Play Time

Rats are not the easiest pets I've had. Chickens are easier, as are fish. Rats need stimulation and attention, in addition to plenty of play time.

Last night though, half frozen from an evening out in the cold taking care of horses and walking dogs, it occurred to me that rats are very pleasant pets to care for. All I had to do was flip over a laundry basket, put the rats on the bed, and they were good for an hour of burrowing, digging, and exploring.

Saké

Sushi

Service Rats

CNEWS has an interesting article about the upcoming use of rats in Colombia to sniff out landmines (available here: cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Features/2011/11/23/19008356.html).

Landmine sniffing rat with his trainer.

It sounds similar to the HeroRATS (www.apopo.org/home.php) program that I wrote about a few weeks ago (at bentorats.blogspot.com/2011/09/herorats.html) but what I especially find interesting with the Colombian program is that they are using ordinary white rats.

The rats have a highly sensitive sense of smell which, combined with their light weight, makes them ideal for sniffing out landmines. They are also (of course) highly intelligent, making it easy for them to learn voice commands.

So far they have bred five generations of rats as the program has been fine tuned. It is believed that the upcoming generation will be trained to such a degree that they will be ready to go into the field. The Colombian government estimates that 31 of the country's 32 provinces contains landmines and people die because of them every year. If successful, the government's rat project could have a significant positive impact on the lives of Colombians.

Spartan Fan?

The MSU football team beat Northwestern 31-17 on Saturday and now stands alone at the top of the Big Ten division.  The Big Ten championship game is next weekend.

None of this means anything to Saké though. She was just looking for a place to hang out.

Saké

Patently Awesome!

I think this should become a real article of clothing:

I wouldn't hesitate to take Sushi and Saké for a walk.

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's Thanksgiving, the day when millions of Americans eat tons of food, watch football, and nap.

It also means that I'll have plenty of leftovers to pass along to the girls. I love the vegetable trays at big events for just that reason.

Sushi eats a bit of tomato

I know of at least one tiny rat who will approve of this.

Rat Naps

The other night I walked by the girls' cage and saw Saké camped out in an unusual place.

One quick photo before she noticed...

Unfortunately, the moment she realized I had the camera, she split.

"Me? I would never nap in the litter tray!"

Happy Rats

Don't underestimate the excitement of a good pile of laundry.

Sleeping Saké

We woke up Saturday morning to a funny sight.

Saké's and her tail

She's usually wide awake when we get up in the morning but since it was Saturday, we slept in later than usual. Saké was sound asleep, with her tail stuck outside her box. She loves her current box and virtually ignores their nest and hammock now. She is going to be disappointed when the box is tossed out soon, due to how terrible it is beginning to smell.

Laundry Rats

It's hard to beat a pile of clean laundry when you're looking for a place to hide.

Saké

Crazy Rats

The rats have had limited playtime outside of their cage, due to a lot of unexpected stuff going on at home. We always hold them whenever we get a chance, but their concentrated playtime in the last week has been almost nothing. Thus last night we made a particular effort to get them out for a while.

For the first couple of minutes they were fairly quiet, just hanging out on my shoulders while I read. Then it was as if someone flipped a switch and they were off! Sushi raced up and down the length of the bed in great bounding leaps and Saké repeatedly would climb up to my shoulder, jump to the bed, and then do it all over again.

I tried to take pictures during all of this craziness but the girls were not inclined to stay still.

Sushi pauses before jumping off the towels and racing to the foot of the bed.

I think tonight I'm going to have to build them a jungle gym out of boxes and towels to really let them get that energy out.

Sushi

Longrat is long.

Who says rats can't co-opt an Internet meme?

Rats on David Letterman

This interview provides more information about yesterday's fashion video:



So much awesomness.

Rat Fashion

This is wonderful. I need to learn more about the rat convention.

Saké

Things are a little hectic right now, so today we have one of my favorite previously posted pictures:

Saké

Sushi

Things are a little hectic right now, so today we have one of my favorite previously posted pictures:

Sushi

Hello!

Things are a little hectic right now, so today we have one of my favorite previously posted pictures:

Saké

Sushi's Tail

I love how careless Sushi is with her tail sometimes.

Saké Isn't the Only Brave Rat

This story is a couple of years old, and I was happy to randomly find it again yesterday. A photography student was taking pictures of a leopard when he saw something amazing - a daring young brown rat decided that the leopard had enough lunch to share.

The full story is over at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1190772/What-squeak-Daring-mouse-whos-boss-scares-leopard-steals-lunch.html.

Rat Show Report

Last weekend we went to a rat show held here on campus (just to watch). I have shown horses, cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, rabbits, and chickens, and still the rat show defied my expectations.

Show program

For each individual class, the rats are brought to the show table in identical carriers. Labels on the top identify their show number, age, and type, but omit any information regarding owner. This helps keep things anonymous (although with a small show, I'm not sure how much this helps.)

Rats lined up in carriers

Each rat is handled individually (and the judges apply hand sanitizer between rats) and assessed for various traits, such as shape, condition, quality of coat, length/thickness of tail, and head structure.

Assessing overall shape

It was cool to see such a wide variety of rat breeds - we saw some beautiful colorations.It was also neat to see how different rats behaved while getting handled by complete strangers.

Attempting to assess head shape.

Similar to some types of horse showing, a scribe was present to note down the judge's comments on each individual rat.

This scribe had an awesome Portal (with rat) shirt.

Overall, while the people involved in the show seemed to have fun, it was disappointing to me. There is usually a high degree of subjectiveness in competition, especially when assessing against breed standards. At this show, it really seemed to depend on the individual judge. The judge in the above pictures did a good job of explaining what she liked about one rat over another. But we watched another judge who assessed nearly every feature of every rat as "very good", which then made her final results seem arbitrary. 

That said, the show itself was fun - we saw a lot of beautiful rats and awesome rat t-shirts.

Sushi

Demonstrating that she's doing better with eating hard foods, Sushi eats piece of Kix:

Hanging Around - Not Quite as Comfortable

Yesterday's post featured a more comfortable hammock arrangement for Sushi. Things are easier when she's sitting on her fat sister, versus when her fat sister sits on her:

Squished Sushi

Hanging Around