Rats!

Bridget wants pet rats for her birthday. She's been researching them lately and I have to admit they are even cooler than I thought.

In particular this website has really blown me away. Just go to the pages of toy ideas. And the cages they've built are cool.

This picture is her devouring the book on pet rats we got from the library today. Every few minutes she'd excitedly read passages out loud. It's a big topic of conversation around here the last few weeks.

We were just looking at a local rat breeder website (after I read it's better than getting them from a pet store) and Bridget was looking over my shoulder, commenting on all the types of rats she had read about in the book.

I briefly considered rat rescue but it makes me nervous. I've always gotten all my pet dogs and cats (and now birds!) from rescue or shelters but rats? We've never owned rats before. They're an unknown. I don't know what to look at in a rat. How to tell if it's scared of people. I have a much better grasp on cats and dogs. So we're going with a breeder this time around at least.

The only negative will be if it turns out I'm allergic to them. I don't think I am but it's been decades since I was around a rat. We'll see I guess. There's always benadryl.