The Hidden Life of Rats and Mice
PETCO also agreed to make some changes to benefit rats and mice, including separating the animals by gender to prevent breeding.
Highly intelligent rodents, rats and mice are natural students who excel at learning and understanding concepts. Rats are considerably smaller than dogs but are at least as capable of thinking about things and figuring them out! And, while rats are much smaller than elephants, they have excellent memories. Although their eyesight is poor, once rats learn a navigation route, they never forget it.
Both mice and rats are also highly sociable animals. They become attached to each other, love their own families, and easily bond with their human guardians, returning as much affection as is given to them. Many rats will even “groom” their human companion’s hand and would appreciate a massage, a scratch behind the ears, or even a tickle in return. Recent studies by Jaak Panksepp, a neuroscientist at Bowling Green State University, suggest that when rats play or are playfully tickled, they make chirping sounds that are strikingly similar to human laughter. The rats he studied also bonded socially with the human tickler and even sought to be tickled more. Panksepp corroborates what rat lovers have known all along: “[Y]oung rats have a marvelous sense of fun.”
Male rats will snuggle up for a cuddle and find contentment curled up in a person’s lap. Although female rats are just as affectionate, they tend to be tremendously energetic and inquisitive. Rats love seeing kind people and will often bounce around waiting to be noticed and picked up. Rats can bond with their human companions to the point that if they are suddenly given away to someone else or forgotten, they can pine to death.
Studies reveal that rats express empathy when another rat or a human they know is in pain. People who share their lives with rats report that they are altruistic beings who will try to help in times of distress.
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Mice and rats are fastidiously clean animals, grooming themselves several times a day. In fact, rats and mice are less likely than dogs or cats to catch and transmit parasites and viruses.
- Mice and rats are highly social animals—they communicate with each other at high-frequency sounds that you can't hear without instrumentation, play together, wrestle, and love sleeping curled up together. Much like us, if they do not have companionship, they can become lonely, anxious, depressed, and stressed.
- Mice and rats have a complex language system—they can communicate by touch, by smell, and by sound at frequencies that we can't hear.
- Mice and rats are so smart that they can recognize their names and respond when called.
- Mice are choosy—they like variety, too, and enjoy picking around in their food, eating the tastiest parts first, and separating out what they dislike.
- Female mice with litters will vigorously defend their nests and young.
- If not forced to live in a dirty cage, a rat's skin has a very pleasant perfume-like scent.
- After engaging in sex, male rats sing at frequencies beyond the hearing of humans, around 20 to 22 KHz.
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