Iska’s autobiography
My name is Iska. I'm a 25-month-old brown hooded rat. I can climb like a Youngster and love to explore whenever our human lets us. I like eating, Grooming and snoozing with my cage mates. There are 5 of us in a 4 ft tank With 1 meter of cages and wire meshing stacked on top. We use the topmost Cage as our bedroom. Another cage makes our dinning room plus there is are A lot of branches and discarded pieces of pottery for us to climb on and this long metal tube we like to run through and store our food. Our human Got it for Christmas. She put it where our old clay vase used to be except It’s still in the attic in case Gainda (an escaped rat) is up there and needs A place to kip.
Life wasn’t always so pleasant for me though. I was born in a pokey little Pet shop crammed with exotic animals such as snakes (which we feared) and a Parrot that we felt sorry for, as it was really homesick. Our first Experience of the human race wasn’t very impressive. Mother always told me to Guard my litter. Not that it wouldn’t stop him anyway. Our litters were Frozen for snake food. The human did this by placing them live into a Freezer, which he reckoned, was a painless death. Unfortunately my babies weren’t in a position to contradict him.
Then one day another human came for me and my cousin, a black hooded malerat called Kulz. We were moved into a 3 foot tank which compared to the tiny tank I had been previously crammed into was massive and a little scary at first. We were very nervous when our current human first tried to handle us. How were we supposed to know she meant well. So we hid in our vase and refused to come out. So she tried to bribe us out with food. she tried Special rat treats, crisps, and biscuits with no go. It was not until she offered us part of her sandwich (not expecting me to take it) but I did. I snatched it and ran back to the safety of our vase. Kulz never did get tame. He mistrusted humans too much.
Not long after that I had another litter. This was the first litter I was allowed to keep. Our human didn’t know what she was doing. She just followed The top human who didn’t know what she was doing either. She was just Following the human from the pet shop that just regarded us as snake food.
For some reason he only took 4 of my babies when they were old enough to leave. Kulz made the rest pregnant before being separated at 8 weeks old. It also seems that humans like to get other people to do their dirty work for them. The top human planned to dump all my pregnant babies back at the pet shop. It was left to our human to put them in a box ready to go before Making top human her coffee. By that time Tinsel had already had her babies.
The humans panicked. A visiting human suggested releasing them into the park. Although Tinsel thought this was a good idea (she’s been trying to escape Ever since) the top human eventually decided to keep tinsel and 2 of her babies. After a lot of arguing the pet shop agreed to take the rest of the Rats except trickster (who our human had taken a fancy to) Tinsel, and the babies. Tinsel’s babies died of malnutrition, as she wasn’t feeding well enough. Our human tried to help but like everything else it wasn’t done Properly so they died. My litter went to a different pet shop. When Trickster had hers she dumped them all over the cage. Flatly refusing to look after them. Our human tried putting them in another vase but they seemed to keep getting scattered. some were even dumped in the food bowl. Tricksters way of telling the humans that they could be food for all she cared. She wasn’t going to get attached to anything that was going to end up being murdered anyway. By the time the top human put them in the freezer a few of them had already died.
After that our human went away to get Jilli, her new guide rat-dog. Our Owner left promising us this mega big aviary to make up for letting the top human murder Tinsel and Trickster’s babies. Unfortunately it was so big it would not fit up the stairs so they had to keep it in the garden and it’s still there getting rusty. She had already moved to a bigger room so the aviary would fit in it. Only she didn’t check the door could close properly and it didn’t. This meant the cats could come in and out as they pleased. They liked to bang the side of the cage with their paws so we had to take refuge in the vase. She never could let us out while we were in that room.
For some reason she and the other human kept falling out and being noisy about it. Instead of rolling on to her back and squeaking like any sensible rat would have done they kept having these noisy arguments. Once this other human who lived with them came and gave our cage a good kicking. Just because she was mad at our human. I never liked that human much anyway. We had very little to do with her but when we did She kept saying how nice we'd be in a sandwhich.
Then our human left and Became what humans call homeless. Or in our humans case she had 2 different homes, which she stayed alternatively. Of course we went with her. In one of the places we were in a 4 ft tank. The same one we live in now. The house was full of noisy little humans who fed us chocolate, crisps and other such goodies. We were next to these chinchillas and would often run free together. She locked the door so the cats would not be able to come In but only late at night as her room was also the living room but she never could sleep at night then. the other cage we inhabited was in her fathers living room. After the humans had gone to bed we often met the mice. They asked us what we were doing there. Tinsel asked it if she could join it and It ran away laughing. Tinsel still thinks she can manage without humans even Though I’ve tried to explain to her that the mouse’s mother must have taught it how to manage in the wild. All my mother taught me was how to infuriate humans.
Since moving here our human bought 2 more rats. I don’t know why. Me, Tinsel and Trickster were doing fine together. We didn’t appreciate Gainda Taking the best sleeping area and making it a nest. Especially when she refused to let anyone near it. I’m the only rat in this cage that can do that sort of thing. But then I realised she was pregnant so I let her keep it.
Stonehenge (or stony for short) was just a pain. She was a little upstart who was always trying to challenge me even though I’m the top rat. Our human Didn’t like us beating stony up but its like with humans. There is a top human and the top human order’s all the other humans about. The bottom human doesn’t squeak and roll on her back but keeps saying sorry sorry and humans I’ve noticed don’t always leave off after the signal of submission. Not like we do.
Well I’m the top rat. I think stony got the message eventually because she Stopped sitting in the food bowl and other things that annoyed me. Gainda and her babies have not been so much of a problem. now she's gone. Don’t know where. She just said she was going off to explore seeing as our human had Forgotten to close the door but she never came back. We’ve just got Dreama to content with. She’s ok once I put her in her place. Her brother Nicodemous has been adopted by our human's mother and the others went to a pet shop. One that doesn’t deal with reptiles. Our human said they didn’t anyway but then you never can trust humans.
Mind you ours isn’t so bad. She’s less incompetent then she used to be. She lets us run free nearly all the time. Sometimes she even takes me and Dreama for walks. sitting in her sleeve. Its all the stuff she’s been reading I think. The only down side is she’s turned really stingy with chocolate. for squeaking out loud. Humans do loads of things that are bad for them so why cant we.
(Sadly the rat of whom this story is based on died in April 2002)