The Rat

If you are like we were, rookies with rats, buy this book. It taught us everything that we needed to know about pet rat ownership. It is an invaluable tool for those new to rats and a great refresher for the pro rat owners.

This book is so much better than the "Barron's" series one. It is written in a way that kids and adults can understand. And I loved the humor sprinkled within. It felt like I was learning from a seasoned owner. =0) Nice personal touch! I learned much from this book and look forward to putting this knowledge to use!

This book has much good information about pet rats, but I didn't find some information I was looking for. There were very good tips on how to decide if a pet rat is right for you and on recommended cages and different toys rats like and don't like. We have two pet rats we bought at a pet store that look like the rat on the cover, but I had trouble determining what variety these are based on the descriptions and pictures. Also, the cage size recommendation was only for one rat, so I wasn't sure how big of a cage I need for two rats. In the Feeding Your Rat chapter, lab blocks and dog kibble were mentioned as staples, but the pet store had rat food which appears to be a mixture primarily of seeds and some food blocks. I couldn't tell from the book, whether this mixture of food was good for my rat. It would help if the book covered more information on what is available in pet stores and whether these are best for a pet rat.All in all though, a pretty complete book.

I have almost 50 pets, so I do a lot of reading on my special friends. This book is my favorite book about rats. I recommend it each time I sell a rat at the pet store I work at. It is wonderful to have on hand as a reference and to read just for fun. The chapters on health care and training are especially well done. Anyone who loves ratties should have this book!

The author has a genuine love of rats as pets that we members of "rodentia" can appreciate, she provides illuminating insights into the care, feeding, housing and (very important) providing of entertainment to our precious "ratties" and "rattinas". Her book has proved INvaluable in repect to the references for rat illnesses. I heartily recommend to any rat fancying household. By the way, to the unconverted;they are way better pets for your kids than a hamster.