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God...I feel terrible...

1435 Views 10 Replies 6 Participants Last post by  FlickeringHope, 
F
I think I caused more reservations about rats =( I was letting our 4 six-week-old bottle baby kittens play in the room the rats are in(they were caged) and I ran into the other room to get my son, and hear this god-awful panicked yowl, and we run into the room, and the first thing we see is my cat trying to get in on something and we're thinking, "OMG, she attacked the kittens!" Which..didn't make sense, because she considers them her nephews and niece. And my fiance throws her out of the way thinking the worse, but as it turns out she was trying to help. Help? Help what?

..The runt kitten, Spirit, had been poking at my rat Edgar, as kittens do... and Edgar thought her paw was a nice meaty burger, and bit down .____. So my fiance had to bang continously on the cage until he let go.

Long story short. She's fine. He bit her paw pad, but he didn't tear a chunk out or anything, he just didn't know any better. She's in pain, but she'll be fine.

I just...feel terrible. Because I feel like my in-laws are seconds from telling me to get rid of them because rats are mean and nasty x_x And I seriously hope I didn't help to make yet another mark against them.
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S
Oh my gosh. Oh...I'm so sorry, but I am totally laughing here. Not at you or the anti rat bias you are dealing with at all of course, but the whole inadvertent keystone cop imagery.

Sometimes the best lessons learned are the ones that come from poor decisions acted upon with consequences: Kitty certainly learned the all important lesson of "Don't poke your fingers in the cage or whatever is in there may think it's a yummy or a toy."

Of course, I'm the mother that taught her son fire safety by having a lit candle within deliberate reach of my stubborn two year old who at the time had a fire fetish and had been driving me bananas keeping him away from the fireplace. (It only took once. He never wanted to touch a 'fire' again, and the warning 'hot' got immediate positive cautionary results for years.)

In all seriousness though, of course apologize for the brief lapse in supervising the kittens, and just continue trying to educate with patience and love, and let them know that you are constantly learning how to be a better animal steward.
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I do agree with you. Sometimes the best lesson to be learned is by making a painful mistake. Spirit is definitely shying away from the rat cage. It makes her little heart race. As far as our son, we will probably wind up doing the same thing with fire.
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Awww, I hope your in-laws do not hold this against your ratties! A simple misunderstanding with a kitty paw poking into their house. It probably DID look interesting enough to take an exploratory munch.

And, you can tell your in-laws that if a rat really wanted to bite, for real, and it meant business, your kitty probably would not have a paw left. It was a curious nibble. :)
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My mother in law admitted it could have been much worse. Edgar's done it to my son, too, only thought his finger was a sausage. He no longer sticks his fingers through the bars.

But I know he could have tried to hurt her. He just couldn't understand why he wasn't being given the burger. Edgar is the dominant of the two, too, and the one that eats the majority of food, so he takes any offering of food very, very seriously.
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H
Well that happened to me a year and a half ago. I had a mouse named Pickens and when I let him lick my nose [ he usualy did that I mean lick my nose.] he bit it. my dad didn't like him at all after that.
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E
It's not your fault or the rat's at all, and I do hope they don't hold it against them. Not liking rats is someone's loss, IMO!

I hate to say it, but the cat kind of had it coming.
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Well yeah, she was only 6 weeks old. She's got a lot to learn. Her heart races every time she goes near the rat cage, so I think it's fair to say she learned her lesson. But it is partly my fault. I've fed them through the bars of the cage because I didn't want them associating the door with food, because I have a 19 month old son and I didn't want him sticking his hand in the cage when the door was open, getting nipped, and hurting them out of startle. In hindsight, bar-feeding was a bad idea, too, because my son is 19 months old and poking everything, and likes poking his finger through the bars of the cage and gets nipped, but at least this way he can't hurt them.
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Yep, that is one of the first things I remember reading in my rat care books way back before I got my first ratties and I wanted to research as much as possible. I read over and over again, "Do not get into the habit of feeding your rats through the bars...they will associate anything that comes through the bars as food and your fingers could get nipped." :)

Not the rats' fault of course. Just a learned habit from us humans!
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This happened to my kitten back when I was in high school. He stuck his nose right into the cage of our two male rats, and one of them--Ralph, the brave one!--bit his nose. Needless to say, Max never went near them again! hahaha
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Mhm. It's up off the floor now. Spirit won't go near it XD She lets her brothers play around there and watches from her perch
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