# my dogs meet my rats O.o



## OnlyOno (Apr 4, 2007)

dakota is a 4-year-old terrier mix who LOVES eating small animals. birds have been caught in midair, chipmunks have been torn out of logs, etc by this beast. as a dog, she's the coolest thing ever because she is just so beefy, lol. of course, this poses a problem for me and my ratties.

anywho, upon bringing my rats home, dakota is SOOOO excited to "play" with the rats, so we take them out and show them to her so that she knows they are pets and not food. either way, she licks picasso a lot (mozart freaks out so we don't intro mozart to the dogs) and picasso doesn't really seem to care. on my bed, we let picasso run around and dakota sits up there as well with her ears perked up and her eyes wide, whining and licking her chops. she acts like the great hunter until picasso takes a chomp out of dakota's toes and then she acts scared. there is still much licking and an almost-paranoid obsession with knowing where the rat is at all times.

anywho, thought i'd share some funny pics of the two "getting along". i have to carefully watch and make sure that dakota knows that tasting my rats goes no farther than licking them, etc.

here's dakota having a taste of picasso butt while poor picasso tries to clean off more dakota spit:









picasso saying "hey, back off pal":









dakota seems nervous when picasso does show an interest back:









picasso wanted a taste of dakota's collar:









on a related note (this is getting long) i also have a rat terrier that normally does not show any interest in anything that moves and thus could possibly be terrifying (she's skittish as all ****), but she intently watches my rats and in fact makes me more nervous than my psycho killer dakota. oh well.


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## jando426 (May 15, 2007)

awww the 1st pic is the best


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## amandahoney (May 14, 2007)

that's absolutely adorable.

funny about the rat terrier- i have a jack russel who is only marginally interested in my rats, even though he loves to torment the moles that infest the rose bushes outside. we just tell him they're "babies" that you have to be "gentle" with, and he usually becomes interested in something else. and yet his best friend for three and a half years was my rabbit. i also have a dachshund no longer than a rat from nose to tail (although stockier, of course), and she's terrified of them. (i guess maybe because two or three could take her in a fight?) we've kind of bred the instinct out of some dogs, haven't we?

anyway, very cute pictures.


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## 2manyrats (Apr 10, 2007)

Hehe, that's cute.


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## mnic001 (May 9, 2007)

Extremely cute, but I'd be so nervous to do this. Dakota looks like she could rip a chunk out of Picasso faster than you can blink. It's so great when random species of animals get along. My favorite is the last picture.


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## Forensic (Apr 12, 2007)

Cute pictures! We introduced Kahlua and Baileys the other day, Baileys thought she was a good cuddly spot. Kahlua was curious and then decided this must be a new chew toy and tried to pick him up (Baileys was promptly removed... :lol: )

Later, Kahlua was jumping up to look in the FN, and managed to jump right in front of Perry... She went bolting out of the room yelping... he got her right on the nose. My roommate was mad at me for praising the rat. :lol:


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## twitch (Jan 4, 2007)

forensic said:


> My roommate was mad at me for praising the rat. Laughing


i wish my rats would teach my cat neko to leave them the heck alone. i caught her CLIMBING the cage this morning... not one of the rats showed in interest in protecting their terf... maybe i should of hung on to iedani for a bit longer. she would have ripped the toe off the bloody cat... in any case does someone want a cat? perferably with less accepting rats so they can teach her that they are NOT food...? *sighs* bloody cat... 

so i can see why you would praise the rat. i will too if one of them ever tells the cat to back off...


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## Forensic (Apr 12, 2007)

I'd letcha borrow Perry if you wanted... :lol:

Attack Rat!


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## Poppyseed (Feb 1, 2007)

Odin bites if any animal gets near the cage too. Unfortunately this has included lately CLIMBING his fat butt up to Bert's half of the cage when the doors are open (he's NEVER done this before, he's a lardo) and attacking Bert D:

Weeks of intros come to this, it sucks. I think I will have to get Bert another friend. Odin is in no condition to be neutered.


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## Forensic (Apr 12, 2007)

Perry actually tolerates the dog sticking her nose in pretty well, but she had to have startled him (or annoyed, or smelled funny, or the stars aligned...)

I'm so sorry about Odin and Bert....


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## OnlyOno (Apr 4, 2007)

mnic001 said:


> Extremely cute, but I'd be so nervous to do this. Dakota looks like she could rip a chunk out of Picasso faster than you can blink. It's so great when random species of animals get along. My favorite is the last picture.


i'm more than certain that dakota could rip a chunk out of picasso faster than i can blink, and i'm not afraid to admit that this whole time i was more nervous than a mother sending her first child off to kindergarten, lol. but dakota is a good girl, and i tell her to "be nice" (which i think we accidentally taught her that means you can lick, but don't bite, because she does it with children too) and watch her constantly, and she's fine. also, we adopted her at less than 8 weeks old, and i pretty much carried her around for the first 5 months of her life or so, so she'll pretty much do anything i tell her. we could all be so lucky, i'm sure. XD

with a cat i would be infinitely more nervous, to be sure.

and poppyseed, that is a real bummer about your boys, sorry to hear that. too bad we can't explain to them that they need to be friends because they are happier when they are not alone, lol. they're like, yeah, whatever, not with this kid.


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## OhBugger. (Apr 6, 2007)

awww.
I love the second to last pic. 
she looks like she's going to do kung-fu on Dakota.


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