Spoiled Rats: Diary of a Smothering Mother
Petstore.com

It’s Monday morning, post-holidays. Crusty-eyed and weary, I lay my laptop on my desk and begin to hook it up. A light blinks on the phone. Voicemail? Why do I have voicemail? I dial in, resigned. And then . . . the message I have so long awaited! “Melissa, this is Hilary. I’m calling to let you know that on December 24, your rats were born. Momma and babies are doing fine. All twelve of them. You can come meet them in two weeks.”

O brave, new world! Oh, happiest of days! I’m a rat mother! I rushed to my email to compose a birth announcement.

Yes, my friends, I have just acquired two very lovely young rats. Why rats? Why rats? (Some people feel the need to ask this question twice.) I’ve got one word for you: Vivian. Oh, Vivian. Vivian of the clear, brown eyes and slightly canted head. Vivian of the ballet-pink paws and gentle gait. Vivian of the jet-black hood—or shall we say, her mink stole? Her silk cape? What a star, this Vivian! What a diva! Poking out from her little hideaway within her cage, Vivian looked up at me with a fetching mixture of curiosity and caution. “Hello!” she seemed to say. And, “Do you have any food?” She ascended ladders with grace. She clutched her food with sophistication. She was glamorous, she was glittery. Where was her Academy Award?

I’m a little in love with Vivian.

Vivian is a friend’s rat—or, more accurate, a friend’s cousin’s rat—who lives in a sort of pet paradise, an animal-rich home in Northern California wine country. Vivian was in my life for two blessed days, during which my friend and I were caretaking this very paradise. Upon returning home, I took a look around at my life and came to the following conclusion: I needed a rat. (Doesn’t everyone?) I had been craving a furry little lump of love for so, so long. Here was the solution.

I set about it with impatience and passion. “Let’s get this rat show up and running as soon as possible!” I thought. “Uno, dos, tres! I’ve been fooling around for way too long. Precious hours have been spent ratless!” Did I need to conduct research? Research, shmesearch! I’d had rodents before. I knew what I was doing. I’d just assemble all of the necessary equipment and open up for business.

The necessary equipment. What was the necessary equipment? Should rats live in cages or aquariums? Could wire bars hurt their feet, and did aquariums supply enough circulation? And what about bedding? What sort of bedding was one supposed to use? Had pine and cedar gone the way of the pet rock? What sort of food should rats eat? How much exercise did they need? Companionship? All right, I admitted. There was some stuff I didn’t know.

I got a book. I got another book. I visited Web sites. I visited other Web sites. I talked to Rat People. I talked to some more Rat People. And now . . . I’m a rat mother—not of one rat, as I had imagined, but of two, since rats are social animals and prefer to have company. I learned that in my research. You know what else I learned? That there are reasons other than Vivian to have a rat. I fact, there are many, many reasons to have rats. Here are a few:

1. Rats are special. The other day, I happened to mention my soon-to-be little ones at a party. The guy next to me perked up. “Do you know about rats?” he asked. “Rats are special.” Apparently, his ex-girlfriend and her rat had been very tight. “Helen of Troy would get out of her cage at night and come curl up in bed with my girlfriend. Never me—always my girlfriend. The message was clear: Helen of Troy knew who she loved.” (I’ll spare you the Greek mythology joke that I was forced to make upon hearing such an assertion.) Yup. Unlike hamsters, gerbils, and mice, rats form real bonds with their owners.
   
2. Rat tricks. Rat basketball, rat soccer, and rat swimming. (The differences lie in where you teach the rat to put the ball—and, um, whether or not the rat is in the water.) You can train a rat to sleep on your shoulder, bring an item from point A to point B, and even come when she’s called. Apparently, males are a bit calmer than females, so the whole just-sit-here-on-my-shoulder-and-take-a-nap-please thing might come off a bit easier with them.
   
3. Maintenance. As a scurrying (not to say gnawing and biting) professional in the ecommerce world, I’ve got a limited amount of time to spend on a pet. I adore dogs, but I just can’t commit that much time and attention to an Other right now. (Specifically, I have a dachshund thing, and you know what? Rats look like dachshunds! The long, thin faces, pudgy bodies, perky ears . . . It’s like having a little dachshund! If you’re creative enough, you can also convince yourself that rats look like Yorkshire terriers, Chihuahuas, and Rottweilers.)
   
   Rest assured, my (spoiled) rats will get a great deal of daily attention—I intend to bring them to work with me, for one thing, and to walk them on leashes—but I won’t be needing to walk them five times a day or run them in the park. The multi-level Rat Palace (more on that later) will take care of almost every aspect of their physical needs. And, during the really crazy times, Vivian (II, or Deux) and Alison (sisters) will have each other for company.
   

Convinced? You bet you are. And if you’re in New York, listen: You’re already living with rats, whether you’ve chosen to or not. So why not embrace reality and build your own Rat Palace for your furry mates? (Not recommended for actual feral rats.) In the next episode of Spoiled Rats, I’ll tell you how.

Spoiled Rats: Diary of a Smothering Mother
Episode Two: The Rat Palace and Choosing the Babies

The Rat Palace
So I knew I wanted rats, and I knew I wanted to give them the best home possible -- within the confines of human and personal acceptability, of course. (A rat might envision her own paradise slightly differently from how I would envision it. No piles of rotting fruit and cheese in this girl’s living room!) Where to go from there?

The first choice was whether to use a cage or aquarium. To me, it seemed obvious: cages are generally much larger, more fun (providing more places to climb), and easier to clean. I’d lugged around aquaria before, and even a 20-gallon tank (too small for two rats) can be a pain to clean. But just as I thought I’d nailed this no-brainer, I read something disturbing: wire bars can hurt rats’ feet. Imagine! Those precious little ballet-pink toes, scraped from nasty bars! What’s worse, rats’ feet are often just the right size to get stuck between bars, and little Vivian and Alison could do some serious damage trying to wriggle free in a panic.

The solution came from one of the rat books: Plexiglas. It’s a miracle product where rats are concerned: too hard to chew through, not absorbent (the urine problem), and easy to clean. It even comes in fashion colors. And, since I’d already settled on a brown and cream cage with teal accents, I knew I had a winner.

I bought a three-tiered cage intended for a ferret. (In general, ferret and chinchilla cages are the way to go for rats, who needs lots of space.) I removed the bottom wire rack so that the rats would walk directly on the bedding (much warmer, too). For the other two layers, I had teal-colored Plexiglas cut to size, and I placed it directly on top of the wire shelf. No walking on bars for my girls! Then I bought toys and climbing structures—even a hammock for the top of the cage. Once I bought a water bottle and food dishes, the Rat Palace was ready. Only two things were missing: Vivian and Alison.

Choosing the Rats
After Vivian and Alison were born, I had to wait a month before I could take them home. While this may have been crucial developmental time for them, nuzzling around in the warmth of the pack with their brothers and sisters, it was agony for me. What was taking so long? Couldn’t they just grow already?

I checked in at regular intervals with Hilary, the breeder. “Their eyes opened today!” she would report. Or, “Their fur is coming in!” Vivian and Alison’s litter of 13 included 8 chocolates, 3 Berkshire blacks, and two hooded (white with black hoods). They all sounded adorable to me, especially once I learned that the chocolates and blacks had white bellies. Let me repeat: white bellies!

Days passed, then weeks. “Where are you rats?” my friends asked. “Shouldn’t you have your rats by now? You’ve certainly been talking about them for long enough.”

“Oh, enough about the rats already,” my boss said. (She’s from New York.)

The problem was, the testicles were not dropping. Once the testicles dropped, Hilary would be able to tell males from females, and I could select my little lovelies from among the girls. But in this case, we were dealing with some shy testicles. Or late-blooming testicles. Or testicles that liked very much to be warm. No droppers among this bunch.

Then, finally, on the rats’ one-month birthday, the testicles had a field day. Left, right, center—testicles were dropping everywhere. First shy and retiring, now they were making grand entrances all over the litter. After all the dropping was through, there were many more males than females—nine to four (woe to the people who were low on the adopter list and wanted females). As for me . . . somehow I had managed to make it all the way up to Numero Uno on the adopter list. Could it have been that everyone else Hilary knows is a college student living in a crowded, noisy co-op? Let us not question; let us simply count our blessings.

As soon as I hung up the phone (“Their testicles dropped!” Hilary had announced with glee), I raced over to the co-op to pick the winners. Hilary guided me to a room where, in a carrying case meant for a medium-sized dog, I encountered four hopping little rats. Huge rosy ears, tiny pink paws, big black eyes like glass beads. Hello! Hello, my little beloved ones!

At first, I thought I wanted the hooded one: she bounded to the front of the crate with abandon and started chewing on my fingers. “She’s crazy,” Hilary admitted, somewhat approvingly. Perhaps a little too crazy, I thought. I was hoping for some mellow action—a little hanging back, perhaps some sniffing and gentle chewing, then instant love. One of the chocolates started inching forward. “That’s the one I took to class,” Hilary said. “She’s a sweetie.” Her! I wanted her! She was an instant star. She was Vivian.

I chose Alison for her looks—I admit it. I can admit it because, like most people who put looks first, I later learned my lesson (to be covered in Episode 3). Alison was the Berkshire black. Her back was a most lovely shade of grayish black, her belly snowy white—and there was an errant white spot on her side. Oh, that little white spot. So, even though she seemed awfully frightened (good Lord—who wouldn’t?), I packed her into the carrying case and went on my merry way.

To the rat palace!