it's important to do the research, but this is one of those headlines that any rat owner would say "Yeah, obviously." to without a second thought.
They strategize, they're mischievous, they test you, and ultimately they're quite cunning. These kind of behaviors are predicated on having an imagination to a certain degree.
These headlines only work if you are stuck in a behaviouralist view of biology where all animals behave essentially like dumb robots. It was a common view in academia until the 1950s and even later in psychiatry. These days things are much better. No serious animal cognition researcher today should be surprised by rats or mice having imaginations.
I find it interesting how we can be so aware of how dogs and cats are living being who experience life and should be protected, but at the same time, we ignore that cows, chickens, pigs, etc... all have those same experiences.
We end up caring about dogs and cats, while paying for the other animals to be killed and torn apart. If the same happened to dogs, people would become violent.
It would be nice if people held consistent moral beliefs.
"I care about what I like" is a consistent moral belief. The issue is that people don't realize that that is thier belief and create anlternative beliefs which sound better to them which then become inconsistent.
Funny that this should come up, 30 minutes afer I put our mischief of 3 young girl rats back in their habitat, but yeah, a few concrete examples:
* Pudding rat plans escapes to the top of the habitat, whenever the door is open,
* Rats are super trainable, and will speculative do tricks for treats (ours get gerber baby puffs, or rice krispies for spinning, going through a hoop, shaking hands etc.)
* Pie rat likes loose clothing and will run into sleeves, pants, and general enjoy herself,
* Rats also love certain styles of place, depending on the rat, and will happily just chill on your shoulder, or against your tummy, or under an arm and nibble a treat,
* Crumble rat is the baby, and more timid, less curious, and prefers to hide, but will run around and climb on the humans if her sisters are doing it.
Personality-wise, rats are all across the spectrum, and that personality is visible at weaning when most rats are sold by breeders, and so far it's inherent to the rat, and not something that really changes much.
I've not ever noticed them dreaming as ours prefer to snuggle in a hammock, with some rags pulled down, but they clearly have goals, and imagination, not just 'behavior'.
Rat's aren't dogs, but a few rats can make a wonderful replacement if you're somewhere where larger pets aren't permitted.
This is so interesting. So do these domesticated pet rats have a litter box or designated area for relieving themselves, or are they like other rodents and just go where they please?
They're just like rabbits and many other rodents. They will pick a preferred bathroom spot. You can either just put a litter box there, or train them to use a specific spot. Like rabbits, they do leave the occasional poo around as a territorial marker, and males sometimes dribble urine for the same reason. But for the most part, they're pretty good about litter boxes. I've never seen one of my rats actually relieve themselves out of their cage. Just the territorial markers.
Rats are probably my favorite animal that I've kept. They really are as intelligent, personable, and expressive as dogs. But they're very clean animals, one of their man activities is social grooming. Males tend to be lazy and want to cuddle while females are more driven to explore their environment. They're also not strictly nocturnal or diurnal, but will adjust their sleep.schedule to match your activity. They sleep while you're at work, but want to play first thing in the morning and when you come home.
The only downside is that their maximum lifespan is about three years, and they need a specialty vet. Otherwise, excellent pets.
They do indeed have one (or more depending on cage size) designated areas for doing that. The specific place you put the litter box is something you teach them, but they don't need much training to learn as they do seem to naturally do this with spots they choose themselves too.
Of course it might happen occasionally outside of those areas too, but if that starts happening frequently it can be a sign that something is wrong with them health wise.
Something like dreaming is present very far back in evolutionary history. The last common ancestor of ray-finned fish and terrestrial mammals (450 million years ago?) presumably had it, as both branches of the tree of life show REM-like sleep and brain activity.
They strategize, they're mischievous, they test you, and ultimately they're quite cunning. These kind of behaviors are predicated on having an imagination to a certain degree.