Thanks for your thoughts, Uabassoon. I'm still thinking. If I really feel like going for the rats, I'm going to have to do some heavy duty arguing with the husband. He's deathly afraid of them. Go figure. We had a guinea pig, and he wasn't afraid of her. I told him to think of a rat as a guinea pig with a tail

He tells me last nite.."don't get a rat or mice, if you have to get something, get a bunny"

I remember when we had our piggy, I was quite allergic to her. I had a piggy when I was younger with no allergies. Different hair type, I guess. My first one was one of those ones with the longer swirly hair. This last one I had, had short, kinky, coarse fur. It was the neatest feeling under your hand. When I picked her up or petted her I would break out in hives and be horrendously itchy. I discovered one day that I couldn't bathe her. When she hit the sink and I started washing her my throat and chest all of a sudden felt like a vise squeezing me. I could barely breathe. I was coughing, puking, gasping for air and turning purple. I went outside in the cold air and it seemed to help a bit. Talk about your anaphylactic shock. Someone told me that the dander particles from her fur got trapped in the mist from the water that was floating around as I was washing her, and I was inhaling them...hence the horrible reaction. After that. I delegated bath time to kids who weren't allergic to her. She had to be done in the bathroom with the fan going. Blow dried in the bathroom, with the fan going and immediately put every single towel used for her in the wash, as well as hang the bathroom rug outside to air out. Yeesh. What a pain in the butt.