Life Lessons From a Rat

I blame the ball python.

This is going to require a bit of backstory here, so bear with me. Actually, most things that spill out of my brain require a bit of connecting the dots, so consider yourself warned if you choose to stick around.

Anyway, the chain of events I’m about to share with you is all Solana’s fault. Solana is a gorgeous ball python who captures the colors of a sunset or a summer day–yellow, orange, white. Officially, she’s a disco inferno clown. That means something to snake people. I’m not as up on genetics, but I do know there’s a lot going on there. When I first saw her picture, I was in love. I wanted to buy her but wasn’t sure; it would be our first snake and I was apprehensive of making a bad decision.

We wound up going with a corn snake for our entry into snake ownership. Only later would I realize how wise a choice we accidentally made. I have no idea why ball pythons are sold as beginner snakes; corn snakes are so much easier.

Eventually, I did wind up with Solana. She was every bit as sweet and beautiful as I’d imagined from her pictures. Despite doing a ton of research before bringing her home, it wasn’t until after the fact I learned that ball pythons are notoriously picky eaters.

For those unfamiliar with snake care, the preferred method of feeding is “frozen/thawed,” as it’s kinder to the rodent and safer for the snake. Honestly, feeding a pet snake was the biggest deterrent to owning one for me. But after a year of running reptile shows and spending so much time around so many snakes, it was something I wanted to get over. I watched people walk around shows with snakes casually wrapped around their fingers, and I wanted that level of comfort with them.

But back to Solana. To my utter dismay, she wanted nothing to do with frozen/thawed. I tried every single trick to convince her to eat. I had her enclosure analyzed by people who knew more than me to see if there was something about her habitat that kept her from eating. Nothing worked. Adult snakes can go on hunger strikes and be okay. She was young, though, and losing weight.

Desperate to keep this animal in my care from starving to death, I worked up the nerve to buy a live rat weanling.

And she rejected it.

I came back into the room after giving them some privacy in hopes she’d eat without me present, only to find her hiding under one log and the baby rat hiding under another. I scooped up the rat and cuddled him close. He was stupidly cute and snuggled up against me, as if sensing he was safe. I felt like a monster for putting him in danger in the first place, and I was glad he didn’t seem to realize I was the bad guy in this story.

I could see the look of concern on Justin’s face as I walked around with a baby rat tucked up against me the rest of the evening. I determined he was, in fact, a boy. Googled baby rat care. Bought puppy formula because he seemed too young to be fully weaned. When I named him Remy and dragged Justin to the store to spend $160 on a cage and supplies for a $2 rat, he knew he was in trouble.

Remy slept on my arm, tucked against my side a lot. At the end of the day, I would place my hand in his cage and he would walk off my hand and into his little house, tucked in the bottom corner of the cage. One night, he went into his house, paused, and then returned to my hand to hug my fingers. I kid you not, this rat hugged my fingers. My heart melted.

I knew from research that rats are best kept in groups of two or more. I knew the “or more” was the ideal but Justin was already skeptical about getting a second rat, so I didn’t push my luck. Before long, we added Norman to the mix. He was a curly haired variant. If you look those up, you’ll see they look like they have a bit of a perm, so naturally I wanted to name him Bob (as in Bob Ross). Justin said Bob Ross’ middle name was Norman and he thought that name fit better. He’d just agreed to me getting a second rat, so I felt letting Justin pick the name was the absolute least I could do. Norm it was. Besides, with his coloring and build, the rat did look a bit like Norm from Cheers.

It soon became obvious that Norm was the healthier of the two. I worried about Remy, but he seemed happy. He greeted me each morning and still seemed to prefer my company to Norm’s, but I didn’t worry about him being lonely when I was gone now.

I was at a show in Loveland, Colorado when our pet sitter called, crying so hard she could barely talk. Remy was dead. I had a line of customers, a frantic pet sitter on the phone, and my heart was shattering. I ugly cried for days after that, grieving a tiny animal with a big heart who completely changed my view of his entire species.

That was really the beginning of the end of my time with Show Me Reptiles. As much as I loved the shows and vendors (well, most of them), I resented being away from my animals. I wondered if Remy would have lived if I’d been there. Those kinds of questions seldom serve a purpose other than self torture, so I tried to put it aside. But it was harder and harder to leave after that. As I type this, Justin is in Loveland at a show without me. I cried myself to sleep last night. I miss him. I miss my friends. But I’m needed here, and I can’t be in two places at once.

That’s another story, though, and today, we’re talking about rats.

With Remy gone, we still had Norm, who I wasn’t particularly fond of but had a responsibility to. I told Justin we needed a friend for Norman and he said, “Oh no, I can see where this is heading. We’re in a loop here…” He put up a valiant attempt at dissent, but the next time we were at the shop, I told them I needed a male weanling rat. They opened the drawer and a rat with a white body and a charcoal gray head came up to say hello. Like so often happens with pets, it chose me rather than me choosing it. The girl at the shop tried to check to be sure it was a boy. The rat was pretty high energy, making the process difficult, but was soon pronounced a boy and in a carrier bound for home.

I named him Jesper, and despite being sure I could never love another rat like I did Remy, this little whirlwind quickly won me over. Jesper was, and is, an absolute delight.

It was also soon apparent that Jesper was a girl.

Justin was not exactly thrilled. Actually, he took it in stride because he’s a saint, and he began helping me find a suitable home for Norm, who is now part of a pet breeding program doing what he does best: impregnating girl rats.

Two weeks ago, as I was on my way to my very last Show Me Reptiles show as a coordinator, I told my youngest son we probably had baby rats coming soon, but I was pretty sure it would be Monday, when I was back, before they arrived. He texted on Friday night, “You have babies.” It was hard to tell how many there were in the wriggling pile, but the best guess was eight or nine. (Spoiler: It was nine. I’ve been informed this is a small litter.)

I’ve spent the last two weeks of my life eagerly waiting for the babies to be big enough to emerge from their house. I peek at them once a day, take a video and some pictures so I can be sure all is well (and because they’re heckin cute), and do my best to be patient. This morning, I was rewarded with three little noses poking out of the house when their mama came to greet me. It won’t be long now until the adorable little fluffballs are all over their cage.

Jezzy is a dumbo rat, so her ears are large and lower on her head. It’s just about the cutest thing on the planet. Norm was a curly hair. The babies are an adorable mix of the two. They’re gonna be fluffballs with big ears. I am beside myself. Justin has resisted having too much to do with them because he doesn’t want to get attached. I’ve not shown the same restraint and am utterly smitten with all of them. Naturally, I’m pretty sure my favorites are all boys and will soon be on their way to homes of their own. But that’s okay. Other people deserve cute rats, too. I can’t hoard them all.

The people who make up the reptile and exotic pet world are an eclectic bunch. They come from varied walks of life and are there for all kinds of reasons. Still, a fairly large subset of the population is there because these animals are often deemed unloveable. Creatures of fear and repulsion. Misunderstood. I think, for some of us, at least, that’s something we can relate to–feeling unseen or misunderstood.

And while that is, in part, what draws some to these animals, it’s also one of the hardest things about loving them—adoring something only to have the people in your world react with fear and revulsion when you try to share it with them. I cannot tell you how many people snurl their nose up and declare rats filthy or disease-ridden when they hear I have them as pets.

First of all, rats are actually super clean. Like, OCD levels of fastidiousness. So much so, they often groom themselves after interacting with their person. (You can practically see them thinking, “Ew, human cooties.”) You can also litter train them. Jezzy was super easy to train. Keeping her cage clean requires five minutes a morning to scoop her box and about an hour once a week to swap bedding and sanitize everything. Besides, any animal can carry disease. Humans certainly do. It has a lot less to do with the animal and more to do with living conditions.

My sister-in-law bought a puzzle for my dog, Fred. He wasn’t super impressed. He’d much rather use his intense stare to get treats. Jezzy, however, loves the puzzle. I showed her how to open the lid once and she was good to go. Now, I hide treats in there for her every day. The first place she goes when I open her cage door is straight for the puzzle box. Then she zooms around the room to see where else I’ve hidden food pellets. When I call her name, she bounds happily back to me. And every morning, she greets me with happy chitters as she weaves in and out of my hands and runs along my arm, tucking her head into the crook of my elbow for “snuggles.”

Studies have shown that rats are incredibly intelligent, complex animals with brain structures not unlike our own. They dream, they laugh when tickled, and they show empathy. They even outperform humans in some intelligence tests. Because their brain structure is similar to ours, we can learn much from them.

So why all the rat hate? I suspect it goes back to the plague. (Which was really less about rats and more about fleas, but I digress.)

Human brains run on a complex neural network. It would be impossible to process all of the things we need to on any given day without creating shortcuts so we don’t have to analyze the same information over and over again. These shortcuts serve an important function; they are also the foundation for bias. This online exhibition from The Smithsonian does a great job of walking you through The Science of Bias. And it’s kinda fun.

Bias is one of those words that many recoil from. We often declare that we aren’t biased because it’s been given a negative connotation, understandably so. But if you are human with a functioning brain (and that’s a big if for some folks), you have biases. Your brain would short circuit without them. The trick is understanding that you do have them and taking the time to evaluate if they’re serving you or hindering your growth.

I was taught as a child to fear snakes. My mother proudly proclaims, “the only good snake is a dead snake” every chance she gets. (And I cringe every single time.) But my snakes are adorable little goofballs who bring me joy. Well, the corn snakes. The ball python is a beautiful little pain in the ass, but I love her anyway.

I was taught to think rats are filthy vermin. I was taught wrong, and having them in my life has been an absolute delight. The last family dinner ended with Justin and I, all three of my boys, and their three partners all sitting on the floor of Jezzy’s room while she hopped from person to person, ecstatic from the attention, her antics making us laugh so hard our sides hurt.

As I’ve aged, I’ve learned that many of the biases I hold aren’t all that accurate. They hold me back and keep me from things that add life, depth, and beauty to my world.

My challenge to each of you this week is to take a serious look at the truths you hold as unshakeable and ask yourself if they are, in fact, true.

And to appreciate just how danged cute these baby rats are.