My First Pet Rats

The rat obsession begins...

Ok it started when I was like 4 years old! I picked out "Rats on the Range" by James Marshall from one of those puffin flyers that used to go around schools in the 90's - I wonder if kids still get excited about ordering books or if they all have kindles by now... I enjoyed the characters of the book and I even dressed up as a rat from the book to attend the school book character day - what a geek!  

Another piece of media which contributed to the obssession was the film The Witches where the poor orphan boy gets turned into a mouse. The boy also has two white pet mice which he builds awesome cages for and teaches them tricks, by the way that film still scares me now and I'm 25!

 

Why I Decided I Needed Pets in my Life Again 

The rat obsession reered its head again in my adulthood with the end of another (much less fun and much more grewlling) obssession - to buy my own house. For the last 18 months my life has all been about getting my dream first home with my fiancee, there were many ups and downs but I wont bore you with that now! Anyway I got my dream home and we moved in the first evening about an hour after getting the keys, over the coming weeks and months there was so much to do, DIY, shopping, bills bills bills, gardening, parties to arrange but once we really settled in something was missing.

Past Pets

Chris, my partner had always lived with family pets - at least 1 cat, 1 dog and the occasional hamster (one of which his Granddad had to put out of its misery with a spade :-0), gold fish and the other usual pets kids have growing up. My parents also had a dog when I was very little and I was constantly petitioning with my elder sister to persuade them to buy another (to no success). When I was 9 and my sister 11 Mum and Dad came home one day with a Rabbit and Guinea Pig which were our first pets - we were overjoyed but someone deep down I still longed for a couple of white rats to live in my room and teach tricks! My Rabbit Ben was great and he even protected the guinea pig from a fox one night leaving him with a stroke which we helped him recover from. Shortly after came the goldfish fiasco - they all died of white spot and it was very sad . They were the most 90's fish ever named Umbro, Reebok and randomly Gavin!

The day Rats were brought into my house and my heart

Fast forward to me and my boyfriend in our new house a few days before Christmas... I was at home slightly bored and rather annoyed that he was so late from work when he pulled onto the drive. He told me that he has to give me one of my Christmas presents early as it will go off otherwise and told me to close my eyes. He then came back through with two small carboard boxes followed by a huge cage, toys, water bottle, food and litter. We put the boxes in the base of the cage and a tiny little grey and white rat appeared and proceeded to make a dash for the tv cabinet where we spent several anxious moments recapturing her! Then a even smaller ginger and white rat with pink eyes leaped out into the cage - how can anyone not find them cute?!

Pet Rats are for Life not just for Christmas

Since that day my rats, Dasher and Dancer (it was Christmas time it made sense!) have won over my heart everyday with their antics, kind nature and intelligence... lots of stories and pictures to follow of what they have been up to!

I think I will always have at least a couple of rats in my life to keep me happy! 

 

Please share your stories of your first pet rats

I would love to hear from you about what made you decide to get rats and how you have found rats as pets.