Evil Internet

[greenstorm]

I hate the internet.

I'm attempting to find a local rat breeder, and remembering just how much the 'net sucks if you want anything up-to-date. People have webpages from three or four years ago up, with email addresses that no longer function. Professional ratteries have webpages that say: we are not breeding rats right now, but here are some pictures. Rat clubs and general-interest rat websites, as well as Canadian rat forums, have plenty of rats and breeders available on the East Coast. There is not a single website, after two hours of searching, that has:

1) a valid email address or other contact
and
2) some indication that rats are currently being bred/offered currently

I am very annoyed. So, here's my attempt at using the internet in a useful way, as a networking tool, rather than like a museum for defunct sales brochures.

Does anyone out there know of a vancouver-local rat breeder that socialises/handles their rats?

Now I need to figure out how to post to a community, and stick that up in Vancouver, too. *sigh* The SO says: Oh, posting to a community is easy, you just do X. I say: I can't do X, there's no option for it. He says: Of course there is! Oh, wait... you're right. Weird. But he still does not figure out how to make it work for me. You'd think, with all these computer folks floating around...

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_locke/]

Hi miss. To post to a community you need to 'join' the community. If you just add it to your friends list you are simply 'watching' the community. To join, click on the community icon and click 'join'.

[greenstorm.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU.

:D

Lil' fuzzy rats

[http://users.livejournal.com/_greenwitch_/]

When I decided to have pet rats, I went to the pet store, verified with the owner that they were local, and got my two guys there. Usually the rats are very young, and the socializing comes easily.

[silverseastar.livejournal.com]

I got our rat at the pet store in Brentwood Mall. The woman working there bred them, and she was a Lavender Rex cross rat, very pretty. She said she personally handled all the pet rat babies extensively and quizzed us on care knowledge. She was very particular about who they went to. We got our other "vorpol" (sp?) rat, so named after the Monty Python Killer Vorpol Bunny, from another pet store and it systematically chomped each of us severely. I think it was watching it lick the blood off the cage that really creeped me out. It went back to that other pet store to become snake food.

Personally, I've had rats my whole life, but I can't take the fact that each and every single one has died of a grotesque cancer. I loved each of them dearly but won't buy another and go through the same pain. Good luck with it.

Nasty/nice

[http://users.livejournal.com/_greenwitch_/]

I wanted to specify that the biting rat situation happened to me as well. My first two rats, Oliver and Twist, were hooded rats that I had in Ottawa. They both had the run of the apartment when I was at home (a one bedroom), and were always affectionate and clean (aside from the fact that they *will* go to the bathroom wherever they need to). They actually responed to calls for treats and scratches. When I decided to move to BC, they went to the Museum of Nature, to be part of their 'creepy crawly' exhibit (a misnomer :). My red-eared slider turtles went to a turtle lover. I didn't think my four small friends would deal well with a road trip across the continent.

Two years later in BC, a friend had a litter of rat babies pushed through the mail slot at her church. Only one survived (no food, no water etc.), and I agreed that it would be nice to have a rat again. I'm not sure if it was the stress of being abandoned, shipped from home to home or what, but he was a biter and had me very nervous about handling him. I'd like to think that proper handling and attention will reflect my first experience.