The more than 600 rats that were seized by the OSPCA back in December are starting to find new homes.
See that original story HERE
The OSPCA has been sending the rodents to various pet stores across the province with many being sent to PetSmart locations across Ontario including some here in North Bay at the McKeown Avenue store.
“They are healthy, social adoptable animals, and PetSmart has been phenomenal, working very closely with them to help us in adopting them out,” stated Nicole Driscoll, OSPCA Animal Welfare Inspector in North Bay.
Amy Burchart is a PetSmart Customer Engagement Leader North Bay. She says they have taken in more than 25 of the local seized rats and they are finding them new homes.
“We are just trying to drive as many rat adoptions as we can and stop pet homelessness as quickly as possible,” said Burchart.
Driscoll says the OSPCA deals with large scale animal investigations on a regular basis, but certainly finding more than 600 rats in one residence is extremely rare.
“These are domesticated rats that we are dealing with, I think what everybody is portraying is like a sewer rat,” said Driscoll.
“These are not sewer rats, these are domesticated rats, they are very, very friendly. Rats are very intelligent animals. I personally have never owned one but lots of family and friends have and they can be very social and very loveable little creatures.”
Burchart echoes that statement.
“Rats can be fantastic pets, they are almost as dependable as a cat or a dog,” she said.
“You can litter train them, you can train them to do different types of tricks. They kind of build this bond with humans the same way as a cat or a dog where they always want to be with you, they have that link with you. Very rarely do they actually bite to just bite, they will do little nibbles to see what’s going on but very positive pets and definitely a good starter pet for any kid.”
But as in this case, the animals can breed quickly.
“Being part of the rodent family they definitely an breed out of control so it’s always good, they do well in pairs so if you are looking to avoid any breeding you can always spay or neuter them, that’s a big thing or you can house either two females or two males but they are pretty basic when it comes to maintaining them,” said Burchart.
And Driscoll adds that anyone who has a pet situation start spiralling out of control should make a call for help.
“The biggest thing to take away from this situation is that people, when they find themselves in a situation where they are overwhelmed - they either financially can’t take care for the animals or physically take care of the animals, that it’s real important for them to reach out for help so we don’t get this sort of level of numbers of animals. There’s shelters and rescues province-wide that it’s really important people pick up the phone and ask for help,” said Driscoll.
