Another five minutes of my fifteen

[womzilla]

nellorat and supergee have both already linked to this, but:

Critter comforts

[nellorat], who keeps 14 pet rats--in cages--in her Yonkers home, fell into the rodent world by accident. About five years ago she was looking for a new pet hamster when the shopkeeper asked if she'd ever tried a rat. She agreed to take one home, named him Bilbo Baggins and "just totally fell in love.''

The dead-tree version had a very good photo of nellorat and three of the kids, in which I also appeared as a dark lump with a very high forehead.

Comments

[wild-patience.livejournal.com]

I suppose it's a sign that I've been hanging around y'all too long because I don't consider rats to be an exotic pet. Ditto for hamsters and turtles -- when I was growing up, those were standard "first" pets for kids who maybe weren't mature enough to handle a puppy.

[fjm.livejournal.com]

That was lovely. And I don't think of rats as exotic either. If I ever lived somewhere were a cat wasn't an option, I'd consider both rats and ferrets (although not together).

[del-c.livejournal.com]

I don't think of rats as exotic pets either, and I think the article got a bit confused about hamsters too. Since when does going into a shop seeking a hamster become "falling into the rodent world by accident"?

A pet capybara (http://torque.oncloud8.com/archives/000513.html) would be exotic.

[nellorat.livejournal.com]

Yes, there were two errors in that section, the only two errors I know of. The hamster/rodent thing is one--I fell into The Wonder That Is Rats by accident, looking for a hamster--and the other is that my first rat's name was just Bilbo, not Bilbo Baggis, although it was of course in honor of Bilbo Baggins.

We love capybaras! The NC State Fair sideshow exhibited one as The World's Largest Rat, and we always paid 50 cents just to commune with its serene huge rodenthood.

[nellorat.livejournal.com]

Well, rats as pets aren't as common as hamsters and gerbils, partly because of the prejudice against the species. However, "exotic" is mainly a vet term of art, meaning anything besides dogs and cats. You'd be amazed how many vets do not treat "exotics," in this sense, of any kind.

[nellorat.livejournal.com]

I know people who have both rats and ferrets as pets, but the idea does make me a little nervous.