Interlude: For the Love of Rats

This blog post isn’t about food. It’s about rats. I’ll do supplements next week, this seemed more important. Pardon the interruption, I’m just feeling wistful tonight.

Yes. I am talking about rats. The most adorable, snuggly, inquisitive, sneaky, loveable creatures you can have as pets.

In the summer of 2022, my husband suggested to me that we needed to add to our family. He had pet rats in college and told me how smart they were. I admit to being slightly dubious, but I said, what the hey. Let’s give it a go. We came home with two brother Dumbo rats who were rescues- they are called dumbos because they have giant ears. I kid you not. My husband introduced to me the concept that a paper bag was about the greatest thing in the world to a rat, and we filled their new cage home with lots of bags and cardboard. I fed them little rat kibble bites and was delighted to discover that they eat everything on their hind legs, using their front hands to hold whatever they’re eating like you or I would eat a sandwich. And upon doing internet research, I discovered that they have a whole host of taste buds and really like a varied diet. And thus, our two brothers were dubbed Merry and Pippin… so named by my husband because our spoiled boys got two breakfasts every day- once when my husband got up at about 4am for work, and another when I got up at about 6.

Huh. I guess this post is about food after all. I guess at least I’m consistent.

Pet rats are gold, people. Merry nipped my nose one night while learning about me, and I thought it was hilarious. The boys also loved to lick our fingers to give us kisses, regardless of whether there was snack residue on them or not. We used to put them behind us on our computer chairs because rats love tight hidey holes. To this day I can still feel Merry nuzzling behind me as I sit in my chair writing these words.

Sadly, our Pippin passed away in his cage only a couple of weeks after we got him. I don’t know why he got sick, but blamed myself, as I’d fed them tomatoes not long before, and I read online that an underripe tomato can be poisonous to a rat. To this day I don’t know if that was what did it, but regardless, we buried our sweet boy and set out on a hunt to find our now solo boy rat a playmate, as rats are very social creatures- you never want to have just one of them.

My husband found a Craigslist ad for a single male rat for a good home, and we went to go pick him up. Unfortunately we sort of ignored red flags about the house, noticing that this poor brown rat had been solo in a small cage without any entertainment. Regardless, we couldn’t let Merry live by himself, so we took him home. The meeting was… rough. Merry didn’t know who this big, bulky weirdo was, and the newcomer didn’t seem to be terribly intelligent. It was at that point that my husband figured that this newcomer rat (who we also dubbed Pippin) was probably used to breed feeder rats and otherwise left alone, traumatized. We rolled up our sleeves and decided we’d just give him the best home possible, with lots of places to play and things to find. Our new rat was Rat Gump. He was a bit special and kind of… slow. Merry tried to teach him how to play, but the new guy just wasn’t really having it.

So, my husband decided after a month or so that we’d adopt a third little lad, if we could find another baby boy to join our mix. Enter another little baby dumbo rat my husband promptly named Bandit, for he had a black Zorro mask over his eyes. Also, my husband said he stole his heart, the little thief. I fell in love upon meeting him, and our strange little rat family coexisted peacefully for a good long while. Bandit had the intelligence Merry needed and we were relieved that he finally had another real playmate, something the poor little guy hadn’t had since his brother died. Our special lad New Pippin was content to chew holes in his little slings we made from old bandannas and just watch the hustle and bustle of the other two.

A few months into our trio of playful boys, disaster struck. Our little ratty Gump started to get cranky in what we believe was old age, and it began to take a lot of work to coax him out of hiding so we could do things like clean the cage out. One night as my husband retrieved the old grumpy boy, he sank his little rodent teeth deep into my husband’s index finger, and we had to quickly remove the rat from my husband’s knuckle before there was permanent damage. We got him off, and put him in a separate, smaller travel cage away from the other two while I bandaged up my husband’s finger. We ended up deciding that this poor probably abused rat was more of a liability than our other two boys deserved, and so we took him to a local shelter to be put down. It really made us sad to do it, but we figured at least this old cranky guy got to eat delicious food and enjoy an entertaining home for a while before his final days. We did the best we could.

And then there were two- Merry and Bandit. We moved homes and the rats came with us. I embarked on a new tradition of creating a cardboard box mansion for them every single week, as rats enjoy new environments all the time- they get bored easily. I spent far too much on little hammocks and swings and steps and chewy wood toys. And I proceeded to feed these two pet rats better than many adult humans eat. I’m not kidding. These boys usually got a breakfast of fresh fruit, cheese shreds, cheerios, and something like spinach or cucumber with their rat kibble. Their evening meals ranged from custom veggie and chicken pasta salads to ratty fried rice. I legit made them their own cooked dinners. I am insane and will not apologize for it. The most fun part was setting their food dish into the cage and seeing the little chunksters paw through the healthy stuff at the top to find the nuggets of avocado or a piece of cashew I hid under the healthy stuff I wanted them to eat first. I also discovered that if you cut cucumber slices into little wedges like watermelon, they chew away at the inside just like we eat watermelon and then they leave the rinds behind, with tiny little tooth marks in them. I also adored how our two boys had their own individual tastes when it came to treats. I’m a huge nut eater (they say you are what you eat, make of that what you will) and I would grab a handful of a variety of nuts to offer my boys when I was feeling particularly spoil-ish. Merry would always, hands down, go for the macadamia, while Bandit enjoyed an almond or walnut.

Ask any rat owner what the hardest part of having rats is, and invariably the answer will be, “Saying goodbye.” Rats only live for about two years on average.

Late 2023, we gave our two boys a bath (we did that regularly, they just kind of swim around until we pull them out) but this time, Bandit kicked Merry under the water by accident, and we assume Merry got a lungful of water. He proceeded to get a lung infection that made it hard for him to breathe, and he ended up with prescribed medication I had to shove in his mouth twice per day with a little dropper, which, you guessed it, he hated. In January of 2024, our Bandit had developed a calcified fat deposit on his chunky little leg, and had started chewing on it, which led to an infection. I mean, I was all prepared to pay thousands of dollars for surgery for Bandit, but they couldn’t even guarantee he’d live through it, and my husband gently reaffirmed to me that we can’t just rack up the credit card for a maybe, especially since Merry was also sick. Both of our boys were in bad shape, and although it broke my husband’s and my heart, we knew it was time to say goodbye to our boys.

Late January of 2024, we set an appointment to say goodbye. All week, Merry and Bandit ate like kings. Lots of avocado, grapes, pasta, and lots of nuts. I even baked them tiny little rat cookies with peanut butter and granola. And because I am a crazy chef woman who was so in love with my rats, I decided the first batch of rat cookies I baked wasn’t tasty enough and baked a second batch fit for rat kings. (I mean, it was full of human ingredients. I’m not over here eating rat kibble) We loaded our sweet boys into their little carrier, gave them each a cookie, and with heavy hearts, we took them to the edge of the rainbow bridge and said goodbye.

They are buried in an undisclosed location in Washington state, in a park, near a creek.

I have pictures of our rats hung up in collages on my wall, and I’m looking at them as I type these words. Those boys were so friendly, so sweet, and they loved us -so- much. My husband used to get these little teeth chitters out of them- they’d sort of vibrate their teeth together and make the tiniest fast clicking noise, and it’s apparently the rat equivalent of purring. I used to let them loose in our bathroom with the door closed to get some exercise out of their cage, and I’d sit on the floor reading a book while they played. A couple of the books on my bookshelf have tiny little rat tooth bite marks in a few pages because Bandit wanted to inspect what I was reading.

People, if you ever get the chance to have pet rats, do not pass it up. Being a rat mama reminded me of when my baby girl was a toddler- honestly, they probably would have enjoyed most of the same breakfast foods, and you cut the food into similarly small pieces. It caused an ache inside my grieving momma bones while simultaneously healing that same ache. I can’t describe it any better than that.

Anyway, that’s the story about our pet rats.

I will return to my regularly scheduled nuggets of wisdom next week.

Thanks for listening. See below for pictures of my bestest good boys, the two we had for a year and a half.