# Autism and rats



## liesel (Feb 13, 2013)

So I've probably mentioned a little of this on here before but I've read that rats are good with autistic people/children. My brother has a very high functioning form if autism and like I've said before gets along great and loves my oldest girl. But I've never had him over to play with my baby rats cause they were always too young. Now as time has passed my babies are getting older, smarter and better trained of course but I was just amazed with them the other night. My aunt has very severe autism. She can't take care of herself even. So when she asked to see my rats I was a little hesitant. I knew my oldest would be fine so I introduced them first, it went well as expected. She was well behaved and my aunt liked it a lot. But then my aunt did the unexpected. She wanted to meet the other rats as well. Now they aren't quite babies anymore but they are young and that worried me. Especially when my aunt decided to pick up my youngest who is also my most energetic. But it was crazy, it was like my rat just someone knew she couldn't be her normal crazy, never-stops-moving self. She calmed completely down and calmly let me aunt hold her and pet her. This literally shocked me. My youngest is almost insane normally. She never stops moving. She even freaken climbs walls. But as soon as my aunt picked her up she became a perfect, calm little girl. Anyone else had any experience with this kind of stuff? Did I just get lucky this once?


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## FallDeere (Sep 29, 2011)

That's stinkin' awesome! I don't know about autism, but my medically fragile sister (LOTS of medical issues) is the only one who can make my rats boggle. Bartok likes to sit on my shoulder while my sister pets him and he just boggles away. He's a very well behaved rat anyways, but he is really _awesome _with my sister. Sadly, my sister just had major surgery, so she probably won't be able to see my rats for a while... but man, Bartok just loves her to bits. She even got Bartok's brother Gus Gus to boggle! I think some animals just sense some people are special. ^_^


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## SchusterKMRatties (Aug 18, 2012)

I have autism, and I can say that my therapist, doctor, and psychiatrist all agree that my pet rats are good for me. When I was younger my brain thought faster than my fingers could move. And the rats made my brain slow down so I could handle them. Autism, due to its nature to make us unable to communicate well with humans, helps those of us with it to communicate with animals better. They 'get' us in a way that humans can't.

If you need someone to talk to, you can talk to me. I can remember the rats helping me get to where I am today. I'm not perfect, and communication and social situations still stress me out, but I am married and living successfully on my own.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

I took Fuzzy Rat to a couple of handicapped children's picnics and with a huge chemical tank farm and a phosphate factory in town, not counting a now deceased petro-chemical, and heavy metal industry everyone in town has a high lead level and most likely has flammable blood.

So we have met several autistic kids around town... Fuzzy Rat was always very nice and calm around handicapped kids, but to be entirely honest, most autistic kids that couldn't speak also couldn't approach Fuzzy Rat. They would drag their moms behind us when we walked, but they would pretty much push their moms out front and keep a distance if we stopped. The autistic kids that could talk, could get close and could touch Fuzzy Rat, but had a tendency to snatch and jerk Fuzzy Rat's tail. They almost always pull straight up. I got good at lifting her up really fast and swinging her over the kids head so her tail didn't get degloved. Usually at the top of the swing the kids let go and Fuzzy Rat was free, no harm done... Still, some autistic kids can be very dangerous to rats.

The last autistic boy we ran across was eating a cup cake and Fuzzy Rat got away from me to steal it, she got her tail grabbed and I did a dive to scoop her up and lift her over the kids head, despite the tail grab she didn't let go of the cupcake.... The kids mom didn't want the sugary treat back, so Fuzzy Rat got to eat the cupcake, she seemed very satisfied with her dare-devil raid, apparently she knew I would rescue her before I did... I on the other hand was pretty shell shocked.

While downs syndrome kids are pretty safe as are many other special kids... very low functioning autistic kids will stay away from your rats, some other autistic kids are very unpredictable and very fast. Be careful.


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## applekiwi1992 (Aug 3, 2012)

I have a brother with pretty severe autism, and over the years I've found that animals seem to just grasp that he was different. He is by no means "mean" with animals but when he was younger he was unintentionally rough. We had a cat who when he would get rough would calmly boop him on the head, no claws, and walk away. Usually hyper dogs seemed to understand that they had to be calmer around him. And they all seemed to just get that if he hurt them it wasn't intentional. I think animals see people better than people do. My brothers never got to meet my rats because he lives to far away and I would never leave him unsupervised with them, but I expect that they would grasp the situation even better than most animals.


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## liesel (Feb 13, 2013)

It's so interesting to hear all about this from other people. Don't worry though I am very careful with my rats around other people especially with this kind of stuff. My brother for example tends to attack animals first whenever he's angry but having grown up with him I've learned how to firstly not make him mad but secondly tell when he's about to get mad. If that ever happens when my babies are near him you can bet my first move is going to be to get them to safety. I personally don't think my aunt would ever do something to hurt my rats because generally she isn't one to get violent, but again when she does have her outburst once u learn the signs u can sense them coming and that is when the rats will go away. I may care about my fam but my rats are family too and they can't as easily protect themselves. I will definitely heed your warning though rat daddy and if I don't fully trust the situation I don't think Ill put my girls in it. I would never want anything to happen to my babies. Also SchusterKMRatties your story really inspires me. I may end up messaging you sometime in the near future


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## HeatherElle (Aug 16, 2012)

My son has autism, he's very high functioning (much like a mini Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory) but he does not care for animals at all, particularly furry ones. He just never has. They always say animals are so great for autistic kiddos but we have yet to change his mind. He tolerates the rats though, because they don't bother him and he thinks they're funny sometimes. He gets mad at our dog all the time, mainly because she tries to sit in his spot on the couch, lol.


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## rattie-love-247 (Jul 9, 2013)

my son also has autism & is very low functioning. I own 8 rats & he gets excited at first around them & moves fast so we have to really work to get him calm before he can hold them & usually he likes them crawling on/around him.


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