[dlcarrier]

You joke, but rodents make great pets, because they are very social and have a range of personalities, but most only live a few years. I knew someone with a pet retired lab rat, and it lived much longer than the average fancy rat, but even then, it didn't even live half as long as the average cat or dog.

If we could breed or treat rodents to live longer, we could keep low-resource pets without as much loss.

[magpi3]

There is an excellent "This American Life" episode on rats. The first act is about a guy who keeps rats as pets. It's a sweet story.

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/801/transcript