Training Your Pet Rat (Training Your Pet Series) Paperback – March 1, 2000

Other than my feeling that the title is a little misleading, I still would recommend this book to anyone thinking of owning pet rats. Don't get me wrong, it does contain information about training your rats but I think it contained more info about keeping them safe and happy, which I suppose would make for an easier to train pet rat. I have had pet rats for a while but I still like to learn from others about them and I did pick up a few things from this book I didn't know before. This book has excellent photos and I read it with (to) my two year old granddaughter so she could understand the importance of taking care of our little friends. The photos kept her entertained and made her want to learn even more about what the rats are doing. I am not disappointed at all in this purchase and still think it is a good read for all current and potential pet rat owners.

As others have mentioned, the content of this book does not live up to the title. There is very little training information. The majority of this book consists of basic information on rats, rat care, nutrition, and health. As someone looking specifically for training tips, I already am very familiar with those topics. I ended up skimming many chapters. What little there was of training was nothing more than toy suggestions, play ideas and a very general (and short) description of clicker training -- nothing that I couldn't read on the rat forums online.Furthermore, I felt that the tone of the book rather talked down the the reader. I initially thought maybe the book was meant for children (like, the 6-10 age range), but many subsequent pages address the reader directly as the parent making the decisions. Many pages are wasted explaining the obvious in brief (for example, the importance of hygiene for your pet's health), which any parent with enough common sense to rear a child would already know or correctly assume about rats. The book never goes into specific detail, and the writing itself tries so desperately to be humorous and upbeat that it was just annoying.This is the second pet book I've read from Barron's. The other was about hamsters and I found it very much the same in terms of writing quality, tone, and lack of information. I do not recommend this book at all or any pet literature from Barron's for that matter!

I found this book to be helpful for how to train your rats. It has different tricks and games, and is full of interesting advice. The author's voice is humourous while informative. While it is not a rat care book - I would get Debbie Ducommun's rat book for that - it also has information on looking after and caring for your rat though not as detailed. It's a must-have for those who are interested in training your rats and playing games with them.

Read this book cover to cover twice. We trained 2 of our rats. One now knows how to escape her cage (lol).

This book has much useful, detailed information on cages, feeding techniques, liter boxes, playing, training etc. It is far more than just about training. Its the best introduction to rats as a pet I've read yet.It is far superior to "Rats, Practical Advice from the Expert" by Ducommun, which frankly has no information that you wouldn't find on any rat fan website.

I love it... haven't finished it yet but expect to soon. The half+ that I've already covered includes all the fine points of how to prepare for your new pet(s) and how to select them - GOOD advice! Now I'm at the fun part and am looking forward to implement the easy and straightforward ideas on training. In addition - it's a light read, sprinkled w/ humor... makes it even more enjoyable.

I might not agree with everything in this book but lots of great information.

This book is very helpful. Anyone that is thinking about having rats as pets or owns rats need this book. There is a lot of valuable information about rats. How to choose one. The different cage types. A lot of different things.

We were new to the world of rats, and planned on getting 2 females. This book helped and prepared us for our exciting new adventure.Our rats are 6 months old now and we still read this for training and advice.One of my rats is more like a dog, and comes to me everytime I call her...(the other will too but only if she thinks there a treat involved.)I would recommend this book to anyone, I bought a few but this is by far the best and worth the extra spend.As someone who wasnt totally convinced on rats making good pets, they have captured my heart. These are beautiful, fun, intelligent and increadibly clean animals and the book captures these traits too. Its more of an essential handbook for rat owners.

I bought to help me to train a mouse to do tricks and opted for this title because it has the word “training” in it, suggesting that training is a main feature and one that is transferrable between rats and mice.This is NOT a book about training. This is a book about general care of rats and a handful of pages on training and it’s very wordy and common sense.Utterly useless for my needs and it seems the biggest trick of all us getting would be trainers ti but it over other general care books.

If you have never had a rat before (like me), this is a great book for you. If you have a low tolerance for corniness in writing, it isn't! I recommend that you read the book BEFORE you buy the cage or get the rat(s). Lots of practical advice. My impression was that the writing is also accessible for an average 10-year-old to read themself.

Easy to read written well, covers alot

This book is rather childish and poorly written. There is very little detailed information on rat training inside and a lot of superfluous text which often borders on the patronising, even nonsensical. I was very disappointed and would not recommend this book to anyone that's serious about training their rats.