Velociraptors have always been a great favourite with dinosaur keepers, they are quite small (compared to some other dinosaurs), highly intelligent and very rewarding to keep as a family pet, providing that a few basic rules are followed.

The first basic rule, and possibly the most important one is, never have more than one at a time. This is vitally important as I shall explain. Velociraptors are pack animals, and, as with all animal packs, there has to be a leader and a pecking order, this is especially true of Velociraptors. If you are sensible enough to just keep one, then you will be the leader of the pack and your pet will be happy to be second in command, following you around, looking after your well-being and generally trying to be helpful, all of which is good and leads to a quiet and happy life.

Should you be reckless enough to try and keep two velociraptors together, you may be able to keep your status as leader (although you may not), but the position of second in command will now be in continual dispute between your two pets. This will lead to endless bickering and squabbling between them. It will be quite impossible to get either of them to do anything as they will each consider the task to be beneath them and will result in a lot of snarling and snapping between them. This is not good and does not lead to a quiet and happy life.

Now, should you attempt the unthinkable, and try to keep three (or perish the thought - even more) velociraptors together things get very different. Three (or more) velociraptors constitute a hunting pack (first clue). Now a hunting pack is not a democratic institution, it is strictly promotion by assassination, therefore unless you are resigned to spending the rest of your life wearing very thick plate armour, your status of leader of the pack will be swiftly reduced to the status of lunch, this is not a maybe or a possibly, it will happen, so always follow the accepted wisdom and only keep one.

Velociraptors have become increasingly popular in the last few years due to their starring roles in a couple of recent Hollywood films and this increase in numbers has led to some quite serious problems, mainly with people exercising their pets in the local park and letting them off their leads. This must never be done! Firstly, velociraptors do not particularly like exercise, in the wild they tend to lie around sleeping in a heap for most of the day, until they feel hungry, then they run around until they manage to catch something to eat, they then gorge themselves silly and go back to sleep. They are quite happy with this and the idea of being woken up at the crack of dawn and then dragged around a cold damp park for no good reason is decidedly not their idea of raptor heaven!!

Now back to parks and open spaces, they all now have the legally required signs saying ‘Keep your velociraptor on a lead’ and I cannot stress the importance of doing so, nevertheless, there are people who for one reason or another chose to ignore it and when you get three (or more) of such people letting their velociraptors run unsupervised in one place the result can only be a hunting pack and general carnage among the unwary citizens in the area. I say unwary as it is really quite easy to avoid being eaten by a hunting pack if you follow a few basic rules and learn a little dance known as ‘The raptor two-step’. Imagine you are walking through your local woods and you suspect that you are being stalked by a hunting pack, They always like to circle their prey at a distance before going in for the kill and they are rarely very quiet about it, so you should have a bit of warning of the impending doom.

Velociraptors, as I have said are quite intelligent, but they are not that intelligent as all packs always hunt in exactly the same way, this gives you the chance of defeating them. The sequence of the attack is this, having circled the prey for a while they then manoeuvre themselves so that there is one, the leader, in front of the prey and one (or more) on either side. The first time you will see anything is when the leader pops up in front of you and just stands there staring at you. At this point, while you are deciding what to do, the others, the ones you haven’t seen, rush in from the sides then the leader attacks from the front. This is the way they always do it, with no exceptions. The key to your survival is of course ‘The raptor two-step’ and it works like this - when you see the leader pop up in front of you, you simply count to three and take two steps back, count to two and take two steps to the side, this way when the velociraptors charging at you from either side miss you, because you have stepped backwards, and therefore crash headlong into each other ending up in a stunned heap on the ground. The leader, who is now charging forward, also misses you, as you have taken two steps to the side, and trips over the other velociraptors lying stunned on the ground and goes rolling off, head over heels into the undergrowth until something large, like a tree, arrests his progress. At this point you are free to continue your stroll in the woods!