Rat Show

Well, today was a TOTALLY new experience for me. I went to a rat show!

The lady who bred George, with whom I'm friends on facebook, sent me a facebook invitation to a local show, and I decided to go, even though I've never been to an animal show of any sort before - my only experience of such things is watching Crufts on telly from time to time.

However, the rat people I've met so far have been lovely, so I thought I'd see whether this was generally true - and besides, the enticement of a room full of cute noses and whiskers was pretty strong!

So, this morning, I set off into the cold and navigated myself to a village hall, where, lo and behold, there were ratties, and rattie folk - the fact that there were 2 cars in the car park with "RAT" on their numberplates was a pretty good clue that I was in the right place.

I'd only planned on staying maybe an hour or so, but in the end I was there almost the whole day. I started by talking to someone I know from the interwebs, and who I recognized from her facebook profile, and then simply went round introducing myself to people - in fact, there were several other folk I already know from the internet, and also the lady who bred Elijah's Dad - small world!

And what a friendly world. Everyone was lovely, everyone was just as potty about rats as me (or even more so, if that's possible), and there was much rat talk all day. There were also rats about to talk to, various people with rats on their shoulders or with noses appearing from their pockets, and, of course, rats in their show boxes - there are, I'm told, 2 categories - one for the "show" rats, and one for "pets". It's all a very new world to me, but it was a lovely day out.

So much so that I'm only just settled back at home. I arrived home with a pile of ratty bits and pieces - some sputnik beds for the cage extension, a little rat house, a couple of hammocks, and some leaflets from the NFRS (National Fancy Rat Society), which I've also joined.

Wow - a year ago I didn't even have rats. Now I'm going to rat shows and starting to customise cages for my men!

Bless them! Love them! :-)

<:3 )~~