Probably one of the coolest things you've heard about rats yet, is that you can train them tricks! It sounds really hard, but its actually really easy. Let's say you wanted your rat to when their cage is opened, for it to climb out of its cage and go to you on the other side of the desk, but you want it to climb through some obstacles. It sounds hard, but you can train your rat to do that in front of people without a treat, in sometimes, just about an hour. But first you have to use a treat. Start by having the cage open and just one obstacle set up and some treats (I found out that rats like popcorn the best BUT whatever you do don't use microwave pop corn, ONLY USE STOVE POPPED popcorn, white popcorn is the healthiest and use a really low amount of oil). Place one treat by the rat's nose but don't let it grab it. Start dragging the treat where you want your rat to go and through the obstacle, once your rat gets better, start using a smaller treat. Keep doing this until your rat can do this without a treat. Soon start adding more obstacles until your satisfied. Keep doing this until your rat can do the whole obstacle without treats! When you're not using treats snap your fingers when your rat gets off track to keep it focused - it's important to be able to make a noise that keeps your rat on track, for your rat it might be the rattling sound of keys-. Soon you'll be able to show friends how smart rats really can be. Tell me in the comment box how this worked out for you and your rats and any tricks you might have taught them. Thanks for reading!
-Rat Man
