The Rat's Musical Ear

You probably have noticed that rats have very big ears compared to humans. Their ears are also very sensitive. That's why it's important to put your rat in a quiet area. Loud and high-pitch noises can damage their ears. They also use their ears to help get around. For example, if your coming to pick your rat up, they will hear you coming and hop on your hand. One thing really interesting I noticed is rats really like music. I have a dumbo dwarf rat, so she's one-third size of a normal rat with really big ears that capture sound really well. She really likes music. Whenever I play music she sits on my knee very still and relaxed, she just sits there and listens. Sometimes she's more interested in the sounds, other times she's relaxed, just listening. When I watch American Idol, she's running around during the commercial brakes and right when the music turns on she holds still and listens, right when it ends she's running around again. But you have to be careful the music isn't to loud, if your rat is running from the sound its for sure to loud. You can see if your rat likes music or not too, and tell me in the comment box.

This is a picture of my dumbo dwarf rat,

in this picture you can really see that her

ears are very big and are on the side of her

head.

How Much Play Time Do Rats Need

Rats need lots of play time. Rats need a good four hours of play time a day. Your probably wondering why you have to hold your rat so much. When you think about it, the least a human needs to be outside and moving each day to stay healthy, is a minimum of four hours. So that's why its important to hold your rat four hours a day. That may seem like a lot, but its actually not that much. There are many ways you can hold your rat. One of the easiest, is letting your rat sit on your shoulder. They can sit on your shoulder while your doing homework - if your a kid - or when your working, as long as your inside. Or some rats like to sit in socks, or in sweatshirt pockets. You can also build a sturdy, well constructed, fort for your rat, but always watch them to make sure they don't get hurt, or wonder off. Some rats also like hamster balls. But you have to get a ball big enough for them. Dwarf rats usually need a 7 and half inch ball, while regular rats usually need a 13 and a half inch ball. Make sure all of the doors are shut so none of them get away. If you have two rats they will keep each other company if your busy and you can't hold them. But don't not hold them if your not busy! Teaching your rat how to do a maze or its name is even holding it, as long as there out of there cage. There are numerous ways you can hold your rat and have lots of fun.

My rat loves to sit in washed socks,

she sometimes falls asleep in them.

Some Similarities between Rats and Humans

Rats and humans are very similar. Rats are highly intelligent, social animals that have followed us into cities, onto our turf, and made themselves feel at home. In effect we are competing most aggressively with verminous species like rats because they are most like us. When you think about it, where do most wild rats live? In the attic of your home (I’m not trying to creep you out, but it’s probably true). And who else lives in your home? You! That kind of proves that rats think like us on where to live. Scientists did a test to determine if rats are capable of reflecting on processes. What that basically means is if you taught a rat and gave it a test, would the rat be able to know if it was right or wrong. I recently read an article about this that I made easier to understand, but the opening paragraph did make sense and here is what it said: Let’s say a college student enters a classroom to take a test. He probably already has an idea how he will do on the test, before he even takes out a pencil. But do animals possess the same ability to think about what they know or don’t know?

Here’s where I made it easier to understand: It’s easy to find out if humans believe they do or don’t know the answer to a task or test. You just ask them. With nonverbal animals it’s much harder to find the answer. But somehow scientists found out how to communicate with rats through their behavior. The tests asked the rats to discriminate between a number of responses. Sometimes the choices were relatively easy, and the rats were able to make a choice that generated a large reward. But often the choices were quite difficult, and the rats faced a dilemma: Should they continue and take a chance on the test with the risk of no food reward, or should they just bail out and take the small, but guaranteed reward? As you can see, food is the greatest motivator for all animals, even for a little rat. One part of the test was presenting the rats with a sound and asking them to determine if it was “short” or “long.” When the sounds were more than obvious to if they were short or long, the rats had no problem finding the right answer. But for sounds that that were kind of in the mid-range, the rats found it extremely hard to know if they were short or long. So what should they do: Guess and possibly be wrong, or simply refuse to take the test and get a small reward?

Research shows that rats know when they don’t know the answer to a question. Isn’t that cool? That could open possibilities to more advanced research on rats. So I guess that does prove that you can train your rat.

University of Georgia (2007, March 9). Rats Capable Of Reflecting On Mental Processes. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 3, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2007/03/070308121856.htm