What Brings You Here is Our Beloved Ratties...
Samwise Gamgi: The rat with great intelligence
Picture a capped rat with the intellegence of a
super, mini-dog. Give him the friendliness of a baby
cat at play, as well as at loving times. Give him the
personality of the many humans, and you have Sam.
Sam is one of Hinata's first babies to be born in our
house. He, along with Frodo, Jeffy, and Shadow,
had won our hearts through his quick abilities to
learn, his friendly ways toward his brothers and
Moo, and his "Gimme" attitudes when it came to
cleaning our teeth (which, by the way, he had
learned from his mother as a kitten).
His daddy looks JUST LIKE HIM, except that this
friendly critter had the chance to grow up a bit
bigger than Spiffy. His daddy lives with a different owner.
Samwise Gamgi and Frodo Baggins: Friends to the end
Sam and Frodo are basically inseperable. You won't find these two
away from each other for more than a minute. Wherever one goes,
the other follows. They get into trouble together. They cuddle
when they sleep together. Heck, they even EAT together.
Friendship is very visible amongst these two. They enjoy each
other's company like we enjoy our friends. They fully understand
the purpose of family.
You don't see it that much in Shadow, or Jeffy, but they follow with
their brothers pretty often, but if they keep on doing it for a long
period of time, Sam AND Frodo will tell them, "Hey, back off! We
may follow each other around, but you two are just brothers."
Shadow and Jeffy would then do as they are told, and follow each
other around, instead.
You see this a lot on the balcony. Here you have 5, male rats
running around on the balcony, going in various directions. Often,
you see Shadow alone, or at times, Jeffy wanders single, or maybe
one of them will be next to Moo for a little while, but Sam and
Frodo are together the WHOLE TIME. Now, THAT'S friendship.
How Shadow became, well, Shadow!
Okay, everyone has seen others follow each other around. Well,
Shadow follows Mama around CONSTANTLY. If I placed him on the
apartment floor, there would be NO DOUBT that my child would
follow me at my heels. Does it bother me? No. It just means
that if I could buy him a ferret leash and place him on the
sidewalk, Shadow would be a trooper and follow me on leash, like
a dog.
Would I really train him like that? You bet. What kind of rat
would be more than willing to chase after his Mama's heels for a
good amount of excercise? Look at those muscles on my baby
boy. With his attention strictly on me, he earned those muscles by
following me around, as well as spoiling him with lots of treats.
Now you know where my baby had recieved such a childish name.
This lovely, little critter is my walking Shadow.
By the way, if you're wondering why his registered name is Jimmy's
Little Shadow, instead of Spiffy's Little Shadow, it is because
Jimmy is the grandfather of these four. That's right, Hinata's
daddy :D
Jeffy: our big, adorable, "class clown"
If rats were able to wear cute, little suits WITHOUT them chewing
through it, just to wear them for cute pictures, this rat would look
ADORABLE in a joker's costume, from the jingling hat to the suit
on the body. For laughs, I can see a fish net-like cloth down the
tail, as well, and little booties attatched for the feet.
This little joker acts like one, too. Everything he does that causes
one to look at him, is adorable. I got to see his head get stuck in
a toy hamster's house, where the little window sits. He was calm
about BEING stuck, allowing his Mama to help him get free with no
struggles.
The nature of this rat is as a "class clown." I'm glad that I chose
him - I could not ask for more from him, OR the remainder of our
rats.
Rin: our perfect companion for ANY rat!
Rin came from the Coloniel Pet Shoppe in
Manitowoc, WI, originally born for snake food. Rats
are cheap at the Coloniel, but that wasn't why I
purchased her. Aside from pre-planning to keep a
female baby from Moo, I wanted Hinata to have
some company before the time was able to come.
So, I took her to the Coloniel, and let her pick out
the female rat for her to buddy with. The first one
she approached was an all-black, but when I picked
this one up, the baby was a boy. Then, Rin came up
to her. Hinata sniffed her, and immediately started
to clean her, as if to say, "I like her." I checked to
make sure this pick wasn't male (obviously, she
wasn't), and took her home to be part of the family
until the day she dies.
She hit off with Hinata immediately once she was
home, but she was SUPER SHY of her new Mama.
With a lot of assurance and patience, she finally
learned that I'm not there to harm her. She took to
me almost as fast as she did with Hinata, and to
this day, she's the "Companion Rat." No matter
who she's with, the companion with her is satisfied
to be around her.
Athena: truely our Godess of wisdom and beauty
Finally, near the end of July, our first female Moo baby was
born.
She ended up mixing her mother's
light, brown hair color, with her daddy's grey spots,
however, the color currently seems to have a dark,
blue-ish, grey-ish look to it, with the light brown still
clearly visible at the ends of the hairs.
I like Moo, and he's a VERY GOOD RAT. One of the
male babies from Athena's brothers ended up
sneaking out of the cage one night, and I found him
sleeping in the same cage as the boys. Moo was
cuddling with him, as if protecting him from any
harm. The other boys were sleeping that morning
as well, as if there was no other male in the cage.
I liked that rat, but 8 is already a lot to own. Chad
wouldn't have let me have all these pets, if I hadn't
taken SO GOOD OF CARE of the others, already.
Along with Athena and the other 7 rats, here, we
own 1 guinea pig, and 1 cat. When we find our
own place to live, we'll also be adding other pets to
the family.
I can't really say much about Athena, yet, except for
her intelligence. One morning, I fed the females a
bowl of milk from my leftover cereal. Rin dipped
her front paw in the milk and upon realizing how
pointless it was to keep dipping her paw in and
cleaning it off, she gave up drinking the milk.
Hinata did the same method as Rin, but refused to
give up. She only stood there, as if she were a
human drinking water from a river.
Athena, however, found out that if she lapped it up like a
dog, she doesn't have to get wet, she doesn't have
to run off (upon realizing that her and the others can
share the bowl together and just drink), and she
gets plenty more to drink at a time than the hand-
cupping method.
Runt: our little "cuddlebug"
Runt is a rather interesting rat that Chad decided would be the last
one to keep, and the last litter to have created. Her mind tends to
keep her calm,
for not even a loud sound sends her running away from the warmth
of a human. Many rats that we own as pets, along with many that
were adopted, would normally run about and explore, but this little
girl sits on our shoulder, next to our neck, silent as a stone.
Eventually, the one who is allowing her to sit there, would nearly
forget that she's up there, as they would get up and either feel her
gripping onto your clothes upon standing, feel a trickle of pee run
drip down their backs, or even feel her ticklish nose touch your
cheek. A calm rat, is a trainable rat, after all, right?
