Rat Tickling

I was thinking the same myself, until I saw it was a 2-hour course. Now I'm just considering whether I'm invested enough in the joke.

[edit] https://imgur.com/a/EUXC4A5

it sounds like what happens right after yak shaving

Yes, juvenile rats respond better to tickling and tickling just after weaning will get the best results. Starting tickling past 3 months of age is harder and there is less research on it.

That said, some rats just don't respond well to tickling so if you see obvious negative behavior after 2-3 sessions then you should stop trying.

Source: Recently certified rat tickler (proof: https://imgur.com/rzdvf61)

I agree. The treatment of animals destined to be eaten is way worse, as well. You should consider going vegan.

I love rodents and as someone who's owned rodents (and has had problems with mice and rats in the past) I'm always shocked at how social and intelligent they are. I do think it's sad how dismissive people are about testing on rodents because they're often viewed as dirty, stupid animals because that's not true. That said, I do prefer rodent testing over testing on primates which I find horrifying in most cases.

One thing that gives me some peace is knowing how hard natural lives are for these animals. It's not like rodents have a particularly pain-free, happy life in the wild. I think a better solution than avoiding animal testing all together is just to ensure that the majority of them have good lives.

> Poor animals. Locked up in small confinements.

If what you afraid of is that the rats could suffer from claustrophobia I have good news for you... rats are not people.

We love empty plains under the stars. Rats hate it and love passionately being in narrow safe places.

Unless you're willing to test blindly on humans that's not going to change. Our understanding of animal physiology is not purely selfish either, veterinary medicine doesn't exist without animal testing. Besides that, the IRB handles research approval in the US and has very stringent requirements for animal research that increase exponentially depending on the model organism. Saying that they're being tortured carries some heavy implications—rodents only live a year or two to begin with and regulations exist for things like housing them in pairs. If I do research for a few months and then need to harvest brain slices I'm not exactly cutting down the rat in its prime + relative to the NYC rats fighting over a slice of pizza it lived a much nicer life.

I'm vegetarian personally and think we should reduce unnecessary suffering, however the 1% of animal deaths in our society going to the furtherment of knowledge seems like the wrong focus to have. You mentioned you're vegan; if you can't get your peers to stop eating animals (which is totally unnecessary, unhealthy, bad for the planet) I'm not sure how you realistically expect them to line up in place of Remy the rodent for research purposes. Even then, there's a limit to what you can do non-invasively with where our medical knowledge is currently.

My hope is that we refine what the research priorities are in our society + eliminate things like cosmetic testing, but ultimately I don't see an end to medical model organisms unless we can simulate them—and that's hard to do without further medical experimentation.

How soothing. Rats are so zen.