April 4 – World Rat Day ~ CookingFood.Org

Posted on April 4, 2014

The folks who created this holiday want you to know that rats are great pets!

They urge us to rethink the horrible reputation of rats with slogans like:

“Everything's better with rats.” and

“Rats are palm-sized puppies.”

Some rat lovers are even hosting events like free physicals for rats, agility races, and “ratchats,” whatever they are!

And who could resist World Rat Day postcards featuring pictures like this darling one by Nadya Slenders?

Of course, most of us don't live near a WRD event – but private parties, or “ratfests,” are a great idea for those of you who are already rat fanciers.

For those of you who aren't rat fanciers...

(yet)....

Today is a great day to learn more about rats.

Here are some adorable photos with captions that explains why rats make awesome pets.

Rats are used in scientific studies about learning because they are pretty smart. Here is a cute video of some fairly impressive rat tricks. Find out more about teaching rats tricks here.

Nurtured rat pups grow up to be calm rat adults; rat pups who aren't licked and groomed enough grow up to be anxious. Learn about this epigenetic pattern here.

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