My Rottweiler mix is protective of the rat pups

[MoshBalls]

Last week after much anticipation we brought home 3 new ball python morphs, a lesser, a spider, and a pinstripe. When we bought them we also bought 3 rat pups to feed them. We knew the kids wouldn't like us feeding the babies to them so we didn't show them. What I didn't expect was the dogs reaction.

When we put the first pup in to feed the snake, "Abby" our Rottweiler/Lab mix whined relentlessly, and started passing and staring at the tub. She even followed me around whining and trying to get me to go back in the room with the tub. Needless to say the snakes didn't eat the first night. Since then Abby insist on checking on the rat pups by whining all through the night until I let her see them. She even licked them. I was able to keep the pups alive for a few days until two of the snakes finally ate. I kept the dog out of the room and didn't let her see what I was doing but even after the snakes ate them she came in the room and gave me the worst puppy dog eyes ever. Then later I couldn't find her which is weird since she usually follows me around. I ended up finding her in the closet, where she hides when it storms. She obviouly knows and is mad/sad.
The weirdest thing is she has never had a litter of puppies as she was fixed when she was small.

Has anyone else had this kind of reaction from their dogs? Now it seems I am going to have to keep feeding time from her as well.

[The Hedgehog]

Yes, I have seen that reaction to being protective, especially from Rotties.

My Ausie Cattle dog I had for a long time did that with a puppy. She was fixed and about 4 years old at the time. My dad (divorced from my mom) had to go out of town for a week, and asked my mom my dog from his house could stay with us. My mom said yes, and we brought the dog over. (less than a year old) Well, they got along great! When my dad came back after a week, my cattle dog, knew what was up. My dad went to go pick up the puppy, and my cattle dog started to growl and hover over the puppy. We obviously moved her out of the way and got everything straightened out.

It's amazing to see dogs take over that "motherly" instinct.

[Powerspythons]

haha, thats awesome. My dogs are exactly the opposite and try to eat any rats that get away..I always have them around in case one jumps out of my hand or something and they're always there to grab them for me. Last week I had a mouse hopper jump out of my hand over my shoulder and by the time I turned around all I saw was the tail hanging out of Blue's(my husky mix) mouth...surprisingly though I told him to drop it and aside from some dog drool the mouse was unharmed and made a full recovery!! He now has an appointment with my lesser male in a few weeks..

[Kymberli]

My Australian shepherd mix does the same with kittens. I brought home a brother and sister kitten from a high-kill shelter a few years ago and she would follow them around the house, clean (lick) them and even tried picking them up from the scruff of their necks as a mom would with her puppies.

[Michelle.C]

All eight of our dogs love our rats, especially our oldest female. She cleans the adults and baby rats. The others will kiss the rats but they mostly just play with them. They are surprisingly gentle with a half pound animal, considering most of them weigh 70-80lbs.

One of our male rats escapes every so often to run around the house and play with the dogs. If you put him back before he's done, he'll escape again.

[KatStoverReptiles]

My male beagle seems to have discovered what we're doing when my husband and I get the "feeding tub" out. We used to have rats as pets and he wasn't really interested. We're feeding ft so its not like they're live and moving. He leans up on the table we have the feeding tub on and whines and looks from the tub to us and back. We usually have to send him out of the room.

He also gets very upset when he hears puppies cry on tv. He looks at me like, "Mom! Help the puppies!"