WELCOME TO SQUEAKEES!
THIS SITE IS DEDICATED TO ALL OF THE CRITTERS WE SHARE THE PLANET WITH,
AND ESPECIALLY TO THE RATS AND OTHER RODENTS.
If I can change just one
person's mind about rodents, If I can make just one person realize that Rats
are not "creepy, disgusting, plague-ridden vermin" I will consider
this site a success.
On a personal note, I have shared my life with numerous rats, mice, gerbils and
other rodents. I feel that without them, my life would have been very bleak and
without substance.
RATS IN HISTORY
Rats have been much
maligned throughout history. The Black Plague wiped out half of the known world
back in the dark ages (which was a lot less people than there are now) and
someone determined that it was the fleas that traveled in the fur of Rats which
caused it. So what happens? You guessed it. Blame the rats! I don't get it! The
fleas were the carriers of the plague. They traveled around on the rats. That
makes the rats the vehicles. If one is in an accident and is hit by another
car, one does not blame the other car, one blames the one driving it. And
besides all that, it was a few hundred years ago. Isn't it about time to move
on??
My Theory - Imagine that you are in medieval times. Humans toss garbage, rotten food and wastes into the street. (Medieval humans had very poor hygiene practices, rarely bathed and must have been a stinky lot!) Along comes a dog, say, a poodle named Fifi. She eats a tasty morsel. Uh Oh! It was rotten meat! She gets deathly ill and wanders somewhere near the docks. Finally, she collapses and dies. Poor Fifi! Along comes a rat who was just out for a stroll. The fleas that were living on Fifi jump off, since fleas can not live on a dead host. They leap onto the unsuspecting rattie. Unbeknownst to Rattie, some of the fleas were carrying the plague virus.
Rattie spots an interesting rope, climbs on and follows it to the end, which happens to be a ship. Oh, the smells, all of the interesting stuff! Rattie investigates this cool new place and runs into some shiprats. Rattie, being the social animal she is, makes lots of new friends. Her fleas (formerly Fifi's fleas) hop about from rat to rat, leaving flea eggs here and there. (fleas do not practice good birth control methods) Many of these fleas are also infected. They bite some of the ships crew. Crew men get sick but once the ship gets to port, the crew goes off to the bars and dockside hot spots where they mingle with the local populace. The crew men breath on , cough on (and goodness only knows what else) the locals. They in turn get sick. The ship goes to it's next port and so on.
So - who is really to blame? The rattie? I don't think so! She was just an unsuspecting pawn.
And what
is it with the Pied Piper thing? Can anyone be expected to believe that some
guy playing a flute could get all the town rats to follow him? No one plays the
flute that well! (well, maybe Jethro Tull.)
RATS & RELIGION
There was a segment on a
Discovery Channel documentary about a temple in India dedicated to rats. There
are a LOT of rats living in this temple and they are treated as sacred beings.
People bring them food and milk, they pray to the rats and even drink from the
bowls of milk the rats are crawling in. Yech! That is going a bit too far for
me! The rats who live in this temple are kind of scruffy looking and have sores
and injuries from fighting. They also have skin problems due to the excess of
protein in the foods left for them. But, the fact remains that these rats are
considered GOOD.
The Rat Temple at
Deshnoke, India
RATS IN THE MOVIES
Rats have been in a lot of
movies over the years. There was Ben, of course! Willard, the Indiana Jones
movies, Daylight and many more movies. In most, rats are the bad guys. They are
the creepy, sewer dwelling vermin. They are buddies with vampires, werewolves,
ghouls and other creepy-crawlers. WHY? How come there are never any of those
cutesy adventure movies? You know, like the ones with the dogs and cat
travelling across the country? Or maybe something like the movie about Andre
the seal? Oh, I don't know....just something nice for a change! Of course,
Rizzo the rat in Muppets: Treasure Island is pretty cool. He is a very
enterprising rat who sells cruise tickets to a bunch of other rats who end up salvaging
Long John Silver's sunken treasure wearing little tiny scuba gear. For a HUGE
list of Rats in TV, Movies and Ads, go to The Rat Bar
RATS IN MY HOUSE
This is Emma. She loved her pasta! This is Monkey (the cat) & Angel. (Angel was fearless and ruled the roost, keeping kittens, cats, chinchillas and the other rats in line!)
CThe most rats living in our house were 15. That number shrunk to seven over time : Brittany, Meg & Summer, Louie, Spot, Huie & Junior. There weren't "supposed to be" so many. We thought we were all set with Max, Sam, Angel, Brittany and Meg but I just HAD to bring home Bubba, who I KNEW no one would buy as a pet because he was really huge and old and looked a lot like a sewer rat. And I just couldn't leave his cagemate, Sara, behind. Oddly enough, a couple of weeks later, Sara gave birth to 12 babies. Over the course of time, we lost some of the gang and found a great home for 4 of Sara's baby girls, so at our peak, there were 15! Since then, we had Ernie and Julio (both recsues from Kims Ark) April and Grace (rescues from the Humane Society) and presently Larry, Moe and Curly and a room mate - Lulu - who we caught in a Have a Heart trap in the house. We will let her free once it warms up
IN MEMORIAM ....
TO MY LITTLE FRIENDS WHO AWAIT ME ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE RAINBOW BRIDGE...
|
Zachary |
Benito |
Jessie |
Theodore |
|
Chuckie |
Eddie |
Angel |
Emmalina |
|
Dewy |
Bubba |
Sara |
Jessie |
|
Sam |
Max |
Wynter |
Blondie |
|
April |
Grace |
Meg |
Brittany |
|
Ernie |
Julio |
Junior |
Spot |
|
Huey |
Max |
Sam |
Summer |
|
Louie |
RATS ON THE WEB (Links to other great Rat sites)
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Do you like Rats? Or, maybe, are you starting to think you might like them, but want to ask questions? I'm here for you! Email me at: muffet10@aol.com
This page was last updated 3/7/09
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