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It's nearly worth having a pet rat just for the reaction it brings out in people when you tell them you have one. Rats are hugely disliked by almost everyone and have a reputation for being dirty, dangerous disease carriers. They have adapted to living in cities as well as humans and there may be more of them than there are of us. There's probably a rat only a few feet from you now as you're reading this. Boo! That's why I think it's a good idea to have one of them on your side.

I had the same feelings about rats as everyone else until I met Gizmo. The first time I saw him he was peeking out from the top pocket of my then girlfriends denim jacket, looking very much like Stuart Little. It turned out that she had pet rats when she was younger and when she saw this fellow she had to get him. She didn't tell me she was getting him, so when she came into the flat with him in her pocket it was a bit of a surprise to me and I was reluctant to accept him at first. It took me about a day before I could even bare to touch him. But once I got over the uneasy feeling of having a rodent in the flat I started to like it and when I broke up with my girlfriend a few months later the only thing I asked of her was that I could keep the rat. She said yes.

Gizmo was still only a baby when he came into the flat and when he was small he had his own corner that he stayed in. Even when let out of his cage to wander about he stayed in his small corner and only gradually as he got older and bigger did he start to venture out any further. It was months before he was running all about the flat and jumping on the furniture.

I was surprised to discover that he recognized his name when I called him. If I wanted to put him back in his cage after a wander about I would call him. He would usually finish his time out of the cage by climbing inside the sofa and rummaging about in there. The only way I could get him back out was of his own free will. I would call him and after a couple of times he would peek out from the sofa, nose twitching.

He seemed to function better on a vegetarian diet. My theory is that too much meat makes rats vicious but maybe that was me making excuses for the times he tried to bite me. He only tried to bite me once or twice and we all have off days so I didn't hold it against him. Mostly I found him a pleasant and affectionate pet, very much like a miniature dog. He liked being stroked. He wouldn't wag his tail but he would lie perfectly still on my lap and showed no inclination to move.

In the end my doting on him was his downfall. One Christmas I bought a huge tree that took up a whole corner of the room. Full of Christmas spirit I took a small piece off one of the branches and presented Gizmo with a little piece of a Christmas tree to put in his cage. I assumed that it would make him feel more at home.

The lesson to learn from this is that rats have allergic reactions to the oil from pine trees. Very soon after Christmas Gizmo began sick and was barely moving. I nursed him for days and then one night I woke up to hear him loudly wheezing his last breaths.

Learn more about this author, Sean McGoldrick.
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