Running Free

Photo from Imgur

It has been very difficult to motivate myself to write this post. Why? Well, because, for some reason, I decided to write up my litter training post in the same file and managed to delete the entire original write-up about free-ranging rats. It was a truly heart-breaking discovery. Okay, now that I’ve had a chance to mope, let’s see if I can remember anything that I initially said… nope. 

Something I’ve read about time and time again since I first got my rats is free-ranging; that is, allowing them to run loose in your house, or in a certain room or area. Eventually, I would like to try this since I’m sure Potato and Goma would enjoy it (if they can ever get over their whole “put me back in the cage right now!” sort of attitudes), but currently it’s not terribly feasible. There are a number of factors contributing to my hesitation.

First of all, there’s the cat issue. I have two cats (okay, I actually have a feline-shaped dog and a bundle of fear packaged inside whiskers and fur) and, while it’s nice to think that I could just lock them in a separate room or outside, there’s much too high of a chance of someone forgetting why they’re locked up/in and opening the door. Next thing you know – wham – rat sandwich. While I’m sure Monkey (the fear-bundle) would probably just re-enact this hilarious video, Basement (the cat-dog) would probably take his curiosity a bit too far; as in, to the point that he got rat breath. So, yes, cats equal a problem.

The next issue is that there really isn’t an appropriate room for Potato and Goma to safely run around in. I mean, yes, the kitchen/dining room would be ideal since they’re open and have easy-to-clean tile floors, but they don’t have any doors and, really, not much resembling doorways, either. This same reasoning, on top of the carpeted floor, is why the living room won’t work. As for the other rooms in the house – there are way too many places they could hide where I could never find or reach them and far too much stuff on the floor. I imagine rat-proofing my bedroom would take several days and would likely result in almost all of my possessions sitting in the hallway. But, wait, what about the bathroom? Surely it has tile floors and a working door? Why, yes, it does. It also has an unfixable leak behind the toilet that they would probably find and bathe in (they have actually run around the bathroom a couple of times, but I wanted to be a bit dramatic; I swear I’m not a terrible owner).

Reason number three is short, but kind of sad and mostly just an I-really-don’t-want-to-risk-that-incredibly-unlikely-but-unfortunate-incident-happening-again sort of thing. Basically, when I was young, we had several hamsters in succession (over a few years; don’t worry, we didn’t have to replace our hamster every other week or anything like that). Almost all of them managed to escape at one point or another and one of them happened to break free at the same time we were having our vents cleaned. The hamster went missing and the vent covers were replaced. Guess where the hamster was? Needless to say, it was highly unpleasant and I never want to experience that sort of trauma again.

All that being said, I do still intend to allow my rats some freedom outside of their cage, whether they like it or not. I am going to try to construct a rat run, like the one discussed here (there are also some other great free-ranging tips in that link, too, if you’re interested) once I amass enough clean cardboard. I’m also going to let them experience the great outdoors (ie. my backyard) by putting the top of their spare cage in the grass, although they’re not terribly fond of going outside, so we’ll see how long that lasts. I think I’ve mentioned trying to leash-train them before, too, but that’s a ridiculous tale I’ll get into at another time.