Rat Snippets - For Jewelfox
Sep. 16th, 2012 12:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cereusThese are just snippets from various rats I've had the privilege of knowing - no particular order.
I'll be adding stuff as I think of it and polishing the writing as I go.
A big part of rat seems to be aesthetics - although each rat has a different idea of that - and most of it leaves humans going "Huh"?
Had one rat, cloudy, who would make huge nests out of fabric scraps, and drape other fabric pieces around her cage. Actually had some criteria for what fabric went together. Got excited over different color patterns and textures. Especially liked corduroy.
Also had two boy rats, loved receipt paper - one liked the crispy sound - but the other one would carefully fold them up into shapes origami-style.
Have amazing senses of smell - for instance they can smell the difference between different diseases (so sometimes they're used to diagnose people in areas that can't afford a fancy medical lab). Like their world must be way more scent based than sight or sound based. But they do have good hearing, too.
Live in colonies in the wild.
Once my mom had rats in her classroom as pets - there were two brothers, one was a little bigger than the other (and would sometimes grab his treats :( but treated him nice in other ways). One time a kid was throwing stuff at the littler rat - not bothering the big one at all - and the big brother bit the kid. Also a wonderful rat named Xena got adopted by one of my friends - and the two of them got along really well. And When my friend's older brother started harassing her - Xena got between them and bit him.
But I also have lots of good memories of Cloudy or Ares cuddling up beside me when I was sick or licking and grooming my face, and then nestling into the curl of my arm. Burrowing under the blankets and exploring. Climbing on things...
I'll be adding stuff as I think of it and polishing the writing as I go.
A big part of rat seems to be aesthetics - although each rat has a different idea of that - and most of it leaves humans going "Huh"?
Had one rat, cloudy, who would make huge nests out of fabric scraps, and drape other fabric pieces around her cage. Actually had some criteria for what fabric went together. Got excited over different color patterns and textures. Especially liked corduroy.
Also had two boy rats, loved receipt paper - one liked the crispy sound - but the other one would carefully fold them up into shapes origami-style.
Have amazing senses of smell - for instance they can smell the difference between different diseases (so sometimes they're used to diagnose people in areas that can't afford a fancy medical lab). Like their world must be way more scent based than sight or sound based. But they do have good hearing, too.
Live in colonies in the wild.
Once my mom had rats in her classroom as pets - there were two brothers, one was a little bigger than the other (and would sometimes grab his treats :( but treated him nice in other ways). One time a kid was throwing stuff at the littler rat - not bothering the big one at all - and the big brother bit the kid. Also a wonderful rat named Xena got adopted by one of my friends - and the two of them got along really well. And When my friend's older brother started harassing her - Xena got between them and bit him.
But I also have lots of good memories of Cloudy or Ares cuddling up beside me when I was sick or licking and grooming my face, and then nestling into the curl of my arm. Burrowing under the blankets and exploring. Climbing on things...
