Feel guilty for buying pets from pet stores

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You can't be held responsible for something you didn't know about.

You do know now, so you can make more informed choices in the future, but I wouldn't feel guilty.

Yeah.

I don't think so either but I think controlling tom cats (it was done based on age and sex) by locking them in cages all their lives except breeding & eating isn't treating them right.

And it's weird someone can have queen cats as pets and treat kittens like 'pets in waiting' & then lock the toms in tiny cages in the porch.

Just find another cat to breed with that doesn't belong to you and has the freedom to be a pet, then breed them separately on the cat equivalent of a 'dirty weekend'/'one night stand' . Even among breeders, that's the norm.

Of course I don’t believe that controlling tom cats in that matter is proper. I believe in what you believe.

Think of it in this way: these rats are in better hands now.

Any pictures? Rat is a bit....unusual choice for pets.

I think the guidance in OP is relating to cats and dogs.

Breeders can sometimes be dangerously obsessed with either pedigree or money. And the two things (pedigree and money) kind of go hand in hand.

I'd say breeders can be ok if they just have an indoor cat who goes for a weekend etc with another cat. But even so, it's an expensive way to get a cat and all for the sake of it looking a certain way. (Ragdolls are cute but so are moggies). And even in homes, they don't seem to care, like I said about the tom cats or like my Maine Coon cat who had all sorts of infections when we got her

Selling cats and dogs from cages in a pet shop is illegal in the UK so I've only seen it once when I was abroad somewhere (I think the canary islands). It did look cruel. We sell small animals from cages in pet shops here and maybe I'm ignorant about them but it only seemed cruel in the Pets at Home shop (cos dogs were going up to rabbit hutches... dogs shouldn't be allowed in shops that sell small animals)

I feel like the entire situation might be different with rats vs cats and dogs. I think the ideal situation for all animals is: one human has a pet, their pet has kittens/puppies/whatever their babies are called, the human gives them away to friends they know will care about them. But I'm not sure there's a 'rat mill' system like there's a 'puppy mill'/'kitten mill' system or that for eg giving them away from animal shelters is the correct solution.

OP might be doing the aspie thing/autistic thing of taking everything literally and personally in what's been written. What's been written might have been advising about cats and dogs rather than other pets, with the NT assumption that "everyone knows that".

Nothing to do with "taking everything literally" (a trait I don't even have). It was on a forum for rat lovers, where all members own pet rats and talk about rats and post pictures and videos of their rats. No other topic gets talked about. Just rats.
I had commented on a video someone had posted of rats in a cage in a pet store, and everyone in the comments were like "aww so cute" and everything. So I commented on it saying that was how I got my rats and that now they're in my home being loved and cared for. Unfortunately that wasn't what some (not all) of the commenters wanted to hear, and they made me feel like I was doing something bad by buying my rats from the store. So basically every rat lover must get their pet rats from a reliable breeder, and never from a pet store. But sometimes pet stores are the only option, especially now that I have a loyalty card for the local pet store (for pet supplies and future rats).

Yeah I wouldn't feel bad about that.

Is there any proof (outside of these individuals) that buying rats from a petshop is worse than buying them from a breeder?

A reliable breeder, sure, but that's not always an option.

Anyway you love your pets. You give them a good home.

The people on that forum seem mean and nitpicking tbh.

I wonder what their program is for providing a quality life to the already living rats who are already in the store.

Most of the rats in pet stores are bought to feed pet snakes. So if you buy a rat as a pet, you're probably saving it from being swallowed by a python.

Checked videos, pet rats are very smart and cute indeed.

Their lifespan is only 2 years tho.


I would prefer a parrot, lives much longer.

I had to look this one up and ask this on the rat lovers forum I go on. It isn't true that most rats are bought for this purpose. When I first bought my rats we needed proof that we were buying them as pets and not as good, so we had to show the receipt of when we bought the cage. Also pet rats from the store are taxed so that buying frozen rats and mice is a lot cheaper to buy and is more humane.

But my thread on the rat lovers forum got locked because it was "off-topic", even though it was to do with rats. Very strict rules.

I am NOT understanding why that would be considered ‘off topic ‘... I think potentially feeding a live animal to another animal is extremely ON topic!

In the future, you can try calling local shelters to see if they have rats for adoption first. Our local humane society shelter has rabbits, hamsters, gerbils, rats, etc. available. I was very surprised when I found this out, but I had some very sweet dwarf hamsters from ours (& got sprayed by an unfixed rabbit on a higher shelf). The local animal control (city service) only takes cats & dogs tho.

I think it’s wonderful that someone helps the other animals!