Thursday, February 17, 2011

It must be mating season.

the title doesn't really make sense since rats are in season all the time it seems.
but! I for some reason thought that rats didn't act all crazy when they are.
I've seen my female dog try to hump the male dog and I've seen my cat hump his brother but I never thought rodents would engage in similar behavior. I suppose it only makes sense that they would do so too.
with that being said I witnessed Garbo trying to mate with Nixon last night :s
yes it's normal but it's just weird cause Nixon never does that. she'll try to grab Garbo by the waist but never humps her. well....Garbo did. she's bigger than Nixon too so it was kinda funny.

other than Garbo's "sexual awakening" the rats have been well and very social.
ratties are even starting to climb onto Robert's lap which they didn't really do before. now days all I have to do sometimes is to reach out with my hand and a rat will climb on board. sometimes they will reach out to me so that I'll put my hand down for them so they can jump on.

since I have a long weekend and no homework to worry about I intend to spend it by hanging out with the ratties since I've had a busy and stressful week with rather short rattie playtimes :/

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Rat loves cat!



I saw this video on youtube and since it's rat related I thought I'd share it.
cuuuuute!
I could never see my cat walther be that good friends with our rats.
he'd just want them to be friends with his stomach :(

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Rat gate attempt 2.

success!
we decided to move the gate over to the dining room/living room door instead because the gap is a lot smaller there and the gate blocks it perfectly :)
the only thing is that Garbo can actually jump up there but so far it's worked perfectly even when she has jumped up on the gate. I can usually tell when she's going to do it and I'll just pick her up when she's up there and put her back on the floor. she's very stubborn though and will repeat that about 4 more times and I put her down on the floor every time. she eventually gives up. I'm starting to think we should make the bathroom completely off limits too because Nixon has a weird thing for our toilet brush and it really grosses me out especially if I know that the brush has been in the toilet recently. I don't know what kinda "treasures" she's looking for there...
speaking of Nixon - it appears as if she's building a nest underneath the couch. she dragged all kinds of things there today including a piece of a grilled cheese sandwich and a taco wrapper and she was going to drag a little tube of toothpaste she found in the bathroom there too but I grabbed it from her before she made it all the way to the living room. she expressed her dissatisfaction by biting my toe after I confiscated her newly found treasure :( she also tried to take my headphones from the couch and drag them with her.
I'm also getting a little nervous about letting Garbo climb around so much. I know she really loves it and does it a lot more than Nixon (Nixon seems to be more into treasure hunting while Garbo wants to conquer every "mountain" in the apartment) but she has fallen down so many times and just in the past few days she has probably fallen down five times or more :/ I try to catch her but sometimes she won't even let me! I'm scared that she'll actually get hurt one of these days :/ it's making me feel like I'm not fulfilling my rat mom duties very well.

the good thing is that our rats don't really chew on things anymore.
so at least I don't have to worry about that :D