Havelock was privileged; one of his favourite things to do was to have a quiet time munching chocolate while hanging out on Rick’s shoulder.
© C. Ford.
Affinity
Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
Havelock was privileged; one of his favourite things to do was to have a quiet time munching chocolate while hanging out on Rick’s shoulder.
© C. Ford.
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He looks like he’s wearing a jacket with cuffs. Very highbrow. I can almost imagine him holding out his little finger as he has his lovely chocolate.
Is chocolate safe for rats?
Havelock did have that highbrow manner and look, but he was the sweetest little man. I’d come into the studio, and he would run out in front of me, then stand up, wanting to be up on shoulders for a while.
Callinectes, yes. Rats can eat pretty much anything. There’s something about oranges causing kidney problems in males, and pine anything is bad for rats. They are not like dogs or cats, and while I understand such questions, does no one stop to think that I would not deliberately be poisoning animals I love?
Shoulder surfing done right!
No kidding! Makes me wish I could do the same. :D
Such a dapper little man!
I would not accuse you of deliberate poisoning… yet… But I’ve had to stop family members from unwittingly feeding their dogs grapes and onions, and my brother this week acquired two new rats and I didn’t know if this were some kind of special overpriced rat chocolate for rats.
Anne, dapper is the perfect descriptor!
Callinectes:
Well, I’ll give you this, you’re doing a fine job of being insulting. I’ve kept rats for years, I have a blog dedicated to them, and most of the people who comment here started following the rat adventures back on Pharyngula. I don’t buy overpriced “special” crap for any of my animals. Whatever you eat, your rats can eat, in moderation. And they can eat stuff you can’t -- like chicken bones. Perfectly fucking safe for rats, and I could explain why, but I’m not going to because you kinda got on my last nerve.
“Havelock”. By any chance, was that beastie named after the Patrician?
Cubist, he most certainly was, and he was a fine Ratrician, too.
Sorry man, I did not intend to be insulting at all.
They have/had a slightly different shade of dark hair. The hold on the piece of chocolate is at the same time delicate and secure.
Ice Swimmer:
Havelock had paused, and twitched an ear back in annoyance because I brought the camera out. Generally, he didn’t mind the camera, but this was trespassing on a sacred space, so he wasn’t best pleased with me.
Oh how our ratty girls love chocolate! We share small nibbles of dark chocolate with them on occasion. This morning we made them some mini-pancakes while we made our human sized ones- they love that. With a side of some berries.
Patricia, their own pancakes! Oh, dying from the adorableness here. One of my favourite food memories is from Ash, our first. One evening, we decided to eat supper in my studio, because there was a movie we wanted to see. Rick had made us steaks, and we’d barely touched them before there was this exciting bit happening, and when Rick looked down at his plate, he was just in time to see Ash hauling off with his whole steak. :D
Way to go Ash!
Callinectes you would be wrong to stop your relatives feeding their dogs onions unless they were feeding the dogs pounds of onions daily. Yes onions contain a chemical that will destroy a dog’s red blood cells, but the mount they contain mean a lot of onion has to be consumed every day for several weeks for it to cause a problem. And I got that from a vet, as always it’s the dose that makes the poison and the amount of onion a dog is likely to get in say a left over stew is just not dangerous. Most dogs will be ok with a few grapes too, though if you have a grape vine you need to be careful and you certainly need to avoid raisins, sultanas and currants, it’s much easier for a dog to overdose on them because they have been concentrated; rather like the difference for humans between beer and spirits, you can give yourself alcohol poisoning with beer, but you have to work quite hard to do so, whereas it’s far easier to do so with spirits.
Yeah, I have zero patience with the onions bad bullshit either. I have no tolerance for obnoxious assholes who appoint themselves the pet police, either.
We have a long history of growing our dogs to old age, and big dogs, too. We have a 16 year old in the house right now, and Doll would be loathe to give up her special treats, and would be more than happy to make that quite clear.
I wish all self-appointed food cops would read Paracelsus. Sola dosis facit venenum.
Exactly.
I also have little patience when these food cops tell people that they must not feed their dogs / [insert relevant animal] all sorts of foods that they would never feed their pet in the first place, so diluting the messages that are important for that owner. So in the UK there isn’t any point in telling people not to feed their dogs avocados as they won’t grow here, so there is no danger of any of our dogs scavenging under an avocado bush and eating the skin or pit. Whereas rich fruit cakes and puddings laden with raisins, sultannas and currants are a real potential danger here especially at this time of year. Don’t be alarmist when there are messages that it is important that pet owners should pay attention to.
This may not be the appropriate place, but I was wondering, how are the dogs treating you?
Seems appropriate to me. :D Oh, they are treating me just fine. Of course, they find me more aromatically interesting than before, but even that is old hat now. Mostly, it was the first day, smelling of hospital and strangeness, which they understand as “oh, she’s been at the vet”.
Mostly, I had to soothe down their insecurity for a couple of days. I’m the one who is always here, so if I go missing, they get quite upset.
Ahahaha! That’s funny -- trying to steal a whole steak. Yup, sometimes the rats get ambitious in going for the treats… Never a dull moment around critters, I swear.
Love this pic (which is something I could write to just about all of your animal pics (especially the birds))
Thanks. :D It’s one of my faves too. Although, Havelock never did take a bad photo, he was very photogenic.