Monkey and Steve Reflection

Personally, I am a sucker for a cute face and rats definitely supply that!!! I would love to change the negative perspective that so many people hold when it comes to rats.

My rats, Monkey and Steve, have brought me nothing but joy and I can say that I am a proud rat owner. I was a little unsure how successful a blog on rats would be and whether I would have something to write about each week. After looking back on nearly 14 weeks, I never had a problem coming up with something to share. I found so many others like me who want to change negative perspectives and are proud to have a rat or two to call their own.

I hope that my pictures and personal videos of Monkey & Steve have been helpful in possibly changing a negative perspective or two and maybe even have warmed your heart to the little furballs :)

It has been wonderful sharing my experiences and I hope to continue to post updates on the two little furry men in my life.

If you are considering a pet, but a little concerned about cost and upkeep of one, consider a rat. They are easily and inexpensively maintained and are perfect companions!

Rat Bands and Songs

1. Boomtown Rats

2. RatDog

3. The Rat Pack

4. "Muskrat Love," by Captain & Tennille

5. "Hot Rats," by Frank Zappa

6. Ratt

7. The Swamp Rats

8. Rat Scabies (stage name of Christopher Miller, drummer for the Damned)

9. Rock radio station WRAT in New Jersey calls itself "the Rat"

10. "Rat Music for Rat People" (compilation album of punk music by Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, Bad Brains, etc)

11. "Rat On," by Swamp Dogg

12. "Ben," by Michael Jackson

13. "I Smell a Rat," by Clarence Carter

Article by the San Francisco Chronicle: http://www.sfgate.com/cgibinarticle.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/01/PK71UGer4.DTL

Steve on Film

I promised a bit of film of Steve. He was sleeping and refused to acknowledge the camera last time. This time around he is a camera ham! Enjoy.

Pet Rat Information Sheet

After seeing how cute Monkey & Steve are maybe you are considering a pet rat. While getting rats for pets was not a huge transition for us there were still things that Tim and I would have liked to have known before we decided to bring Monkey and Steve home. This website is great for informing one on pet rats and giving care tips and explanation for rat behavior. If you are interested check out the following link: http://www.quite.co.uk/rats/ .

Live Action of Monkey and Steve

I wanted to give you a taste of the live action life of Monkey & Steve...actually a joke since they barely moved the whole time I filmed them. They were taking a nap when I invaded their slumber. Monkey honors the camera with his presence, but Steve is just being a bum, so hopefully next time I can get a bit of Steve running around (he is usually the hyper active one). Enjoy!

Jack Black (rat catcher)

Here is your history lesson for the day!

Jack Black was a rat-catcher and mole destroyer by appointment to Her Majesty Queen Victoria during the middle of the nineteenth century. Black cut a striking figure in his self-made "uniform" of scarlet topcoat, waistcoat, and breeches, with a huge leather belt inset with cast-iron rats.

He is known particularly through Henry Mayhew's account in London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 3, where he tells Mayhew of his work and experiences, including a number of occasions when he nearly died from infection following rat bites.

When he caught any unusually coloured rats, he bred them, to establish new colour varieties. He would sell his home-bred domesticated coloured rats as pets, mainly, as Black observed, "to well-bred young ladies to keep in squirrel cages." Beatrix Potter is believed to have been one of his customers, and she dedicated the book Samuel Whiskers to her rat of the same name. The more sophisticated ladies of court kept their rats in dainty gilded cages, and even Queen Victoria herself kept a rat or two. It was in this way that domesticated—or fancy—rats were established. Black also supplied live rats for rat-baiting in pits, a popular mid-Victorian past-time.

Black had a number of sidelines beyond rats, including fishing (for food and supplying aquaria), bird catching and taxidermy. He was also an accomplished dog breeder. He told Mayhew: "I had a little rat dog—a black tan terrier by the name of Billy which was the greatest stock dog in London of that day. He was the father of the greatest portion of small black tan dogs in London now. I've been offered a sovereign per pound (in weight) for some of my little terriers, but I wouldn't take that price, for they weren't heavier than two or three pounds. I once sold one of the dogs to the Austrian Ambassador...My terrier dog was known to all the London fancy. As rat-killing dogs, there's no equal to that strain of black tan terriers."

And you thought Jack Black was an actor and singer in Tenacious D!

The Roly-Poly Pudding Or, The Tale of Samuel Whiskers

I have always been of fan of Beatrix Potter and was raised on her stories. Many of you know Tom Twitchit the gray striped cat who seems to get in as much trouble as Peter Rabbit. Well I was thrilled to find a Beatrix Potter story (that I was not so familiar with) that featured rats. When curiosity gets the better of Tom, two rats, Anna Maria and Samual Whiskers, capture the kitten and decide to make a baked pudding out of him.

[Excerpt]: Tom Kitten bit and spat, and mewed and wriggled; and the rolling-pin went roly-poly, roly; roly, poly, roly. The rats each held an end.
"His tail is sticking out! You did not fetch enough dough, Anna Maria."

"I fetched as much as I could carry," replied Anna Maria."I do not think" -- said Samuel Whiskers, pausing to take a look at Tom Kitten -- "I do not think it will be a good pudding. It smells sooty."

To learn what happens, you must read for yourself! It is quite a cute little story and seeing that I am a rat lover, I would not put a story on here that does not end well.

Enjoy!

Interesting Facts About Rats

Since Tim and I are new at this taking care of rats thing, we keep the internet close. We love reading rat owners blogs and pet rat care sites. One blogger posted some very interesting facts about rats that I would like to share. Here they are:

Rats and People
There has, actually been a long relationship between rats and people-several centuries.

• Ancient Egyptians worshipped rats.

• In Japan, rats are considered a symbol of wealth; the people even set out rice cakes on New Years, and if a rat gnaws on the cake, it foretells a good harvest.

• The Chinese, also, see the rat as a symbol of prosperity; Chinese folklore explains the rat's intelligence and cunning is the reason it's the first animal of the Chinese zodiac.

• Hindus revere rats because of Ganesha, god of prosperity, rides on the back of rats.

• India has a park donated for rats, and a temple dedicated to them.

• Historically, those in Bassora, Turkey, did not allow rats to be killed because they were a sign of luck.

• The first record of wild rats being kept as pets were in the 1800s in England. During this time, "ratting" was a popular sport, in which dogs were put inot pits to kill as many rats as they could. But, Jack Black, was thought to ahve been the first to start selling them as pets.

• In 1976, the first true rat club, the National Fancy Rat Society, was established.
  And, in the first half of the 20th century, they were considered as a suitable pet for children.

Naming the Rats

As before mentioned, Tim and I came home with two rats when only originally planning on bringing home one. We saw all of the rats snuggled up together in their cage and we instantly knew that we could not tear one rat away from the group and expect him to be happy in his solitude. We would learn later that we made a good decision in getting more than one.

We really did not have any choice in the matter of which two we would take. A very pregnant PETCO lass merely folded up two paper carrying cases, reached in and carefully grabbed which ever two tails she could get a hold off first, and handed our new pets over to us. Opening them when we got home was much like Christmas all over again. The rats were a mystery because it was only a matter of seconds between cage and box and we were unable to get a good look at them.

In the car on the way home, Tim and I tried to think of names for our little guys. It was only fair that he got to name one and I got to name one. Tim has an obsession with monkeys and it did not take long for one to assume the name of his favorite animal. It's silly I know, but Monkey would certainly live up to his name. Mine took a little longer to obtain a name. I did not have much experience naming anything more than my beta fish that I had in my younger years. They would always bear names like Bob, Larry, and Ronald, because I have this thing for typical male names. I felt the need to remain with this trend. For some reason Blue's Clues popped into my head and my rat was soon named Steve. He is definitely a Steve.

Thus begin our lives with Monkey and Steve. The two little white-haired, pink-eyed and pink-tailed creatures whose lives and ways are foreign to us, but we are so willing to learn and discover. Tune in next time for more adventures of Monkey and Steve!