i was missing having a strokable pet after the passing of minion, i spent a lot of time in work contemplating another hamster, a guinea pig or even a dwarf rabbit. at one point i was even contemplating a small dog, day dreaming about being able to take it to work with me, which was daft as i'm not allowed dogs or cats in my flat and the council won't allow us to have a dog in the back of the shop (yet we have a licence to sell animals oO) i've thought about gerbils, they live longer than hamsters, but they don't appreciate fussings quite as much. my local petshop stocks rats, in fact they breed their own. a couple of weeks ago i noticed they had black baby rats in stock, there were other colours too, but i was taken by the black ones (actually, after also spotting cream coloured ones with pink eyes, i started debating over which i'd prefer) saturday, after work, i bought myself a black male and called him salem, then i decided to research rat welfare on the internet, i've got a basic book, but that's about it. all of the websites i looked at stressed the importance for rats to have their own company as well as human interaction, so the next day i got one of the males with cream fur and pink eyes, he's called muffin. i'm looking forward to them growing into chunky lap rats ^^

*:3