'My Strange Obsession' and Rats

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Klomonx

Rats have big butts. :3
Joined
Jan 16, 2013
Messages
96
Location
USA
I don't like to watch television these days really, but mother showed me an episode of 'My Strange Obsession'; I didn't see all of it, but in short, from what I saw, the woman's obsession was rats. Not wild ones, mind you, simply the lovely pet ones. I don't know how many she had, but in the part I saw one of her hairless ones had died outside of a pet hospital, and she was holding its body in her hands and crying.
It also showed her playing with some morbidly obese rats, which sort of disgusted me a bit; but obviously she loves her pets.
I'm just a bit upset that this show, which often shows people with cultish obsessions (including buying realistic baby dolls and treating them as if they are real, or collecting Raggedy Anne dolls to an extreme degree) decided to show someone who simply loves her pets as..strange and an 'obsession' which is bad.
Any thoughts?
 
Klomonx said:
I don't like to watch television these days really, but mother showed me an episode of 'My Strange Obsession'; I didn't see all of it, but in short, from what I saw, the woman's obsession was rats. Not wild ones, mind you, simply the lovely pet ones. I don't know how many she had, but in the part I saw one of her hairless ones had died outside of a pet hospital, and she was holding its body in her hands and crying.
It also showed her playing with some morbidly obese rats, which sort of disgusted me a bit; but obviously she loves her pets.
I'm just a bit upset that this show, which often shows people with cultish obsessions (including buying realistic baby dolls and treating them as if they are real, or collecting Raggedy Anne dolls to an extreme degree) decided to show someone who simply loves her pets as..strange and an 'obsession' which is bad.
Any thoughts?
Click to expand...

Yea the consensus a while ago what that TLC likes to tilt everything to make a mockery of everyone on their shows. I don't think there was anything obsessive or bad about the way she cared for or loved her rats. ( although the surgery wasn't something I would have done.. the rat was not young and the tumor was very small.)

As for the morbidly obese, I didn't think her rats were that big.. you woudl flip a lid if you saw my biggest boy. but he eats health he just sleeps all day and is prone to weight gain.
 
Yeah. We had a lot of discussions about that on here. Someone even knows the woman in real life, and they said she's very sweet and a great owner. But eeeew, rats! :/
 
I too didn't like the show too much and I'm also not happy that someone from our very own community would have accepted to make such a show. Clearly these "obsession" shows are made to ridicule. It probably made the non rat lovers out there think we are all crazy.
Generally, pet rats are overweight and many obese. It's not healthy, that's for sure but it's really a challenge keeping a whole colony at the perfect weight.
 
I avoid those types of shows because I think they embellish too much or don't give us the full story. If though this lady was a hoarder of rats then I'd be concerned, but she being obessed just for loving her pets??? Seriously people need to be educated that owning a rat is completely normal. Heck I might as well be called obessed for having a tat of rat prints, neutering my boys and having 5 rats at a time lol
 
jorats said:
I too didn't like the show too much and I'm also not happy that someone from our very own community would have accepted to make such a show. Clearly these "obsession" shows are made to ridicule. It probably made the non rat lovers out there think we are all crazy.
Generally, pet rats are overweight and many obese. It's not healthy, that's for sure but it's really a challenge keeping a whole colony at the perfect weight.
Click to expand...

I agree. and it really opened up for criticism. I watched it online and the comments under were so upsetting, just perpetuating the bad rat stereotypes.
 
It's stuff like this that makes me feel... like high school peer pressure except im 27yrs old... I hate this feeling, because of shows like this. Yet, what if someone were to come up to me, after finding out my love for rats and say "Hey you have an obessession with rats! Want to be on our show?" I bet this lady's family didn't like her pets at all, saw how she loved them like their kids (like any pet owner when they have a dog or cat) and threw her on that show to be humiliated, when she thought maybe she could educate people instead.

I hate that stero type of rats being dirty or gross. THESE ARE DOMESTICATED CLEAN ANIMALS!!! Don't give me that "oh they have diseases" no its a rare chance they carry anything that effects humans, and in any case there are always LOW risks with any animal you take into your home, NOT just rats. GAH i'm just so mad right now! *shuts up*
 
She's in a rat group I'm on on Facebook, and she was REALLY upset because they filmed a ton of material that they didn't show -- basically, she interviewed with them and filmed all this stuff about what great pets rats are, but they re-cut all the footage to make her seem more freakish.

Reality TV is all the "modern freakshow" mentality.
 
Yep, if the woman had 19 golden retrievers or 19 cats, they wouldn't have had her on the show. They are just perpetuating the stereotype of rats as some sort of "weird" thing. It does not help rats's reputations or the people that love them.
 
she had an article in its a rats world that listed the intentional misinformation&manipulation the show used.
 
I absolutely agree with you. She's a normal person, no freaky stuff there. That show really wants to convert 'passions' to 'obsessions' thru film magic. I think the film crew even felt empathy and couldn't dis her when her kid died so they didn't skew it like their job demanded.
 
But really... if a show like that approached me to make an episode, I would know exactly what their intentions are and would have told them to take a hike!
 
Same thing, though it's sad if her and her husband (from that one clip I saw) aren't getting along because of her having pets. My future hubby was all for me getting my ratties, long as I knew what I was getting into and I got enough that I could manage to keep, not over blow it because he knows the costs of medical bills, feeding, cleaning and caring. It's sad they show that one clip of her 'supposed' (false) obessession was damanging her marriage, when to me it sounds like her husband just doesn't like pets in general. It's sad, really sad. She's NOT obessed, heck when she said she was 'obessed' with her rats, it sounded like on a normal scale. I could have easily said the same thing, yes I'm obessed with my rats, they are my pets I wouldn't want anything bad to happen to them! Poor lady :(
 
from what I read in the its a rats world article the separation was not about the rats but something worse&she has a lovely boyfriend now&indeed was with him at the time of the filming. I believe the husband was in fact her ex husband then as well&shed not lived w/him for more than a year. it was in the may issue so this is what I recall off the top of my head.
 

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