Crazy Rat Lady

No, folks, that’s not a misprint. RAT lady, not cat lady.  I decided recently I should train something that’s not a dog to improve my planning, record keeping, and clicking skills.  I considered getting a cat but I am a little bit of a commitment-phobe so I decided to go smaller, shorter lifspan, etc. and convinced Kassey we should get rats.  Dumbo rats, to be precise because they’re frickin’ cute.  I had rats throughout high school, starting with Templetina Petrie the hairless girl rattie a boy gave me, followed by Pinkerton Bigbalz who I got a garage sale, and then the last of my rat clan was Mercucio Wormtail, a giant sewer rat-looking fellow I got from Petsmart.  None of them were trained, but they were all great pets and Templetina even went to school with me (until I was caught).  But I digress.

Kassey found an ad for free dumbo rat babies on Craigslist, in Boulder.  So we went.  The woman who answered the door had a seriously Dolly Partonish blonde hairdo(don’t) and her bright red lipstick was drawn on much bigger than her lips, giving her the distinct look of a drag queen–except no queen I ever met would be caught dead in the sweats and flannel she was wearing, nosiree.  She led us to the back of her little arpartment where there was a kitchen/rat paradise.  She had several cages of rats, some hairless, some fuzzy, all dumbo.  She had one cage set aside with babies in it for us to see–there were about 15 of them in there.  Overall she probably had 20 adult rats–easily.  They were everywhere, no joke.  She opened the cage and they came scampering out, running up her arms, chittering and sniffing and shitting.  She found some tinier babies, recently weaned in the back of the “girl cage” as she called it.  We picked our rats from these tiny babies, mine–Weetsie Bat Rat–is almost all grey with a white belly and white front legs, and Kassey’s–Rhino–is grey and almost mottled with white. 

We put our chosen ratties into the small dog crate we brought for them and the drag queen rat lady pulled out her homemade rat trailmix and gave us some.  She said it was parrot food, dog food, chex cereal, and you know, some other things.  She also gave us some frozen vegetables.  Apparently rats dig frozen veggies.  Silly us, we just bought rat food. 

We got in the car and Kassey says, “Sarah, we just got our rats from a puppy mill.” She might have been right, had there been puppies, and had there been outrageous price tags.  But as it was, the ratties were free and there were no dogs. 

Our rats are now home in their Taj Mahal of ratitats, a large bird cage complete with a wooden ladder, two little houses, good food, and a leopard print hammock.  Let the training adventures begin.