The Boggle

Rats are weird.

'They're mischievous and cunning, intelligent and so very misunderstood. And yet, never before have I owned a pet, capable of reciprocating quite so much adoration and love.'

Never in my life did I think that I would one day own a rat. In all honesty I never really considered it an option. To most people they are still considered pests or vermin. Rodents responsible for the spreading of pestilence and disease. Dirty creatures that scavenge off human garbage and live in dark, dank places like the undergrowth or sewers. They have a terribly bad rep.

Yet, the side of them that I now know, is one that would surprise most people. I want to stand up for these incredible little creatures and explain what it really, truly is to own a rat.

This journey began a couple of years ago. During the peak of the Covid 19 outbreak. My country was in total lockdown and I was working in a pet store at the time. As an 'essential service' supplying food for animals, we remained open throughout.

For a while, things at work carried on as normal. The daily commute to and from the retail park was far quieter than normal and the store itself was obviously far less busy than usual. We wore medical grade face masks and the plastic shields at the tills served as a constant reminder that all was not quite right with the world, but we did our jobs and carried out our usual duties all the same.

Then eventually one day, the news came that we had to stop selling pets.

This made complete and perfect sense! We had to our limit social interactions with people, only essential services were allowed and, in all honesty, we didn't want to encourage the increasing trend of people buying 'lockdown' pets. But there was one problem. We still had many animals in our care at the time.

From hamsters and gerbils, to guinea pigs and rabbits. These animals were all merely babies, but before long they would undoubtedly grow too big for the temporary housing that we had for them in store. Their current cages for example, were too small to fulfil the requirements we ensured our customers met, when adopting them to take back to their 'forever homes'.

The dilemma of not knowing how long the lockdown would last and lacking the space or provisions required to care for the animals properly long term at our small site, it was proposed that store colleagues could adopt and take-home remaining pets should they wish.

Of course, everybody did just that. As animal lovers one and all, we each went home that week with several new additions to our respective families. My decision, the best I ever made, was to come back with three male rats.

My partner wasn't too sure what to think at the time. I had asked his express permission of course. But when I arrived home, with a cage taller than myself and enough toys to fill a small wardrobe, I think he had begun to reconsider.

His worries however, melted away within just a few days of being introduced to our three new bundles of fluff. We gave the rats proud Viking names, Floki, Loki and Ivar and just like that, they were part of the family.

Now just to get a few facts straight: Firstly, rats are exceptionally clean, they spend A LOT of time grooming, more so even than cats. They sleep a lot too. During the day mainly, as they're most active mornings, evenings and on and off throughout the night. I remember those early nights, me and my partner would jump up constantly from bed, convinced we were being burgled. Utterly startled by the sheer amount of ruckus the little fellas could make, whether from play fighting or jumping around the interior of their cage.

Rats it turns out, are also incredibly sociable, needing constant company, attention and mental stimulation. Yet at the same time, they are also distinctly intelligent and individual. Our three boys for example, had very contrasting personalities.

I like to describe them almost as little dogs, because in fairness that's how they'd act. We'd let them out of the cage and they'd follow you around the house, running by your ankles. You could give them strokes and scratches, play slightly rough and they'd roll over, scamper off, then come bounding back for more.

Floki, the smallest of our boys, I would definitely compare to a spaniel. He was a black and white hooded fancy rat, with a genetic trait that gave him 'dumbo' ears. This meant his ears were larger than his brothers and stuck outwards from the side of his head, rather than standing upright on top. It gave him a comical appearance, like that of the gene’s namesake fictional elephant.

I think his looks appropriately matched his utterly mischievous nature. Turn your back for merely a second and Floki would be exactly where he wasn't allowed, chewing on something he shouldn't. He had limitless energy and enthusiasm for absolutely everything.

His brother Ivar, by contrast did not. He was the Labrador of the group. A big, black and white chunky boy, admittedly somewhat overweight as his sole and only focus was food. He was the alpha of the gang for sure. Utterly lazy, but big enough to snatch food from his brothers and throw his weight around when he needed to assert his dominance.

Then finally, there was Loki, the greyhound of the pack. A grey and white rat whose nervousness made him twitchy but all the more endearing, as you had to earn his trust with encouragement and love.

Now, having worked with many rats over the course of my time in the pet store, I was aware of some of their more unusual quirks. For example, they are sensitive to the environment and can become sneezy if the air is too dusty, they can also get hiccups if they eat their food too fast. (Something Ivar used to do on a regular basis).

More disturbingly, they can gather red discharge around their eyes and nose sometimes after waking, a natural secretion that looks a little like blood. (Yeah, that freaked me out the first time!).

But, then one day a particularly weird thing happened. One crazy bit of rat behaviour that I had never encountered before and was in no way warned or prepared for, that took me completely by surprise. It was something I now like to call ‘The Boggle’.

You see, when rats are happy or anxious, they grind their teeth and make a noise described as bruxing. This, in moments of utter contentment, can also be followed by a literal and quite terrifying bulging of the eyes!

Picture this, one moment the rats are enjoying a stroke on the head, the next, there’s a chattering noise and suddenly their eyes are vibrating! Literally pulsing in and out of their sockets. Like one of those stress balls full of beans that you squeeze to get a part to massively bulge outward. Trust me, just Google it, it's weird!

Anyway, the first time this happened, I was obviously horrified! Now I’ve come to understand it’s actually perfectly normal behaviour, if not a little weird. Then again, it is just another odd quirk of a creature so utterly misunderstood that I love them all the more for it. After all, it is those, unscripted, unpredictable animal moments we remember most and later cherish long after our pets have gone.

(For Floki, Loki and Ivar)