URGENT: calling all rat lovers.

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lilangel

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 19, 2008
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Location
Hull,Quebec(not far from Ottawa)
I have not posted in a long while but i saw this today on facebook and thought to post here also(please remove if i should not sorry)


URGENT: calling all rat lovers.
Debbie Ducommun will be attending the Pittsburgh Pet Expo on Jan. 29, 2016. Once again, she is planning on doing surgeries on rats. Debbie only has a high school education, is unlicensed and does not have any veterinary training, despite the fact that she thinks she is a professional of some type because some high school teacher gave her tips. Debbie does these surgeries without any anesthesia and in non-sterilized environments. If the rat does not die during surgery, it can certainly die from complications afterwards (infections, bleeding, etc), and it HAS happened.
We are calling on all rat lovers to stand in solidarity and file a complaint with the humane society, immediately. When filling out the form, please put Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, zip code: 15205 as the address. The form can be found here: http://www.wpahumane.com/humane-investigations
Thank you to all those that help. Please share this post with as many people as you can. If you go to the Expo, everyone is encouraged to voice your thoughts on her activities.

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OMG is this real??!?!?!

holy crap! I thought she was only doing surgeries on her own rats, which is bad enough, but other people's rats too??
 
Debbie has no real medical training. Assistants can only do so much, as they don't have the training. She may have helped with vets but she couldn't do much hands on legally. Don't confuse vet assistant with vet tech...totally different ballgame.

DDconvo3.jpg~original


Here she is suggesting not giving a rat with a broken leg pain medication, since if he can feel the pain, he won't use the leg. This is ARCHAIC. We now know that pain can kill, a rat can go into shock and die, or the pain will stop them from feeding and hydrating themselves properly, or the stress of the pain will depress a rats immune system and they will contract a secondary infection, often respiratory on top of all their other woes. Rats with managed pain heal faster as well.

DDconvo2.jpg~original


I think the "she does surgery without anesthesia" has come around from her agreeing not all rats must have pain medications or anesthesia, not that she doesn't do it herself. From what I understand she has inhalant anesthesia but not the machine to give it properly...

Here is where she is approving of a rat that had tumours removed without anesthesia, saying they must not have felt it...ummm she wasn't even there, so how can she judge after the fact that the owner could even TELL that the rat wasn't in pain.

DDconvo11.jpg~original

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And sadly here is the result of this whole conversation...bad advice and a dead rat. :(

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I have been trying to stay out of this whole thing but it seems to have found it's way into every group and forum I am on.. I think the main thing is that she should NOT be operating on other people's rats! Nor should she be showing people how to do it themselves! No living thing should be operated on by someone that is not a medical professional!! What she does with her rats is her business but she is trying to teach people how to operate on their own rats without proper equipment in most likely non sterile environments.. If you wanna operate on your own rat then go to school and get the proper training and then get a proper place with proper equipment to do it... I get not wanting to pay big bucks but some vets don't charge out the wazoo! My local exotics vet is 20 minutes away but it cost me $150 a neuter,$222 a spay and $195 a tumor removal but if I drive 3 hours I can get them done less than half that but I trust my vet! So I'll pay the big bucks to know my rats have the best chance of recovery.. I saw a girl yesterday that came out and said Debbie operated on her rat and a couple of her friends rats and she did use anesthesia but she messed up and didn't close up a vessel properly and the rat bled out internally after she closed him up! Could that have happened with a licensed professional? Of course but much less likely because it's their job to check and double check before closing up and if she had taken just a moment to check she would have seen that he was still bleeding and correct it.. But being she has multiple rats to do in a not sterile enviroment then I am sure she new she needed to get in and out to keep the chance of infection minimum... Does she know what she is doing? Probably but it goes back to the fact that she is not a liscenced professional and does not have proper environment to do these surgeries and she should NOT be showing people how to operate on anything!! My vet has shown me how to do many things at home for our rats but if I was to go and ask her to show me how to cut them open then I can almost gaurentee she would give me a look of disbelief and then probably ask me to leave!
 
She may 'know her stuff' and be supported by some veterinarians but at the end of the day it is illegal to practice veterinary medicine without a license and she clearly isn't a licensed veterinarian. I can't believe she hasn't been charged yet!
 
Eversqueak, do you know how many YEARS of education it takes to become a vet?
you don't just go in and watch other ppl perform surgery and then decide, ok, I've got it! I can do that!
it's not like working on a car, for pete's sake, we are talking about living breathing beings, our beloved rats!

not even the worst vet is going to be at as big a disadvantage when performing surgery on a rat as Debbie D is with her lack of medical education. Plus vets have access to all the life saving equipment needed if something, heaven forbid, does go wrong. it's just absurd to me that anyone could defend a lay person doing surgery on animals!
not to mention, most doctors do not perform surgery on loved ones. there's a reason for that. I have to wonder what sort of person can just willy nilly cut open their own pets, it just goes against all that is human in us, it goes against the bond we have with our beloved rats, to cut into them like they are no more than a lab experiment.
it's just creepy and ghoulish to think about cutting up your own pet.
it's shocking to a normal feeling human being to even think about it.



loving rats means you do what is in THEIR best interest, that comes first.
 
At the end of the day she is not a vet and should not be doing surgery on rats or any other pets period. Would you send your child to a in home non licence Dr? To get heart surgery? I would sure as hell hope not, the same for a pet. Why does she not get her licence and then open shop and do payments(since many vets do not do this) for the people she says she helps? Vet medicine has come a long way from 20 years ago. Is she learning the top of the line stuff and using Us FDA approved meds? No she is not she gets it from China! She can not get FDA approved things because SHE IS NOT A VET. That right there should tell you a no no. And to do in out of a hotel room? In non sterile environments? Does she have a surgery room? If so why not post it for the world to see?

I do agree she has helped loads for the rats in certain ways but some things are just flat out screaming no. And to pts your pet using c02? Come on people.

Just reading the stuff you say Eversqueak makes me sick. So because i have watched Dr's do say heart surgery on a human for 20 years that i should be able to do it myself in my own home? Or if i watched a vet do cat and dog spay's that i can now do this in my own home using out of country meds? Do you know how silly that sounds?

And the screenshots show them self i am not lying as i can not make Debbie type what she has typed(I am super sure she has deleted it now to save her self like she deletes everything in her group) But the proof speaks for it's self. Choose to believe it or not.
 
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You can think what you want and have an opinion.
But please respect our opinion, which is different than yours.
We are alot, alot, alot of people AND vets who are supporting Debbie. She's not an ordinary person and she has a very specific background.
And BTW, she does not heart surgeries, she does only the surgeries she's able to do, and she have access to a vet anytime in case of any problem.
This is seriously drama.
Keep your opinion and don't try to destroy people's life and reputation. This is very evil. You have the right to expose your opinion, but there's a nicer way to do it. You should not destroy someone like that just because you disagree about what it does.
Ciao!

I did not say she does heart surgery i am only giving a example.

Here is a better example for you,
You do not see Non licence Dr's doing tumor removals in home? And if they did do this they would be in trouble for it.
 
You can think what you want and have an opinion.
But please respect our opinion, which is different than yours.
We are alot, alot, alot of people AND vets who are supporting Debbie. She's not an ordinary person and she has a very specific background.
And BTW, she does not heart surgeries, she does only the surgeries she's able to do, and she have access to a vet anytime in case of any problem.
This is seriously drama.
Keep your opinion and don't try to destroy people's life and reputation. This is very evil. You have the right to expose your opinion, but there's a nicer way to do it. You should not destroy someone like that just because you disagree about what it does.
Ciao!

no one is trying to "destroy" Debbie D
if she's done nothing wrong, she has nothing to worry about. ;-)

it makes me sick to see the comment in your screen shot from someone who wants to "be her apprentice"- that is, learn to do surgeries at home on their own rats, too.
this is what makes her dangerous in my book. it's bad enough she does surgeries on rats but to make others think this is something that is perfectly normal to do- that's scary.

heh, and she won't get much support with the claim that farmers do surgeries on their animals, so "that makes it ok". we've seen the videos of baby pigs having their testicles ripped out of them without anesthesia; it's horrifying. Like a lay person doing surgery on their pets. Horrifying. It's disturbing that so many people think these things are ok.

"she's not an ordinary person" ? oh in what way is she not ordinary?
and who is this vet or vets that "support" Debbie D? I can pretty much promise you she is never going to tell you, because that vet would risk losing his license if he condones what she's doing and/or is helping her do it. If in fact, such a vet exists.


Just because someone has a lot of followers doesn't mean that the followers are not also misguided. so that's not a valid argument either.
 
Cult leaders have lots of followers as well but doesn't make them right! I agree with petunia.. Get me the names and numbers of these vets that support non liscenced people doing surgeries at home!
 
If you want the names of the vets, simply go on that website (Debbie's Rat Assistance and Teaching Society), at the section «supporters»:

At least there's 3 or 4 vets names.

http://www.petrats.org/supporters.aspx


those are ppl who made donations, that does not mean that these ppl "support" - that is to say, agree with or encourage, a lay person doing surgery on a rat


and the only Vet I can find on the list is in the $1 to $49 donation "blue rat" club lol
 
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Debbie's problem is that she's got way too big of an ego. She thinks she can do no wrong, she thinks that she knows everything, and she thinks that no one else is above her, or more knowledgeable than her. She is NOT A LISCENSED VETERINARIAN. That is the MOST IMPORTANT THING to remember. She's killed peoples pets before, because she has no idea what the hell she's doing. I will never, ever support her ways, and what you're saying here falls on deaf ears, because none of us support her. You can argue all you want about it, it's not going to change our minds.

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thanks Kat

incredible that the main fact, that she is NOT a vet, doesn't seem to concern so many people
smh


Eversqueak, this is the only thread you've posted on since joining on the 26th, perhaps you'd like to introduce yourself and tell us about your rats?
 
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thanks Kat

incredible that the main fact, that she is NOT a vet, doesn't seem to concern so many people
smh

I know, right?! Like seriously, vets go through YEARS of training, somewhere around 9, give or take a little, and that's just for basics like cats and dogs. Exotic vets, which are the ones that treat our little guys, go for even LONGER to learn about more uncommon pets. Many of us here have owned rats for 10 years or longer, sure, and we've learned a lot in those many years, but we're still not qualified doctors who can safely perform surgery in a sterile environment with the proper tools and equipment. I can proudly say I've gained a LOT of knowledge over the years, and I actually did attend college level veterinarian training classes for a while when I was considering becoming a vet, but I would still NEVER EVER consider operating on any of my rats. I can only imagine the horrors that happened at first when she was "experimenting" with how she was going to do the procedures. It's not like she hit the ground running and did a professional job the very first time. She likely killed and seriously injured many rats in the beginning when she was "learning" and continues to kill them now, with the improper methods she uses.
 
... I can only imagine the horrors that happened at first when she was "experimenting" with how she was going to do the procedures. It's not like she hit the ground running and did a professional job the very first time. She likely killed and seriously injured many rats in the beginning when she was "learning" and continues to kill them now, with the improper methods she uses.


I can't bear to even think about it! doctors practice and practice and practice- first on cadavers that they can't harm (I've made an anatomical gift to a medical school myself- to help them with the supply of dead bodies lol) and they practice on artificial limbs etc etc - they don't just jump in and start carving people up.

oy!
 
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I actually just sent a message to Jo because I saw her post a link to this forum in The Rat Fanclub Facebook page, encouraging people to come on here, make accounts, and comment on this thread. So she's trying to start a mob, basically. On this little tiny forum on the internet where it won't have any impact.
 
I actually just sent a message to Jo because I saw her post a link to this forum in The Rat Fanclub Facebook page, encouraging people to come on here, make accounts, and comment on this thread. So she's trying to start a mob, basically. On this little tiny forum on the internet where it won't have any impact.


thanks Kat.

wow people kinda fall apart when they find out that there *is* no great and powerful Oz, er I mean "Rat Lady" hahahahaha
too funny
well, the forum could use some traffic, it will ultimately help us keep going, so bring on the mob hahahaha

this totally cracks me up.
 
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