Joy of Owning a Rat

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The Well-Tempered Pet, Madison Pet Gazette, July 1998

By Sharon Savage, M.S.

Have you been reading "The Well Tempered Pet" and thinking, "I'd love to get a pet, but dogs sure can have a lot of problems," or, "What if I go away for the weekend?" Many people choose to skirt these issues by buying a cat. But what if you could get an enthusiastically devoted doggy personality in a pet that can be left alone for a few days? An easily socialized, highly interactive, tons o' fun, truly trainable, playful pet? No such animal, you say? Guess again!

For the owner that wants that canine slavishness without the high maintenance, consider adopting my favorite rodent: the intelligent, ultra-affectionate, domesticated rat!

I bought my first rat, Max, while I was a college freshman. Max was a hooded rat, meaning that most of her was white, but her head and a stripe down her back were brown. Most rat aficionados rank hooded rats as the friendliest, followed by white and finally, solid-colored. Having owned one of each type, I concur.

At the time I bought Max for $1.75, pet stores only sold rats as snake food. Young Max had spent her time at the pet store inside a cardboard box in the storage room. Imagine the socialization problems had Max the bad fortune to be born a dog or cat! Luckily for us (but not for the poor rats) years of laboratory breeding has made domesticated rats both highly adaptable and extremely sociable.

Loving a rat: some pros and cons

During the three years I spent with Max, I learned the following things about rats. First, their slightly "imperfect" side:

Cons…

Night moves

While they'll gladly play during daylight, rats remain active all night. It took each of my roommates about three restless nights habituating to scuffling sounds. When they went home each summer, though, the same students reported experiencing temporary insomnia because "it didn't seem like home without Max."

Maid service

Rats like to be sanitary and you owe it to them to clean their cages frequently. Expect to chalk up about 300 cage cleanings over your rat's lifetime.

Chew on this

Rats chew anything and everything. Over a three-year period, Max chewed the spines off dozens of books, ate through several sets of bedding and destroyed two new sweaters. That's their job!

Now for the good points:

Pros…

Antiseptic animals

Rats are wonderfully clean. They seem to spend about 80% of their time grooming themselves. Female rats are virtually odorless when their bedding is changed twice a week. Males, however, tend to emit an unpleasant musky smell, and are not preferred as pets.

Litter perfect

Some rats are naturally "housetrained" and use their cages as litter boxes. Max was loose whenever I was home, but she always returned to her cage if she needed to "go". In three years, she only had a few accidents. My other rats weren't as perfectly housetrained, but all were quite tidy. And rats raised with humans will do anything do avoid "going to the bathroom" on a person!

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