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On the East Coast, especially in major cities, rats are seen as a nuisance. On the West Coast in Portland, they receive advanced medical care from the team at Rat Way Sanctuary. It even has a video game in the works.
Rat Way Sanctuary, a decentralized sanctuary for rats with advanced medical needs, started rescuing rats in December 2023. Rat Way co-founder Laura Rakestraw was first drawn to rats in 2017 through her veterinary work with DoveLewis and witnessing the complicated care that they can require. She adopted a naked rat named Andariel, later renamed Grave Rat to commemorate finding her in a cemetery. Rakestraw compares rats’ behavior and intelligence to canines’, calling them “apartment dogs” and “pocket puppies.”
“They can learn their name, they can learn tricks,” Rakestraw says. “They will learn to manipulate you in ways like a dog would. But, of course, they don’t require the space that dogs do, and they don’t need to be taken out for walks…personalitywise, they are very engaged and interactive and smart.”
Rat Way Sanctuary, named as a riff on The Backstreet Boys song “I Want It That Way,” formally achieved nonprofit status in December 2023. The sanctuary is split physically between the homes of Rakestraw and Rat Way’s other members. Between them, they host between 20 and 25 rats who are elderly, have behavioral issues or other chronic medical needs that don’t make them ideal candidates for adoption. Rats often come to Rat Way from Multnomah County Animal Services, exotic animal rescue organizations, found strays and direct surrenders from pet owners. Rakestraw says she lives closest to Rat Way’s veterinary provider, but has an impressive home care system set up for her residents.
“We’ve got oxygen concentrators,” Rakestraw says. “We’ve got two of our older rats on oxygen currently. One’s in heart failure, and the other is recovering from pneumonia and has some renal disease, but we can give injectable meds, we can give fluids, we can do all of that as the kind of thing that’s just way beyond what your average pet owner would be doing.”
Rakestraw notes that there are significant genetic and behavioral differences between wild native rats like wood rats, invasive rats like the Norwegian rats found in urban centers, and domesticated rats whose breeds can be as diverse as Great Danes and chihuahuas. She highlights a rescue mission Rat Way has been pulled into for assisting an infestation of escaped domesticated rats, whose population has quickly grown from three rats to more than a dozen.
“One of the neighbors had posted about this very friendly domestic rat that was hanging out by her porch,” she says. “I think a lot of people just think, ‘Oh, I’ll turn it loose in the woods.’ But they’re not equipped for that. They are used to kind of cushy lives with humans.”
The newly captured rats Rakestraw and her crew trapped will be given to exotic pet rescue agencies who are better suited to rehoming rats with typically clean bills of health. The goal is for Rat Way to save rats whose needs are more complex than most pet owners are willing or able to meet, especially due to rats’ status as an exotic animal.
“Even a simple spay or neuter is going to be a lot more expensive because it’s just a whole different game when you’re working on something that weighs 400 grams versus something that weighs 20 to 50 pounds.”
Rat Way’s Instagram account shares images of rodent-sized paintings created by its residents (yes, the rats) that are later sold to cover medical costs. The account also posts posed portraits of rats in gingerbread houses or modeling costumes like potted flowers and LGBTQ+ Pride capes. The Canadian video game studio Alblune—a two-person team consisting of Alexandre Stroukoff and Luka Lescuyer—found Rat Way online and wanted to collaborate. Their first title, 2022’s exploration puzzler The Spirit and the Mouse, featured a rodent protagonist. They stick with that theme for Squeakross: Home Squeak Home, an educational puzzle game in which correctly learning facts about rats earns furniture and home goods for Seneca, the game’s main character modeled after one of the Rat Way patients. Lescuyer tells WW that Squeakross is due for release later this year.
“Alex and I have been gerbil owners for many years, and we love all rodents from mice to rats to degus and hamsters,” he said via email. “Many people are misinformed about rodents and only see them as pests.…We think that with a game like this, we can make some people see rodents in a more positive light while learning more about them.”