Larry the Rat

One day I visited my folks.  I was a young man at the time.  My dad had built a cage.  There was a baby rat inside.  It was white and was purchased at a pet store.  My dad knew I liked them as pets.  He gave me the cage and rat as a birthday gift.  I named him “Larry”.

I was living solo in a studio apartment.  I situated Larry’s cage on a chest of drawers near my bed.  I left the cage door open.  He would egress to the surrounding areas and explore.  Often he would climb up the bed and join me at the top.  Once there, he would sometimes engage in play.  He’d crawl beneath the covers and run a lap from my hip to my feet to my other hip.  He would then reverse course ending up where he started.  He’d run from 1 to 3 laps.  If I placed my hand in his path and wiggled my fingers, he would “attack” by gripping them and lightly biting them.

With a little training I got him to exit his cage door and run up my extended arm to my shoulder where he perched and waited for me to take him to a hang out spot (as expected on the recliner chair in front of the TV).

Larry loved to be held.  I would place him on my hand and stroke his back.  He’d then roll on his side so that I would pet his underside.  The lids would close and it seemed like he was in a nirvana-like state. 

Larry basically had the run of the place but no matter where he was, he would dash to his cage to do his business at a particular spot.  I never saw a trace of urine or feces outside his cage.  He groomed regularly and kept himself spotless.  He never had an odor. 

I got married and hauled Larry to another apartment where the three of us lived.  Larry and my bride hit it off immediately. 

After about five years of being my little buddy Larry contracted cancer.  It took the form of a large tumor in his neck.  There was no hope.  The vet had to put him down and I buried him in our garden.  It broke my heart. 

I wrote this story because I wanted to show that rats (wild and domestic), along with so many other animals, are smarter, more sensitive and have a greater capacity to play and feel joy than we ever thought possible.  With this in mind, we must realize that they probably experience more fear, pain and suffering from physical and emotional abuse than we ever imagined. 

"We must be the change we wish to see in the world. (and) I hold that, the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man."
Mahatma Gandhi