Watching Rats at Play

Your dislike of rats is readily apparent. Why do you characterize them as "disease spreading rodents" which has no relevance to the subject of the article? All rodents, in fact all mammals, are capable of spreading disease. A lot of that proclivity is directly dependent on the environment they live in. They will certainly become "disease spreading" on the garbage strewn streets of Los Angeles but very unlikely in a lab where they are well cared for.

Please edit your article to remove that non-essential "fact".

I have witnessed the laughing giggles of rats at play, they are actually giddy at times when they realize they have found a safe environment...and the accompanying jumping with playful joy...it was a once in a lifetime experience that I still remember 40+ years later...It was so sad when I had to crush them all with rat traps...but rats for the most part are opportunists, if you give them an inch, they'll take a mile...

I only ever met one polite rat, it was some years ago I spotted a white rat running across a field, he appeared to be in a panic, although I can't say for sure, I waved him over in my direction, he stopped for a minute and looked at me, then continued on...but then several days later I was sitting out in the garage with the door open, and the rat, now looking somewhat darker, appeared from under a shelf, he came over and stood on his hind legs and put his front paws on my ankle...at first I didn't move curious to see what his intentions were, but he just stayed in that position, so I started to bend down and pick him up but he dashed away...I figured he was asking for a meal, so I put out some cheese for him, more than he could eat...and the next day he was gone...I put out more cheese but it remained uneaten...

Several months later he returned, this time with a mate, and they took up residence in a tree in the back yard....We had a Yorkie at the time and she enjoyed great sport with a local family of squirrels that lived in the area and came to our yard to get peanuts that we put out with the bird seed for the birds....The Yorkie chased the squirrels around the yard all day long and never seemed to tire of this game, it was fun to watch as the squirrels played daredevil games with the dog....Part of the initiation for the young squirrels was the older squirrels would throw them out of the tree to the ground where the terrifying Yorkie was waiting, occasionally the Yorkie would trap one with his paw and kiss them, then allow them to escape while she was nipping at their tail...The rat couple now permanent tree residents were swept up in these rituals with the larger squirrels throwing the rats out of the tree to the ground where the Yorkie would chase them back up the tree....these rats were now active in the daytime and slept at night, just like the squirrels, something I had never seen before...tune in next week for a surprise twist in this saga....

Experimental rats are normally bred and kept in an otherwise disease-free environment, so I hope they were checked after their extended contact with a disease-spreading human

This experiment will doubtless be criticised by the priests of the animal psychology cult for the researchers' apparent anthropomorphism (it's the deadly sin which displaced "thou shalt not kill"), because it makes it hard to avoid the conclusion that the rats were actually playing and enjoying the game.

Them varmints is gittin' smarter an' smarter all by they selves. We do'n really need to be providin' 'em wi' any such 'dittional trainin' camps, now, do we?...