in the world, but they crawl on me. When they are on me, I am afraid they will urinate on my shoulder or something. That would be gross.
quote:Originally posted by dkw: He wants to know if your teacher was a short Jewish guy who wore Birkenstocks.
I honestly don't remember, but in my entire career in higher education, that description seems to cover perhaps a quarter to third of my professors. Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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Darn, dkw beat me to it. I was going to suggest Gimlet's, Ankh-Morpork. Try the rat with ketchup, even if it's 5p more expensive.
Posts: 1069 | Registered: Feb 2005
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Speaking of rodents, anybody see this story on the BBC News site about mice with markedly greater than normal regenerative capabilities?
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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I've never had rats, but I do think they are cute, and I've read that they are awesome pets.
That being said, I really wouldn't introduce new pets into your household until your money/job situtation stabilizes, Syn. I just worry that your pets would have an emergency, and you wouldn't be able to take care of them due to lack of funds. That's not fair to them, and could be heartbreaking to you.
If you do decide to get some rats down the line, I very much recommend reading up on them. I lurk on a community that has a lot of rat owners, so I've learned a few things. Rats are social, so they do better if they have a cagemate. Either make sure they are the same sex, or get them speutered. Yeah, kits are cute, but unless you know what you're doing and are sure your rats come from good stock, you could accidently breed some kits with health issues. Make sure you have a large cage for them, and don't use pine bedding--it causes respiratory illnesses.
Posts: 1805 | Registered: Jun 1999
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Yup. I'm just in the research stage and not the getting a pet stage yet. I don't know if Bernie is fully insured yet. I tried to get him insured but I haven't heard from those folks yet. I think that stupid vet never sent the files they were supposed to. Irratating. But I never get a pet on impulse and learned about pine bedding when I did research on bunnies. I use carefresh for Bernie and if I got rats I'd use it for the rats too.
Next I should find a book, but it might say the same thing the websites have said... If I do get rats I'll get two black and white males as males are bigger and calmer and keep them far away from Bernie But another thing to consider, what if Bernie gets a disease from them? I got to find out about that.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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