Year of the Rat: Could a pet rat bring luck?
Like 2 Dislike 0 Published on 17 Jan 2020
(12 Jan 2020) LEAD IN:
2020 is the Year of the Rat, which believers in Chinese astrology say could mean a more peaceful year, with lots of romance.
Known for their intelligence and affectionate nature, rats are increasingly kept as beloved pets, and for one enthusiastic rat-owner and author in the UK, they've even made their way into one of her books.
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Marti Leimbach lives in the Berkshire countryside west of London with her family, and 36 rats.
She currently has 9 adults and 27 babies, and she breeds them from her home.
But Leimbach is better known as a best-selling author.
Her first book, "Dying Young", published in 1990, was the basis of a Hollywood film of the same name starring Julia Roberts.
Other books such as "Daniel Isn't Talking" and "The Man from Saigon" followed, and she continues to write, as well as being a tutor at Oxford University.
Rats first entered Leimbach's life around the time her career took off:
"It was kind of this great secret I didn't want people to know about because it wasn't all that accepted, but I loved rats," she explains.
Leimbach says it was the realisation that rats make great pets which motivated her to start breeding them.
"They're very small pets so you don't need a lot of space but they're really smart, so they're actually as smart as dogs are. And you can train them, you can teach them, they're very affectionate, every single one of them is different," she says.
Queen Victoria is rumoured to have introduced the idea of keeping rats as pets after her famous rat catcher, Jack Black, started to train them to do tricks.
Celebrities including Paris Hilton, John Cleese and Angelina Jolie have all kept the rodents as pets too.
Leimbach is part of a group called the National Fancy Rat Society, which not only promotes the rat as a great pet, but also organises shows and competitions to show them off.
All of Leimbach's rats are Norway Rats, which she says come in a lot of different varieties:
"You have standard top ear rats like these, also Dumbo ears so the ears are kind of out to the side. You have different fur types, so you can have curly hair or straight hair or satin. A curly hair is called a Rex. And you can even have rats like this, she's a velvet so she has unusually soft fur."
And for the first time rats are to make an appearance in one of Leimbach's novels.
Her forthcoming book Dragonfly, her first work of fiction aimed at young adults, is due out in the winter of 2021.
The novel is about a young scientist who works in a laboratory, but has great affection for the lab rats.
When one dies, she manages to bring it back to life.
"This completely revolutionises everything because she's basically found a cure for death," explains Leimbach.
"And I really don't think I would have been able to write that book if I didn't already know and love rats."
As well as being smart and surprisingly clean - they reportedly clean themselves more than cats - rats are also incredibly social.
That's why, at her rat breeding business, Leimbach will only sell them as a set of three - or two, if the owner already has rats.
Today, Lois Scott has come to Leimbach's house to collect pet rats for her 12th birthday present.
"It's really exciting to know that I'm getting three - not only one - but three rats and it's really great," she says.
But in 2020 the rat could have an impact on all of our lives since, according to Chinese Astrology, this will be a rat year.
However, she adds, this does come with the warning:
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