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Some rats are born Brain-Damaged (of course, falling on their heads a few times often helps).I don't mean this literally. Rats are truly intelligent and robust animals. After all they're smart enough to whiz all over something so they can find their way back again. You can train them to push buttons to get food. You can order pizza and they'll be diligently waiting by the door for the delivery man. Fortunately they also do some really dumb things that you can't help but laugh about. It's like when you see someone running after something and they trip. It's sort of funny. You check and see if they're OK, and you feel bad for them, but it still makes you laugh. Rats do the same dumb thing, for example: We put a big bone on the top shelf of the boys cage for them to share. Terd decided to get greedy and snagged the bone away a bit too quickly. The bone and Terd both went falling to the bottom of the cage. That was funny. The two original George brothers were having one of their "I'm King" disputes (see "Just because they are brothers does not mean they have to be friends."). George was peacefully 'resting his eyes" on the cage lid. The other George, still inside the cage, got a burr up his butt. He jumped full force right into the cage lid, missing the opening by a couple of inches. That was funny. Slinky would get so excited he'd fall off of everything and he'd always land on his head. He'd also get right back up and run over to whatever it was that initially interested him. That was funny. When the rats get a hold of corn on the cob and do somersaults in order to hold onto it, that's funny. When younger rats get into their little rat-brawls and stop for water when their partner is still pinned down. That is funny. When they forget their partner is still pinned down and they fall asleep on him, that also is funny. When they get something sticky stuck on their whiskers and they can't figure out why things aren't feeling right and they clean and clean and keep missing, that too is funny.
 tip: When navigating through the RatTails, clicking on the image that looks like the image above will take you back to this table of contents!
Disclaimer: There are many non-sarcastic accounts and tips on the web regarding rat care. This is not
one of them. These are merely accounts of our experiences with rats, our perceptions of these experiences, where we've failed
and where we've succeeded. These accounts are here for two purposes:
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