RATS!!!

DonkeyBrainz

Post   » Wed May 15, 2019 6:09 pm


I believe I got very lucky with my experiences. It could have very easily been different and I thought about all of the implications before putting my pets together. They are my children, a commitment that is forever. It's nothing to be taken lightly. And its sad to see something like that happen where the owner then ends up resenting the cat for basically being a cat.

I do agree that certain animals will always be a threat. I should explain that "how well you know your pets" to me not only means knowing their personality but also understanding them as a cat/dog/guinea pig. How their instincts work, behavior, biology, etc. The same way we understand guinea pigs and use some instinctive behaviors to our advantage (like with "kitchens") and also accept that we can't change some (certain pigs never get ok with being picked up, but it's not that they don't enjoy lap time, it's just instinct to run from something swooping down trying to get you) I know my cats have the potential to hurt the pigs even if they don't mean to.

I have 4 cats. Penguin & Tao were raised with mice and rats so I really didn't worry about them. It took Blackie and Spanky a long time to earn my trust with my pigs, since they were outside prior to me adopting them. Spanky is terrified of the pigs (fine with me!) Blackie just wants to watch them or lay with them. I wouldn't leave my pigs out all day where the cats could get them if I wasn't there, you know? Actually, I would leave Penguin or Tao with them but not the other cats.

My dogs have never been a problem at all, but again that's just my experience with my particular dogs. One was a chihuahua, so she was small and not a hunting dog. The other two were mixed. Terrier mix and Beagle mix. They both could have those hunting instincts but they didn't. My dogs were also older when I started adopting small pets. Age is another factor to think about.

User avatar
Sef
I dissent.

Post   » Wed May 15, 2019 11:32 pm


"but they were big mice..."

Big or little, the long-term solution is to find out where they got in and use heavy steel wool to plug up any holes. Mice can flatten themselves enough to get through very tiny openings.

RomeAndSmores1

Post   » Mon May 20, 2019 8:21 am


We did find out where they got in and we filled it with some sort of foam. They can’t chew through it because it’s toxic. Also they are getting out of control now because the neighborhood cat died. We did find where they nested but there was only three of them. They won’t be getting back in, and my piggies are fine.

Post Reply