What's the cutest thing your rats do?

[Canarats]

Heathcliffe: Spongerat.

Heathcliffe opens his stubby arms out to you like a spongy baby doll when you pick him up. He never resists, or does that passive aggressive liquid-rat thing to slip through your hands. He prefers to be held flat against your shoulder and have his back rubbed up and down, as opposed to the same direction as the hair. You can just move his saggy old skin back and forth without ever lifting your hand, and he loves that too. The bruxing starts as soon as you start to lift him. He is either such a traitor--or absolutely shameless-- that he will spongerat for every visitor to the house.

That's a first for my rats, but he does another thing I've seen in a couple of others, and only for me ... when I hold him up to my face and talk to him, he makes licking and chewing motions with his mouth, like horses do when they're content, or guinea pigs do all the time. It looks like they're trying to talk, and it seems Heathcliffe does this only when I talk directly to him. Some cats will literally talk back to you, but it is so weird to see rats do this.

 

[MumsyRat]

Aww, he sounds adorable! Can I have him? :kisses:

I have a rat named J.J. who always grabs one of my fingers and tried to drag it into the cage with him.
It's like he's trying to convince me to come and live in his house! I adore my J.J.! :heart:

 

[Phyllis]

what great rattie stories, my too new rescues fro our Colo vacation this summer, the most loving ratties, at play time on my bed they follow me around & just run to me & sniff my hair, they love to watch TV in bed with Tim & I, your tiny man opening his arms to you is precious! would love to see it! thank you foe sharing!

 

[LA]

Ruby is our little sweetie. She's trained us how to pick her up. You scoop her up when she's facing you and she will first plant her front feet on your hands and then her hind feet. She loves to rest her paw on your finger as well when you put it in the cage.

Lily is just one of those rats that always wants attention. She will come on top of the cage and stretch really far over the side to get to you. She loves to be petted. As soon as you open the cage she starts to brux and she does it all the time. She's the happiest rat.

Hazel LOVES to lick you. All the time, she's so sweet. She and Lily also like to try and grab any clothing on you and pull it in the cage.

I love my girls.

 

[jorats]

Sweet!!

I had a Simon... he loved to have his belly kissed. He would climb on me, I would lift him up, give him a kiss on the belly then raise my head, he would grab onto my nose and give me a kiss in return. If I put him down, he would climb back up for another belly kiss.

 

[meep]

I had a rat called Billy. I went to a shelter to pick him up to bring him to another shelter. He was all alone in a dirty, empty cage. He was at least 2 years old and had a cold...
So i took him with me and when i got home i put him in a clean cage with blankets. Thist thing he did was goggling.(erm if thats the word. Doing this -> :love1: with his eyes) He was running around like a young rat to check out the cage and wanted to get picked up and wanted to get cuddled and when i talked to him he began to do that -> :love1:
So within half an hour we desided to keep him. :lol:
He was an old white rat so we were already afraid he would stay for the rest of the time in the shelter, and he was such a cutie, we could not let him go.
He went blind later (i had him for almost a year! so he was pretty old) but when i called his name 3 times (Billybillybilly!) He ran to the door for a cuddle. :love2: He was one of the greatest and sweetest rats i ever had. :love4:

 

[Melissa's ZOO]

Great stories. I have few that do really sweet things. Ivy loves belly kisses and loves to lick my forehead while I do it. Clover loves it when I hold her on her back and scratch her shoulders she gets so relaxed she is like a limp noodle. My hairless Willow is a major licker she will lick my face non-stop, when I grab her to make her stop she takes off running and then comes back and pounces on my face to lick me some more, she does this over and over again.

 

[jennifervb]

Ben is fascinated by both the drawstring on my sweatpants and the legs and sleeves on my sweatshirt. He spends most of his time either trying to steal the drawstrings, hanging his head out of my sleeve or climbing up the inside of my pant leg.

Basil often cleans my face, hands and big toe... don't ask! I can't figure it out either!!! :laugh4:

Love my rats... love their idiosyncrasies.

 

[Godmother]

SQ's Hannah was the first rat I ever had the responsibility for caring for. We got her from the SPCA, so SQ needed to quarantine her before introducing her to her other rats. SQ set up a cage at her mom's place and I went to spend time with Hannah and to clean her cage every day.

What I loved about Hannah was her eagerness to be with people. Before I could get the cage door fully open, she had run up my arm to be close to me. Such a loving ratty. :heart: We never could figure out why someone abandoned her in a small cage in an apartment. She'd have died of dehydration if the landlord hadn't found her and brought her to the SPCA.

 

[Fidget]

Awww... Canarats - What a great post to start! I've enjoyed everybody's little special kids and I'm sure it brought back a lot of precious memories for a lot of people.

At the moment I have pain-in-the-butt Sugar always watching me for a moment I'm not watching so she can climb under my quilt or pillow - not so cute. Sumone wants to trim my fingernails, then I have to file them so I don't scratch her nekkedness, and she loves hand-wrestling. Kelley - well she's just unbearably cute to look at when she's being stand-offish. Fidget seems to understand all the good and the bad and is my comfort since I lost Savanna & Erin. Astoria is her own little person, undemanding but always comes when called. And Summer - she runs to me when she's having a rough breathing session - if only I could fix it like she trusts I can.

Sorry - long - but the heart has no stopwatch

 

[Godmother]

And dear Corrie :love7: (I will always miss her) loved to climb the outside of my pantlegs during out time. She taught her daughters to do it, too, but she was the most energetic and agile climber. She'd climb me from ankles to shoulder at least a dozen times in an evening, especially if she wanted to get to the top of the FN.

 

[Canarats]

I was wondering if I can have permission to put you guys' stories on a page on a website? Lets give our guys good press.

They are such wonderful stories, and bring back great memories of the all the rats I've had over the years.

A client/friend of mine read the post I made on Heathcliffe, and concurred

>>Now that you mention it, Charlie, Heathcliffe *does* stick out his hands when someone picks him up; I noticed it during his sojourns here. Perhaps it's a defensive reflex, though I sometimes wondered if he was showing off those rather elegant white "shirt cuff" markings on his forelegs.

Reading HC's story over brought to mind the way you'd hold a baby to be burped, and as a matter of fact he does love to be carried around in that position, flat out against your chest. I can't bear to put him down to go about my daily activities because he only asks to be picked up again.

 

[Canarats]

Heathcliffe has been a great pleasure to my mom, who can barely walk after coming home from the hospital too early. She tries to walk around the upstairs of the house, and when Heathcliffe hears her get up, he sits at the edge of the bed and watches her though my bedroom door ... so she can see his beady little eyes on her every time she passes.

My dad is practically deaf, and couldn't hear my mom banging the wall and shouting, but Heathcliffe sure did.

He would make a great therapy rat. When my mom is laying down, he lets her pet him indefinitely without moving. Heathcliffe rules!

 

[chicky82]

My Coal loves kisses and always tries to use his little paws to pry open my mouth to check out my teeth my Chimo loves to boggle and brux at me everytime I come into the room and hops around when he hears my mom :heart: