When I was a kid, most of the animals we owned had ear piercings, and it never seemed to bother them — we gave the cows ear tags which were IDs, but more so insecticides, so they were quite likely better off for them. I also remember branding the horn buds off our goat kids — which they definitely did not like, but were also likely better off for having it done.
That said, I’m not so convinced that this rat is better off with his body modification and I’m actually surprised it didn’t bother him. However, the rat’s keeper writes, “it healed quickly and with the tiny jewelery I put in it, he didn’t even notice he had it.”
On one hand, I think we live in a culture of pervasive animal cruelty, be it the simple reality of killing and eating animals, or the even more perverse reality of professing to love animals, keeping one as a slave while having others killed to feed that slave, so I’m not convinced on the scale of things little Dawson the pierced rat is the biggest problem for real animal lovers. On the other hand, I can predict the response to this post already…
Comments
166 responses to “How do you feel about this?”
Awww. Poor ratty.
I don’t think this is a good thing, and I’m sure many other people will be outraged by this.
Piercing animals just for the sake that you CAN does not justify it. At all.
wtf this is not right
This makes me angry in the same way that piercing a baby’s ears makes me angry.
I’m not outraged, but I still think it is wrong to pierce or tattoo an animal for some kind of fun of the owner. The rat here does not know about piercings, coolness and aftercare, it gets hurt and has to handle some foreign material in its body. How do we know that it doesn’t bother the pet? Not very cool, if you ask me.
You’re not doing it because the rat wants it. It cannot tell you it does. It’s because _YOU_ as an “owner” of it wants the animal to have it. It fills no purpose but the pleasure of your own, which isn’t justified according to me. Maybe the animal will barely feel the needle coming through, but for what purpose? It’s ridiculous.
That’s my point of view though, and i’m sure that everyone doesn’t feel the same.
Shit…how stupid can people be?? ….shit..poor rat!
Just thinking – this little lab rat will probably die after 2 and a half years from cancer. A slow painful death humans made it prone to. Isn’t that enough interference from mankind for a litle rat?
Esteticly cool. Without a doubt.
Cool from an etics point of view. Not really.
It’s just as bad as tatooing a dog or baptising a child.
You do something to the person without the person or animal choosing it themselfs.
And yes,i really think that piercing a animal for reasons beyond ID is the same thing and just as bad as baptising infant children,it makes me sick.
I would be more worried about if the rat tears out the piercing, rather than, if the rat wanted a piercing or not.
Rats ears are very thin, and I personally would really stress about it being ripped out on bars of the cage or something. This would leave a very unhappy rat with a bad ear for the rest of its life, for five minutes of the owners entertainment.
It ain’t right.
it looks cool but i feel for the rat.
i think as long as there aren’t any complications from the piercing…whatever. if the rat became irritated with it and was scratching it and i knew it was in pain…maybe i would object. i think as long as it isn’t causing it issues the rat could rock it. i don’t condone this but once its done its done. let the rat decide.
***by rat decide means if it looks irritated take it out.
Most of the cats around here (Vancouver) have ID tattoos because the SPCA tattoos them for free i think. This is no different. AND what about all the people who get ID chips implanted in their pets. I dont think the piercing will decrease the quality of this rats life at all. Lots of people pierce their babies ears without asking them first so dont even argue that the rat had no choice.
One day when the rat feels an itch, he’ll tear the thing out inadverdantly.
Poor rat.
I have to agree with PiXiETroll.
(you can skip the next two paragraphs if you don’t care about my opinion on organized religion/baptizing/confirming children in the catholic faith/forcing them to go to catholic school)
Especially on the baptizing…I was baptized as an infant and forced to go to catholic church and a catholic elementary school. I had to beg to be let to go to public school in 7th grade and am much better for it. A class of 60 to a class of a couple hundred means I got to meet a lot more people and gained many social skills that I never would have at the catholic school which had an average graduating class of 25 people…
My views on the Catholic faith and going to an a Catholic church have changed a lot since I’ve gotten older and don’t go to church except for holidays, although I’m still part of the Catholic church a lot my beliefs differ…even getting confirmed in eighth grade I really didn’t understand what religion was really all about and what I personally believed. They use to do confirmations when you were a senior in high school which to me makes much more sense. I’ve recently heard that they are starting to do confirmations in elementary school, which really bothers me. The child really has no choice but to go along with what their parents are telling them to do and have no real concept of religion when they are that young. When I have my own children they will not be pushed/forced to choose the religion that I follow but will be encouraged to look into what religions there are and what one they would like to join if they so choose to join an organized religion.
Anyways, I also think that while not really cruel to the rat that this should not be done…My cat HATED having a collar put on for the first time and tried desperately to get it off, I can’t imagine what he would do if I pierced his ear, and it would most likely get infected from him scratching at it…
Poor rat…
P.S. sorry for my ramblings
reminds me to take my pet rat out of the cage and play with him…
Uh, no. ID tattoos, which are applied when the animal is anesthetized and that they never notice, are not the same thing at all.
*sigh* not cool…isnt consent a key part of the mod world?…
This is disgusting and the rat’s owner should be ashamed of themselves.
That rat is metal!!!
But still, not cool.
It does put one in a strange mood of thinking. It’s a bit out there but not that out there. We’ve mostly agreed that killing and animal, grinding it to bits and eating it is ok. Also wearing dead body parts of the animal, even for increasing attractiveness, is ok. Some (many?) say that’s wrong too which is a valid position. I had pepperoni pizza just now. I wore my leather jacket picking it up. My wife thought it was hot. One hour of the past and I’m hitting all the majors, so my holier then thou mana is low on this. On some level I do feel uncomfortable with eating and wearing animals. I grew up on a farm and both my sisters are vegan and I kind of get why. But I don’t see why it’s suddenly way more offensive in this sort of case. It’s easy to say “useless”, but did you really *need* those leather pants last time you went to they club? Didya, boi? Latex or cotton wouldn’t have made the cut? If so, why? Was that big mac really such a need rather then a want?
Same old deal, animals aren’t being treated that nicely. I can’t say I’m helping that much, but I do see that there is no real difference here.
i don’t know man, what is the jewelry? looks like a stick pin. i smell bullshit
I love piercings for the way they’re an expression of self. That’s what piercings should be, that’s where their beauty lies. This isn’t an expression of self.
It annoys me, not because of animal rights issues, but in the same way that crap tattoos annoy me – it’s a failure and an abuse of a wonderful art form.
Lab rats and mice are sometimes tattooed on the tail, or have their ears punched (like a dermal punch, but no jewellery) to identify individuals since they’re often housed several animals to a box. In my lab we use crystal violet to paint patches on the fur, the little purple and white mice look cute.
I’m assuming that some people are aware that animals also kill other animals to feed themselves… something about the law of nature but nevermind. This is such a silly argument.
Poor stuck rattie.
i agree- poor ratty :(. it’s not the worst animal treatment ever, but it also isn’t cool.
this is a bit different from piercing a baby’s ears though. i mean, the kid can grow up and remove them if he/she wants to. the rat never had a choice, nor will he ever have a choice.
and, honestly, what’s the point of this other than to show how “hardcore” you are (“see, dude! even my PETS have mods!”)
that’s icky. i love rats, but they hang out in their own poo all day, and ecoli makes for some pretty bad infections. i.d. chips and tattoos at least serve a purpose, which excuses the inability of an animal to consent to them.
i’ve been a vegetarian for my whole life, so i don’t feel such a hypocrite, but i don’t think anyone who objects to unnecessary and gross cruelty is either.
I got my ears pierced at 6 months, my mom tells me it is so since I obviously don’t remember, and I don’t harbour any hard feelings about it.
Are you all going to be outraged for me since I didn’t give my consent?
You wouldn’t pierce a humans ear without their permission would you?
Why do it to a rat?
This is just as bad as fishing…
Three things:
1. I am right there with you disagreeing with organized religion and the forced indoctrination of children by their parents and all that jazz, but how you can compare piercing a child to baptizing a child is beyond me. Piercing will inevitably leave a permanent scar on some one’s body, while baptizing is simply sprinkling fancy water on a kid’s head. Yeah, it may piss a baby off, but it is not permanently altering the child in any way.
2. How can you possibly compare this with tattooing an animal for identification purposes? (I am directing this at KayKay – not you, Shannon.) While we all may have differing opinion about tattooing animals for identification purposes, it does serve a purpose and has most likely reunited thousands of animals with their owners. This “piercing” serves no purpose other then to make the “owner” feel badass because OMG HIS RAT HAS A PIERCING DUUUUUDE. It also potentially endangers the rat’s health, as whatever is in there stands a chance of getting ripped out and ingested by the poor thing.
3. This reminds me – I miss my ratties. 🙁
I’d never pierce my rat, I can just imagine his little squeak of pain putting the needle through and him trying desperately to claw the jewellery out afterwards. It’d just be an uneccesary trauma, he wouldn’t know what the hell was going on and it’d probably frighten him a lot.
NOT cool. Not at all. I don’t agree with brandings and ID tattoos either. The animals are not any better off with them. You (general, not specifically Shannon) as the “owner” are better off when your animal has been marked.
I don’t believe in piercing babies’ ears because the babies cannot give their consent. The same goes for this poor rat.
Besides, how much care in sterilizing the needle do you think the “piercer” took.
KILL HIM !! ! ! ! !! what right does he have to HURT and MODIFY that poor creatures body ????
Thats like a total stranger would randomly come and pierce my ear and just be like “oh its okey it will be fine..” fucking..shoot the person in the head and do..something..nasty to it after that !
27 – It’s completely different. The argument here is that there’s a lack of consent because there’s a lack of, you know, verbal communication between humans and animals. Even though you didn’t consent as a child, you would later on be able to voice your displeasure and remove the jewelery if you didn’t like it.
While I don’t condone putting pierced jewelry on a rat…it’s a lot better than the alternative: most rats sold in shops are sold as food for reptiles. Wrong or right, thats the fact. He’s lucky by those standards, not that he shouldve been pierced for asthetic reasons, either.
( #31 I don’t suppose microchipping a pet feels really good either but then neither does getting lost and ending up at the pound without being indentified.)
my main problem? it looks like a sewing pin. that’s not a piercing, its sticking a rat with a pin. since its unlikely we’ll hear from the rat’s perspective here, I’m going to say what a stupid thing to do for any reason-even if its photoshopped. The first thing that came to my mind was how serial killers often tortured animals as children and teens ‘just cause’. this fits right in there with them. lame and stupid.
Enter “animals that get killed can’t consent” wank. Forget about the fact that, philosophically speaking, many cultures will accept killing and abhors torture. They even built it into the US, for a while there. Forget about the fact that modifications are supposedly all about “consent”. Just concentrate on the fact that since human beings kill animals, we then lose the right to ever comment on the treatment of animals before their murder. Much like we should really ignore the torture of prisoners held by the state, since many of them kill their prisoners anyway, so even if it’s not the same prisoner it makes it all irrelevant, really.
Stupidest fucking idea I have ever heard of, and yet it keeps popping up here again and again, like the entire sins of humanity should keep perpetuating themselves because no one’s free of guilt, so no one should ever speak up. Keep piercing those animals! What’s one animal’s pain versus an entire nation full of slaughterhouses? Until the many are healed, ignore the few.
Asshole.
Aww take that out of that poor rat’s ear 🙁
my hamster wore earings when I was a kid, but that was more because of it had holes in its ears from god knows what (I assume fighting with other hamsters though) so I didn’t actually pier its ears I just put it through the existing hole.
woah…a little extreme there Rauka?…kill a person because they put a needle through a rats ear?…yes it is a stupid thing to do, i would never do it, only a dumbass would….oh and another thing…humans eat other animals because 40,000 or so generations ago we needed the protein in meat in order to develop our advanced brains, the same brains we use to comment on modblog, so killing and eating animals is kind of bred into us…when we are in a survival situation, you would be very surprised at what food your brain will make appetizing.
Besides the general pettiness, the main thing that bothers me is the good chance that it’ll be torn out. The hole itself isn’t a big deal- it happens, my rabbit’s ears have two perfectly healed holes from what i can only assume are the tips of his claws. But if that happens to get caught on something, it certainly won’t stop the poor rat from tugging through. I won’t go off on animal rights activism, there are certainly worse things to complain about, but the thoughtlessness is kind of depressing.
absolutely NOT nice, neat, cool, or anything else. Anyone else know how rats groom themselves? That poor thing looks miserable and a natural reaction to a stressful situation for a domestic rat is to take a minute and carefully groom it’s ears. Yeah, somebody call the animal cops who ever did that needs to go to jail.
#26 anabot: Being a vegetarian is in no way a shield from the guilt of the harm we cause to animals and the environment. Did you ever wonder about the possibility of a carrot causing more damage than a steak? Consider the acres of habitat plowed under, the gallons of oil used, and the pesticides and herbicides running into the groundwater to bring you your salad? Give me a slab of bacon from a healthy, happy, local pig any day of the week over that mess.
As a past owner of rats (some of the most intelligent beasties I’ve had the pleasure to meet), I find this deeply disturbing.
I had a cat that had chronic renal failure, and a big part of his treatment was getting subcutaneous fluids three times a week. I had to poke him with a 20g needle to get the fluids into him. It wasn’t exactly painful for him, but it was definitely uncomfortable and not something he enjoyed (even though he obviously felt so much better with the fluids in his system).
I would never, ever stick an animal with a needle for anything other than medical reasons. I certainly would never give one a decorative piercing – I can’t imagine why any truly thoughtful person would. It’s impractical and unethical, and while the discomfort may only be temporary it’s still completely unnecessary.
Popaver, your comment is ill-informed and ridiculous.
it looks like a standard sewing needle pin.. (not to question this person’s integrity but i wouldn’t call that jewelry). i think it’s unfair to put jewelry on animals. they are incapable of keeping it clean, and are obviously going to get it hooked on things and have more of a chance of tearing it out, along with their flesh. i can see that rat knocking it’s head into something and that needle jamming right through it’s brain. that thing is the equivalent to a human with a chopstick through their ear.
What. The fuck. :\
I didn’t read the comments because I’m exhausted, but the only thing I have to say is that I assume you are referring at least partially to pets when you say society keeps animals as slaves, and I disagree at most they would be prisoners, its not like you have your dog cook and clean for you.
This is wrong.
Shannon, you’re right, I’m concerned about all the other issues you mentioned above, but since we are talking about an individual rattie here, this still bothers me.
Rauka: you are a joke of a person.
tagging a cow for ID & insecticide purposes is one thing, but this rat didn’t ask to have a hole put through it’s ear. kind of like how lab rats don’t ask to have human ears grown on their backs.