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Another snake owner making the decent ones look bad....
14 years ago
Today, I saw an ad on a semi-local free ad site of someone saying they urgently (their words) needed to get rid of lots of rats as their rats kept over-breeding and they had way too many.
I mailed them suggesting they split up their males and females to prevent this, if they didn't want any more.
They messaged me back saying the rats would 'always be used' they were just 'trying to make some money off them' and they didn't want or ask for my advice so to go away.
I told them fine, but asked them to acknowledge that the reason I had an issue with it was because it was people breeding indiscriminately that meant I had to have 50 rats here, and had to deal with the abuse and neglect of rats in general.
I did say they were vile people, maybe I shouldn't have, but they were very rude in their intial response to me simply suggesting they split the genders (believe it or not, this doesn't always occur to people, nor do they know how to do it)
I saw the whole thing getting heated if allowed to go on, so I blocked them. As my experiences here recently showed me, blocking was probably for the best.
Half an hour later, I receive a phone call (almost 10pm on a saturday night now, BTW) The number was a private number, which sometimes happens with legitimate rescue calls, so I answered.
It was someone (guess who? lol) pretending (badly) to be a genuine interested party. They asked if I had any for re-homing and how they went about adopting.
I explained it briefly, already knowing who this was, and they then turned and got nasty with me.
They began saying that they were 'sitting laughing about my message'. I told them they needed to see it from my point of view, and that it was because of people over-breeding that rescues like myself had to do the work we do. He said they bred for snake food.
I asked whether they breed purely for their own snakes or sell to other snake owners too.
They said they sell live rats to other owners too.
I asked them if they were aware that live feeding was illegal.
They said they were. I asked them if they check that the owner is not going to feed the rat live. They said it isn't their responsibility to do so; once the rat left them, its not their problem.
I asked if he could see my point, and that him doing this was putting rats into really bad situations where they would either be fed live, or killed first by someone utterly unequipped to do so humanely.
I told him about Picard and said he was a classic example of how these rats end up: either fed live, or starved and neglected by people who see them as no more than food.
He asked me what my problem was. I told him HE was my problem.
He then said 'you can give out criticism but can't take it!'
I asked what, exactly, I had to be criticised for since I was doing nothing wrong, just clearing up the mess of the people who ARE.
He said 'I'll happily take your rats off your hands if you have too many, even drive and get them!' and I told him I would never re-home to someone like him, and have a policy about not re-homing to owners of large snakes. And that no, he would never, ever have a rat off me.
He bitched about how I shouldn't have blocked him. I told him I blocked him because I didn't want a long drawn out argument and we'd both had our say, time to move on.
He once again said he'd been 'laughing' at my message.
Then he hung up on me.
Now, I don't know about you, but if someone's message to me amuses me so much and makes me laugh, I don't feel the need to ring them up late on saturday night and bitch them out.
Especially if they'd blocked me, suggesting everyone should just move on.
Seems, to me, more like someone who get extremely butt-hurt over the truth and was frustrated they couldn't get the last word.
Still, always nice to know when you've upset a twat.
Jon is worried now that someone is gonna come after me.
To be honest, he sounded like a complete geek. Im not worried.
I mailed them suggesting they split up their males and females to prevent this, if they didn't want any more.
They messaged me back saying the rats would 'always be used' they were just 'trying to make some money off them' and they didn't want or ask for my advice so to go away.
I told them fine, but asked them to acknowledge that the reason I had an issue with it was because it was people breeding indiscriminately that meant I had to have 50 rats here, and had to deal with the abuse and neglect of rats in general.
I did say they were vile people, maybe I shouldn't have, but they were very rude in their intial response to me simply suggesting they split the genders (believe it or not, this doesn't always occur to people, nor do they know how to do it)
I saw the whole thing getting heated if allowed to go on, so I blocked them. As my experiences here recently showed me, blocking was probably for the best.
Half an hour later, I receive a phone call (almost 10pm on a saturday night now, BTW) The number was a private number, which sometimes happens with legitimate rescue calls, so I answered.
It was someone (guess who? lol) pretending (badly) to be a genuine interested party. They asked if I had any for re-homing and how they went about adopting.
I explained it briefly, already knowing who this was, and they then turned and got nasty with me.
They began saying that they were 'sitting laughing about my message'. I told them they needed to see it from my point of view, and that it was because of people over-breeding that rescues like myself had to do the work we do. He said they bred for snake food.
I asked whether they breed purely for their own snakes or sell to other snake owners too.
They said they sell live rats to other owners too.
I asked them if they were aware that live feeding was illegal.
They said they were. I asked them if they check that the owner is not going to feed the rat live. They said it isn't their responsibility to do so; once the rat left them, its not their problem.
I asked if he could see my point, and that him doing this was putting rats into really bad situations where they would either be fed live, or killed first by someone utterly unequipped to do so humanely.
I told him about Picard and said he was a classic example of how these rats end up: either fed live, or starved and neglected by people who see them as no more than food.
He asked me what my problem was. I told him HE was my problem.
He then said 'you can give out criticism but can't take it!'
I asked what, exactly, I had to be criticised for since I was doing nothing wrong, just clearing up the mess of the people who ARE.
He said 'I'll happily take your rats off your hands if you have too many, even drive and get them!' and I told him I would never re-home to someone like him, and have a policy about not re-homing to owners of large snakes. And that no, he would never, ever have a rat off me.
He bitched about how I shouldn't have blocked him. I told him I blocked him because I didn't want a long drawn out argument and we'd both had our say, time to move on.
He once again said he'd been 'laughing' at my message.
Then he hung up on me.
Now, I don't know about you, but if someone's message to me amuses me so much and makes me laugh, I don't feel the need to ring them up late on saturday night and bitch them out.
Especially if they'd blocked me, suggesting everyone should just move on.
Seems, to me, more like someone who get extremely butt-hurt over the truth and was frustrated they couldn't get the last word.
Still, always nice to know when you've upset a twat.
Jon is worried now that someone is gonna come after me.
To be honest, he sounded like a complete geek. Im not worried.
On another note, you've convinced me to get my own pet rat(s) since any of the ones I had were temp fosters.
I would have already gone and became a serial killer.
The convo ended there. She wasn't being mean, I just kind of hate it when people assume the only reason I have rats is to feed to my snakes. I had rats a hell of alot sooner/longer than I've had snakes. And sadly, Im afraid there are too many BAD snake owners to make any of us look good.
I am appalled by the shit you have to deal with all the time. -_-
Im not that bothered though, you have to have a thick skin to do rescue work unfortunately.
I still feel good about my work though, no-one can take that from me.
In fact, when people are so upset they take it to this level, it makes me feel even better about what I do because it reminds me there is still a lot of work to do and spurs me on.
It would be lovely if there were a day when I only had one or two rescue rats coming in per year, as I did when I first started rescuing, but with the way society is going I can only see it getting worse, unfortunately.
While there is a huge public awareness of rescue for dogs and cats now, its still not recognised that the situation is just as dire with rats :/
It's gotten worse in Denmark as well, as far as I can tell. Rats have become increasingly popular as pets, so there are a lot of careless owners these days. I see more and more rats pop up in shelters and I really feel like starting up a real rescue some time. It just frustrates me to see that pets have become throw-away "things" instead of the living, feeling creatures they are.
When owners give up their rats to you, what's the most common excuse you hear, if I may ask? Lack of time? Money? Or what?
Most often given is 'we don't have time for them', which is very ambiguous, because it can mean anything from 'I've got a new job taking up more time' to 'I can't be bothered to care for them' (most often its the latter).
Second most common is usually 'got them for the kids, kids are bored of them' and 'moving to a house that won't accept rats'.
To be honest, I take every reason with a pinch of salt, since people can and do lie to appear more compassionate. You can usually tell the people who genuinely care from those who just want the rats gone asap.
THIS! Times 1000
You seem to attract butthurt fucksticks, do you just have a magnet somewhere that draws them?
It's a shame more isn't being done to protect Rats, they're no less loving pets than a cat or a dog.
people are disgusting.
This is true.
But seriously I don't know how you handled dealing with that guy. What an asshole. >:[