I know what you mean. my grandparents insist on calling my gerbils rats, and acting like they are all discusting and I remember something that got me angry at a petstore is a little girl wanted a rat and her dad said and i quote "yuk! you dont want a rat, those are discusting" oh, that guy really pissed me off
the rest of my family loves animals though, my cousin adores my gerbils, when she met my first gerbil sandy she loved her so much she got a gerbil of her own, and her brother got a hamster, and they havea dog named scruffy and a cat named sox. my other cousins have 2 dogs one named spud, and I dont remember the other dogs name. my other cousins have a cat I dont know its name though, and my dads parents grew up with dogs(and my dad with dogs) and my mom grew up with tones of animals so her parents love animals too, my mom had several dogs, a couple cats, lots of fish, 2 gerbils, a couple of budgies, and my mom took horse riding lessons, I take after my mom lol can ya tell?