Ratty Rehab

warning: long story.

I’m not 100% sure this even belongs here and I’ve posted this story elsewhere so some of you might have read it already.

Some background: I work in a rather specialized area of Forensics. Officially I’m employed by Police Scotland but they tend to let other law enforcement agencies, universities, etc borrow us from time to time. A lot of the time it’s for consulting work or guest lecturing but sometimes we’re sent to teach training courses.

Oh, and…

The free rat, occasionally hearing distress calls from its compatriot, learned to open the cage and did so with greater efficiency over time. It would release the other animal even if there wasn’t the payoff of a reunion with it. Astonishingly, if given access to a small hoard of chocolate chips, the free rat would usually save at least one treat for the captive — which is a lot to expect of a rat.

The researchers came to the unavoidable conclusion that what they were seeing was empathy — and apparently selfless behavior driven by that mental state.

This particular experiment may be new, but the conclusion that rats are compassionate and generous and socially motivated has been known at least since the Elizabethan days. Rats are socially dependent animals. They can’t survive alone. They live in the wild in multi-generational groups, and they depend on each other and pass each other information important for survival.

I had pet rats for years, and at one point I had an older female rat (Ishtar), and a pair of younger sisters, unrelated to Ishtar (Isis and Aphrodite)

Ishtar developed a tumor on her lower spine that paralyzed her from the waist down. She wasn’t in pain, but she couldn’t use her legs, and she lost control of her bladder. I thought I’d be caring for her every minute of every day, but the other girls stepped up. 

The sisters would work together to carry her in and out of the cage (up and down a ramp) so she could hang out on the desk. They would bring her food. They would wet their faces and chests in the water bowl or dripper so she could lick water from their fur. If I put three chocolate chips or Reese’s pieces on the desk they would make sure she got one of them. They groomed her. They’d roll her out of her nest, remove soiled bedding, and replace it with new, fluffed up shavings.