Today's entry is a short one, but likely to be continued over the next day or three. I've been thinking about our new rats and their personalities, which leads to thinking about personality in general. So, let me tell you (the hypothetical reader) about the personality I've seen in our new rats, and perhaps once I finish describing them I may talk about the other thoughts.
Actually, I should mention one here. In a recent discussion about mental concepts of people (as in, what I think about particular people), I mentioned that I tended to store aggregated information - strengths, weaknesses, probable behavior in situations, that sort of thing. Another interesting approach to the same mental concept was to remember particular events involving that person, and when needing to make some conclusion about behavior to extrapolate from the remembered events. I find it interesting to note the two different ways, as in preparing to write about the rats I find that while I think of them as having particular attitudes and personalities, illustrating those to another person it feels more concrete if I can relate a story which exhibits those characteristics.
For this post, let me tell you about Lu Bu, the oldest of the five rats we recently adopted. First, the physical facts: he weighs about 360g, which is nearly 50% more than the lightest one (Cao Cao), and about 20% more than the average. So he's a big one, noticeably larger than Cao Cao. Very easy to distinguish as he has a large white blaze on his nose and forehead, and otherwise very smooth black fur with a white belly. I'll post a picture when I figure out how/where to post one.
Lu Bu got his name on the way home (as did all of them, though we weren't sure of some for a day or two), for he was the biggest and most demanding at the time. If there was food, he wanted it, but it couldn't just be left for him - someone had to hold it so that he could eat it with the appropriate style. It turns out that he's not really very combative (the rats tend to try and establish dominance by pushing the others over and grooming them), and I rarely see him actually start a fight, though he does tend to get picked on by the smaller ones (i.e. all of them). He is also the calmest around people, which is not to say that he will just sit around, but he seems to not mind petting and grooming, and tends not to get skittish. That said, he's also pretty fearless (I hesitate to say the most fearless, as Cao Cao seems to have a lock on that, but he's close). For instance, one day recently L had the ratties out of the cage and when putting them back in didn't notice that the lower door was unlatched and open. This was discovered a while later when Lu Bu revealed his presence in the living room couch, which L was sitting on. That is quite a distance from the cage, and our other rats have always been afraid of the hallway, as it is a long open space with nowhere to hide. For comparison, in the same time Cao Cao was playing in the clothes on the floor by the bed, Scotty and Blue were hanging out on top of the cage (having climbed the exterior), and Barrick was still inside the cage, just chilling. Or perhaps he hadn't noticed the door was open, or maybe didn't care.
Lu Bu appeared to get sick about a week after we'd brought the rats home, with a respiratory ailment of some kind (very common for rodents) that made him sound like a motorboat at times. He's now been to the vet and is on the usual combination of medications for it and sounds a whole lot better. I had thought perhaps he was calmer because he was having trouble breathing, but even with it sounding clearer now he's still rather calm - tonight, when the ratties were getting their medicine, he and Cao Cao had the privilege of getting to visit me on the couch while L tried to give the others their medicine. Which, translated, means that they were getting into trouble and probably trying to steal the medicine from the others. Cao Cao naturally was bounding all over the couch and trying his best to escape and play on the scrapbooking table. Lu Bu on the other hand explored for a while and ended up figuring out that he could climb down the sleeve of my shirt (long-sleeved, it was cold today). He happily played in there for quite a while, sometimes just sitting at the end of the sleeve, his head poking out just under my hand, and watching what was going on outside (pretty much nothing, I was attempting to read and trying to keep Cao Cao off the table). Very calm and he appeared to like the spot he'd found and was happy to sit there for a while.
So, what personality would I call Lu Bu? Friendly, exploratory, calm. Unafraid to win a fight when provoked, but not a bully.
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