This I Believe
I used to spend hours searching Craigslist for potential pets. I would find some exotic animal whose owner was no longer able to take care of and daydream about taking them home. If I found an animal I really wanted, I would go and ask my parents, half-jokingly if we could get this bearded dragon or that chinchilla. Then, the day came that I found a picture of three adorable baby rats for sale. Two months of research and restless waiting later, I was driving home with my first rats, Phoebe and Wren, on my lap.
Those two crazy girls were the very start to my obsession with rats. I loved everything about them from their twitching, pink noses to their bristly tails. I can’t see how people don’t like them, but if I mention to someone that I have pet rats, their response will usually be a revolted “eww!” or some other negative reaction. Rats are hardly ever talked about in a good way and I have not yet figured out the reason why. Is it because we still blame them for helping spread the plague by carrying fleas? Because we can’t understand why they come into the warmth of our houses? Or is it just because people are scared of something that is hundreds of times smaller than them? Is it that people can’t look past a stereotype? Even if these are the reasons, they aren’t good enough reasons to dislike pet rats, who have had nothing to do with any of this.
Through personal experience, I know that rats are nothing that people believe them to be. They are clean (almost OCD when it comes to their personal hygiene), smart, playful, and incredibly friendly to each other and to the people they trust. They have very unique personalities that can be seen in every action they do. For example, when I eat breakfast in my room, my girls gather around and I let them take food out of the bowl. Lark shoves as much cereal in her mouth as she possibly can and runs away to hide it before coming back for more, Blue sits on my lap and eats, while Fin only drinks the soy milk because she thinks the milk is far better than the cereal. One thing is guaranteed about rats, and that is there will never be two that are exactly the same. There is always going to be some personality quirk that makes that rat irreplaceable and special.
My rats are playful, affectionate, adorable, hyper creatures that I wouldn’t give up for the world. I believe that rats have a reputation that they don’t deserve.
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