Rats! What a great idea!

For Christmas this year, we got two pet rats.  After much searching / exploring ideas for good pets for kids, rats kept coming up at the top of the list.  As G is quite allergic to cats, and I have a general disdain for them, cats were off the list.  Dogs require too much time, attention, and cost; though would be a good 2nd choice for us.  I was thinking "hamster" but they don't sell teddy-bear hamsters anymore, and the little hamsters they sell now are biters.  That would be a "no" for us - we want a pet to interact with, not just watch.  So reptiles and fish are out.  Mariia doesn't like birds in the house.  What's left?  Rats.  The hamster industry has convinced us that hamsters are cute, clean, trainable, non-biters that are fun to interact with.  They are not.  However, rats do have all of these qualities.  People get turned off by the tail (hence why hamsters are more popular - small tail).  Silly, huh?  The tail is used for balance and to regulate their body temperature.  It's what gives them such great agility.

After acquiring a large (3' x 2' x 5') multi-level cage, the requisite food bowls, chewy things, hammocks, and other cage toys, we were ready.  A quick trip to PetCo and we had two female rats (no babies here, please) - Bee-Doh (from Despicable Me movies) and Eva (from Wall-E).  M thought that she would not like them at first, but after 5 minutes she was hooked.  A true rat-whisperer.  They took to her immediately for petting.

Rats are meticulous about being clean, they love to interact with each other and their owners.  If you don't handle your rats daily, they get sad.  If they don't live with another rat, they die faster, as they get very lonely.  On day 1 we were handling the rats.  When you scratch them behind their ears, they purr.  They're soft, they don't smell, and will lick your fingers if you pet them.  You groom your friends, after all.  In essence, they are kind of like small kittens with a lot less maintenance.

We've had the rats for about a month now, and they have never even attempted to bite at us, even with my 5-year old's sometimes rougher-than-I-like handling.  They tolerate it because they want to be played with.  When we clean their cage, we let them out to roam the room freely.  This usually involves having rats climb on the closest person.  They want to be on you and play with you.  If they can get inside your shirt, they think it is great fun.  After a month we have them litter-box trained so they are not making as much of a mess in their cage.  They both come when called.  We are "clicker-training" them, so when they get a treat, you make a clicking sound.  They associate the sound with doing something good.  S has them started to teach them how to stand on their back legs.  They play tug-of-war with each other and you using a paper towel.  They're incredibly adept climbers and jumpers.  They are crazy-smart and very fast learners.

Hollywood gets a lot of things wrong (shock!).  Rats in movies / TV are typically represented as nasty critters.  They are anything but that.  They use them in movies / TV because they are so easy to train and won't even think of harming their people friends.  Urban legends hold more truth than reality here.

There are some great life-lessons kids get from owning pets.  Learning how to take care of another living thing is a wonderful lesson.  The kids understand that the rats are dependent on them for food, water, cleaning, and socialization.  They take to it every night when we have "rat time".  Some lessons are good for all of us, simply by observing our rat-friends.

Things owning a pet rat will teach you:

- The cage is your home and a safe place, but all the fun is outside the cage with your friends.

- Though you may squabble with your housemate, you still curl up with them at night.

- Trust needs to be earned, but once earned the rewards are endless.

- Be cautious of new things, but try them anyway.

- If you find a peanut, share it with your friend.

- You need to try jumping to what you want every now and again.  If you miss, you have claws to pull yourself up.
- The potty is a safe place to chew on toys and treats.