Oh Rats!

Classes are winding down. It's Hell Week, and we're clearing through the inexorable schedule of exams, one at a time, quiz after final after practical. Notebooks are turned in, the last finishing touches placed, the last-minute cramming has already started. The summer is hot, the sunlight bakes the air and makes the cool grass smell like the most inviting place to nap that ever was.

Last class of VT51 - the Intro to Vet Tech class I'm in - they brought out rats. The week before, they'd introduced us to a couple snakes. Beautiful beasties: a Rainbow Boa, a couple of California King Snakes, a Burmese Python, even a little Eastern Hognose which - up until halfway through the explanation - the professor did not know was classified as venomous. The entire class laughed as she blanched a little, given that she was suddenly aware of the fact that she was holding this potentially deadly creature. Safely enough, it turns out - Hognoses are rear-fanged, and it's VERY difficult for them to envenomate humans. Beautiful animals, and they let us come up, hold them, say hello... it was fantastic.

I knew people had problems with snakes. I do not. I love them. The feel of them, the look of them, the softness of scale and the coolness to touch. The patterns and brightness and fluid grace. Some people, however, could not stand to be near them. I shrugged, knowing a fear of snakes was pervasive.

For some reason, however, it surprised me when girls actually had to excuse themselves from the room entirely when the rats were brought out.

I know, peripherally, that some people dislike rodents. Again, I do not. I find them to be adorable little beasties with fantastic personalities and curious natures. Friendly, social, intelligent... what's not to like? But, like snakes, these creatures are terribly misunderstood and often maligned because of their wilder cousins. The misconceptions - perpetuated by Hollywood in its worst cases - leave us believing that rats will gnaw your face off as you sleep, carry every disease under the sun, and are vicious, vindictive monsters that have a taste for human blood. Nothing could be further from the truth. (Special effects guys have to coat actors with peanut butter to get the rats to even consider licking them. Rats LOVE peanut butter.)

I'm not sure why I found it more strange that people were weirded out by rats. Snakes, sure, I understand. Many are venomous, and if you don't know how to tell the difference, it's best to just avoid them altogether. But rats? Rats are usually just pests at the most, and on their worst wild days they can be vectors for disease. But then, so can cats, dogs, foxes, guinea pigs, and half a dozen other things people almost universally find "cute". There are people who absolutely cringe when they think of bats who think foxes are cuddly, when the truth is that there are more reported cases of foxes transmitting rabies to humans than any bat or rat could ever manage.

I've heard people say it's the tail. What about it, really? Many of these rat-haters still think mice are cute. They look nearly identical to the untrained eye, with the obvious difference in size, which has led to - I'm not kidding - the perpetuated belief that mice grow into rats eventually. So how can you adore one but despise the other?

I watched the girls leave. If anyone had departed when the snakes were out the week before, I never noticed it, and they were exceptionally discreet, and never came back. It's hard to leave the classroom without being noticed. But several girls - all girls, to my shame - left the room when the rats were introduced.

Apart from my shock and confusion ("really? you can't tolerate rats?"), I felt a pang of scorn. Here were were, in a class - the last WEEK of this class, mind you - where we were purposefully staring down the career wherin we would take in every variety of pet for medical care... and they were grossed out by a common domestic species. How on EARTH did they expect to pass the course? Just conveniently skip all the rodent classes? All the small-animal nursing labs? Or perhaps the Animal Care Course, where we're supposed to take care of the facilities rescued dogs, cats, horse, sheep, goats, rabbits, and - yes - rats and mice? You know, those little absolutely critical classes to passing the course? How on EARTH did they think this career was appropriate for them?

I'm not sure why I found it more strange that people were weirded out by rats. Snakes, sure, I understand. Many are venomous, and if you don't know how to tell the difference, it's best to just avoid them altogether. But rats? Rats are usually just pests at the most, and on their worst wild days they can be vectors for disease. But then, so can cats, dogs, foxes, guinea pigs, and half a dozen other things people almost universally find "cute". There are people who absolutely cringe when they think of bats who think foxes are cuddly, when the truth is that there are more reported cases of foxes transmitting rabies to humans than any bat or rat could ever manage.

I've heard people say it's the tail. What about it, really? Many of these rat-haters still think mice are cute. They look nearly identical to the untrained eye, with the obvious difference in size, which has led to - I'm not kidding - the perpetuated belief that mice grow into rats eventually. So how can you adore one but despise the other?

I watched the girls leave. If anyone had departed when the snakes were out the week before, I never noticed it, and they were exceptionally discreet, and never came back. It's hard to leave the classroom without being noticed. But several girls - all girls, to my shame - left the room when the rats were introduced.

Apart from my shock and confusion ("really? you can't tolerate rats?"), I felt a pang of scorn. Here were were, in a class - the last WEEK of this class, mind you - where we were purposefully staring down the career wherin we would take in every variety of pet for medical care... and they were grossed out by a common domestic species. How on EARTH did they expect to pass the course? Just conveniently skip all the rodent classes? All the small-animal nursing labs? Or perhaps the Animal Care Course, where we're supposed to take care of the facilities rescued dogs, cats, horse, sheep, goats, rabbits, and - yes - rats and mice? You know, those little absolutely critical classes to passing the course? How on EARTH did they think this career was appropriate for them?

The professor had stated at the beginning of the course that this was not a "pet the kitty" career, and yet every year she had applicants who couldn't stomach surgeries, had objections to euthanasia, and yes, could not deal with certain species. Being a vet tech isn't all about Little Timmy and his new puppy coming in for boosters. Sometimes it's about Ms. Jane with her aged Guatamalan Monitor with a prolapsed colon, or Mr. Smith with the family cat half mangled from being struck by a car. There will be limbs that cannot be saved, insides conspicuously outside, rotting flesh and smells that will turn the stomach of even the strongest tech, pus, blood, and feces ALL the time. Hell, my second day as an extern as a vet assistant, we lost a patient who was constantly vomiting, evacuating his bowels, his bladder, and salivating all over himself. If you can't handle a healthy rat being in the room, what the hell are you doing in the course?

We didn't get to handle the rats, sadly. The assistant professor walked around the room, showing off various points of anatomy, explaining how social they are, how to train them, and so on. The males were Kraven, King, and Koontz, where the females were Godiva and Hershey. They rode comfortably on her shoulder, venturing an inquisitive nose into the air as they passed by.

I shake my head sadly, and hope dearly that the professor noted the people who couldn't handle the species we'd been introduced to. I would hate to think that the class would be too full to give me a spot with folk like that getting a place. I don't begrudge people their phobias, even if they ARE misplaced (a phobia being an "irrational fear" to begin with), hell, I have a few of my own. But I'm never going to be asked to do a physical on a spider (and yes, I asked). If you can't handle what the job WILL entail, you shouldn't even be in the class. Go be a groomer, or a trainer, or a breeder, or a sitter, or a walker, or whatever you like. But you cannot reasonably expect to be successful in this field with that kind of block.