Grooming, yes! Rats groom each other to establish social order, their place in the hierarchy, to communicate approval or disapproval. Rats will groom you - hope they do and encourage them. I'm realizing almost every way I touch my rats is some form of grooming them. Petting is not just snuggling. When I scritch my rat - where scritching is a combination of scratching, itching, rubbing, massaging, tickling, stroking, nuzzling, cuddling - I may signal approval, or disapproval, of her behavior. There are lots of forms of grooming and I hope to show many of them, because I'm trying to learn to scritch my rat with awareness and signal something deliberate in my intention. I want to communicate in her language.

Here is a slideshow of the photos in this gallery, they can be viewed in detail, and with descriptions, at the bottom of this page.

You can also see embedded videos from YouTube on many other pages, here:

2  3  4  5  6  7  8