Rats = <3

[megatronix]

Meander's kid has a pet rat now, named Girled Cheese (because she's a girl, get it? hehe), and I am completely enamored by her, and now I want a pair of rats. Or a trio, after a bit of research yesterday.

Help, I have a new pet fascination, and I'm falling down the rabbit hole!!

How are rats SO cute and cuddly? I had heard they were, but to experience it with this little darling has made my heart go pitter-patter for rats. Just give me all the animals, please. I'll snuggle every single one forever.

Comments

[bleodswean]

I've had rats and they do make great pets! Very friendly and super smart! They do...chew...and are prone to cage boredom, so they need entertaining! They also have short lifespans and that can be sad. :(

That sure is a cutie there!

[megatronix]

That’s awesome you had rats! I had a bunch of small mammals over the years in childhood (ferrets, chinchillas, rabbits, hamsters, gerbils), but never rats. I think some day that would be awesome. Right now would potentially be a difficult time, because our dog is like hyper-hunter dog and might bark like crazy if he noticed movement in a rat cage. Right now he has no idea our lizard exists because she’s the quietest beast that ever lived. So rats might have to wait for Ashton’s older years. Which would correspond to Homer’s older (more responsible?) years as well. We shall see. It would be extremely fun though!! I do want to have the experience of having them myself at some point.

For now, I’ll just enjoy reading about them a while and cuddling Meander’s rat every chance I get.

[adoptedwriter]

I have a friend who "rescued" rats when her husb worked in a science lab. He did not want to see the rats be sacrificed after their contributions to research, so she and he rescued them for a while. (Barbie and Ken) They needed homes, had actual personalities plus were low allergenic so win-win!
I used to have a pet mouse named Sniffums. She was a hoot. She loved our "game time" and doing tricks.

[megatronix]

So cool! Omg, what tricks did Sniffum do?

My brother had two mice named Cecil and Rydia (after video game characters) and we didn't do anything with them other than watch them, but OMG he loved those mice sooooo much. It was fun having them around. We never took them out because my mom was terrified they'd get loose, and we were too (and we had six cats at the time!). The rats are interesting, because they seem to have the sweetness of mice, but just like slowed-down, which is pretty perfect.

[adoptedwriter]

Sniffums knew when it was "foodie time", and would walk upside down on her cage lid. (a wire mesh top). It was so cute. I also got her an exercise ball so she could roll / walk around on the kitchen floor and not get lost/ eaten by the dog / escape / get into wrong things. She loved it.

[megatronix]

That's so cute, my hamsters used to do that too, and I loved it! (both the walking upside down on the wire lid, and the running in the exercise ball)