In April of 2004 the founder of the Michigan Fancy Rat Association had the opportunity to attend the very first Rat Society of America's Judge's training.
This organization was just in it's infancy at that time and was recruiting interested rat fanciers to become show judge's for upcoming events for club affiliations.
This was a two day event. The first day many predominant figures within the fancy rat community gave lectures on health, genetics and confirmation. The next day the participants were taught how to correctly hold and judge a fancy pet rat for rat shows. They were taught the standards and what to look for that was considered positive or negative traits/faults regarding type and confirmation in pet show rats. A test was given at the end of the event to assure that participants had retained what they had learned over the two days of activities.
The founder of the Michigan Fancy Rat Association is Kat Lovings of Rat Dippity Rattery. She successfully passed the Judge's training course given by the RSA but never pursued actually becoming a show judge. A lot of time has passed since those days and she thought it would be nice to share the photos of the event with the fancy rat community, showing how the RSA has grown and changed and has been expanding it's influence in the fancy rat world. So here's a look at how it all began.
It's been a few years since Kat attend this event and she tried to remember who everyone was but couldn't remember all the participants names. Kat has fond memories of this weekend, it was fun and educational and she thoroughly enjoyed getting to know all the different people from ratteries all over the country. Many of these ratteries have now closed their doors, but their memory lives on. There are wonderful pictures of the three founding members and the original club delegates, which are priceless.
To find out what each picture is about, pass your mouse pointer acrossed it.
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