Pillows Part 2

Continuing yesterday's theme, footage of a tiny rat playing in pillows.

Explorers

Sushi had fun playing in a pile of pillows the other night.

Sushi

I was a bit surprised to see her playing on them however, because they were not in the most stable place.

The pillows made me nervous, but not Sushi.

Saké was wise enough to stay out of the way.

Saké waits off to the side.

Regardless of her choice of hang out, Sushi wins the award for adorable explorer rat.

Look at those feet!

Finally...a Meme Turns to Rats

I was tired of this meme until I saw this on another rat blog (which is a fun blog and you should check it out). Suddenly, I'm back on board.

Pants Party

Little known fact: pants make an excellent place to hang out.

Beans!

We had green beans with dinner the other night, and the cooked, softened beans were perfect for Sushi.

Sushi pauses to look at the camera.

Saké quickly figured out that there was something going on upstairs that she needed to investigate.

If curiosity killed the cat, what did it do to the rat?

Saké scopes out her options...

I'm sure you can guess where this is headed.

A happy rat and her bean.

Fit Club

Ah, January. The time when stores have tons of workout equipment on sale and the area gyms are all stuffed with people trying to fulfill new year's resolutions.

Saké was happy to help me pack my running clothes so I too can stay in shape.

Looking demure...

That face!

She should be a rat model.

Clothes Party

As I mentioned yesterday, the girls spend a lot of time playing in the laundry. I've yet to find an easier way to entertain them then simply filling a basket with clothes. They happily spend ages climbing, burrowing, and napping before showing any inclination to leave the basket.

Is that a rat?

That looks like a tail.

Definitely a nose...

Aha! That is definitely a Sushi.

No Reason

I have no idea what the story is behind this, but I love it.

Ahoy!

Saké gets a lot of use out of the hole in their current box. If we turn the box so that the hole isn't on the top, she immediately rolls it to place the side with the hole up. If she wasn't so rotund, she might be able to get more than her head through the hole...

Saké (and a slightly hidden Sushi)

It's Almost Christmas!

I always feel like everything is more fun around Christmas.

Boxrat Saké

Sushi

Sushi hides among cat faces

Saké

Saké ventures out

The perfect gift?

Saké Gets in the Holiday Spirit

One of my coworkers gave me a gift in a lovely holiday box this week. I thought it would be perfect to take some pictures of the girls in the box.

Turns out though that when one of your rats is robust, only one can fit in the box at a time.

Saké

Rat vs. Cats

This is a great clip, so I'll forgive the site for labeling this tough rodent a mouse.

From the always wonderful animalsbeingdicks.com/.

Little People, Giant Rat?

I follow The Little People Project (at little-people.blogspot.com/), which features various dioramas of action figure sized people in different situations.

I was happy to see a new post show up in my RSS reader and as I was scrolling through the newest pictures, I noticed this:

Is that a rat?

I wasn't sure if I was seeing what I thought. A picture further down clarified for me.

Yep, that's a rat.

You can see the whole awesome display, including more pictures both with and without the rat, at little-people.blogspot.com/2011/12/worst-wurst.html.

Watching

The girls always keep a close eye on what is going on. This morning I was pulling socks out a drawer and looked up and Saké had contorted herself to see what I was doing down below her cage. They are curious creatures.

Their wine box is a particularly popular hideout from which to watch the world:

Sushi

Happy Rats

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

Rat Fashion

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

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.

A New Nest!

Sushi and Saké received a much overdue new nest this weekend. Their old one was more than a bit threadbare and smelly. Of course, the old one also was completely broken in just the way they wanted it. Now they have to start over.

New beginnings are tough. You have to figure out the best positions for napping again. Is it better to have your sister on top of you like this?



Or to lay on top of your sister instead?

Saké Attacks!

I've posted before about Saké's endless fort building and baiting of our cat Penelope. This weekend I finally to record some of the action.

Most of the time, it turns out like this:



Saké does her best to attract Penn's attention while Penn is oblivious (in this case, Saké's under the towel but instead  Penn is watching Sushi upstairs.)

But then Saké is finally able to attract Penn's attention and draws her in as close as possible:


That was enough action for Penelope, who quickly decided to keep out of Saké's way:

Rearranging

The other day Saké was busy rearranging the first floor of the cage.

As part of this, she flipped over their wine box and balanced it on a block. It didn't seem to matter that Sushi was in the box when she moved it.

Fortunately Sushi is used to her sister's antics and didn't seem to mind.