Rodents' fans pipe up with their pets' rattributes
SALEM - Rats.
Albino and red-eyed, they hunker on human shoulders.
Brown and kinky-furred, they nuzzle human ears.
Wiry-tailed, they scurry in frenetic spirals around hips, curl up in laps, burrow into sweat shirts, or sniff their way up and down arms.
For millennia, rats have been reviled - denizens of the sewer, scourges of the pantry, and harbingers of the bubonic plague.
But in this tan ranch house at a gathering of the North Shore Rat Club, a veritable horde of the rodents bask in an atmosphere of devotion and affection.
"Everyone says 'Ewww, a rat!' They think of a sewer rat, a junkyard rat," said Barbara Leger, 41, of Salem, who has owned 13 domestic rats, including Tulip, barely 4 inches long (not counting 4 inches of tail). "But they're really good-natured."
The club of rat enthusiasts formed in January, and members held their second meeting Saturday to coincide with the sixth annual World Rat Day. About 20 men and women gathered in Christine Madruga's home - identifiable by the bright yellow "Rat Xing" sign on the front door - as they held, pet, and cooed at roughly 60 rats.
Ranging from teenagers and college students to middle-age parents, club members ate cake decorated with a giant marshmallow rat and took home party favors including rat blankets and glycerin soap with little rubber rats encased inside - and the promise that those who lather up with it will be "squeaky clean."
The event also included a "ratffle," as well as competitions for the cutest, friendliest, and most unusual rats. Distinctions were given to the animals with the longest tails and the most "rattitude."
"They're very sweet creatures," said Madruga, who started the group after she was "shocked" to discover that others love the rodents, too, that in fact there was an entire counterculture of rat lovers.
Perhaps to the disgust of health inspectors everywhere, rat ownership isn't rare. Rat fanciers have clubs across the United States, as well as in England, Finland, Germany, Switzerland, and Australia, according to the National Alternative Pet Association.
Like dogs, cats, and horses, domestic rats are also shown off by proud owners at organized shows, and are systematically bred for size, color, shape, and temperament, according to Dale Taylor, vice president of the American Fancy Rat and Mouse Association. From such genetic tinkering, many types have evolved: hairless, tail-less, "Dumbo"-style with large, round ears, and others possessing crimped hair or spots, Taylor said.
Those who keep them call them the perfect pet: They're clean, loyal, low-maintenance, and, contrary to popular opinion, hardly ever bite.
Rats are also affectionate.
"They're good snugglers," explained 21-year-old Victoria Sobczak, a Salem State College student from Chicago. As she stood in Madruga's kitchen, two white females, Patches and Tooey, squeaked and sniffed on her shoulder.
When called, rats respond to their names, and they can be litter-box trained. That gives Amanda Case's four rats - plus 13 unexpected babies - free roam of her Sandwich home.
As might be expected, her rats like to hoard peanuts, chew holes in walls, and create nests in cabinets, which they've learned to open themselves.
And, like their sewer-frequenting cousins, they'll eat just about everything - spaghetti, ice cream, cheese, sausage, fish, "but their staple is Romaine lettuce," noted Case, a 33-year-old lawyer. As she spoke, a white female named Flower dozed in the hood of her pink sweatshirt.
Case explained that she initially adopted two "feeder rats" - the ones that are devoured, live and whole, by pet snakes - out of sympathy. "I wasn't sure what to expect at first," she admitted. "I think they scared me a little."
There are, after all, the anti-rat themes inherent in everyday language. James Cagney's famous line "You dirty rat," for instance; "ratting" on someone; "ratty" sweaters; or even the common lamentation "Rats!"
"There are so many misconceptions," said 32-year-old Joshua Madruga, Christine's husband. "Rats are the friendliest creatures I've ever owned."
He has a brood of 10, many sizes and varieties, with names like Mango, Petunia, and Tink.
Clad in a black "Got Rats?" T-shirt, with a beige rat called Lucifer on his neck and two baby rats skittering across his shoulders, he said, "We love them to death. They're so playful."
But while most rat owners strive to elevate the rodents' unsavory reputation, some revel in the fact that they aren't an everyday pet.
"Everyone has a cat or a dog," shrugged 11-year-old Christa Leger. "It makes you different."
