# White Rats With Red Eyes



## Crisper

Are white rats with red eyes not as smart as other rats?
Iv'e owned two white rats, the 2nd being a new one I only had for a week. They don't seem to be as smart or have as much personality as the black or hooded rats iv'e had.


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## cheshire

I am a new rat owner but it seems Ayden my white male rat with ruby eyes is more inquisitive than Kyran who is a dark chocolate brown. Ayden seems to be more interested in finding out new things and curious about bells and new toys. I have hopes of training him to do tricks, Kyran I just hope he is a cuddle buddy. So yes I am new but no I do not think white rats with red eyes are any less intelligent. I believe animals respond to subtle cues portrayed by their owners, that being said if you apporach a white rat with red eyes as being less intelligent they might feel this somehow and decide there is no real point in proving themselves to you.


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## Jaguar

they are the same. every rat's personality is different - that's one of the reasons why they're such great pets. 

red or light eyed rats do have much worse eyesight than black eye rats, though, so they can be a little bit more cautious and easily startled.


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## lilspaz68

White rats with pink eyes actually are what we called PEW's (pink-eyed-whites) and some of my seriously special and charismatic rats have been PEW's.


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## Susinko

I have had two pink eyed white rats, Silence and Silence the Second. Silence was my squish comfort rat. There never was a rat that was more loving then he. When I had panic attacks, he would want to lay in my lap and lick and comfort me. Silence the Second is such a smart little guy, he's always doing something! You might see your little guy weave his head back and forth. That's because they have terrible eyesight and he is trying to separate what is in the foreground and what is in the background.


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## HoneyRose

My Siamese with pink eyes is also the most loving and craves the most attention out of all my rats....shes such a sweetie and will happily snuggle in my lap and just enjoy being petted unlike the other 3 who are hyper and would rather use me as a jungle gym!
She does the swaying of the head and kinda acts like shes 'zoning out' but as mentioned their eye sight isn't the best.
I certainly wouldn't say shes not as smart!


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## Kiko

I have a special fondness for PEWs, I don't find them scary like some people, and if anyone felt a lamby rex PEW then they know it's like petting a cloud hahah.


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## Kinsey

PEWs are just as smart as any other rat. You do have your usual different personalities, but they aren't any less special than any other rat.

I've never had one, but I've had a black eyed white, and lots of hoodeds, and the color makes no difference.


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## cheshire

Dose anyone happen to know where the fear of white rats with red eyes (or white animals witth end eyes in general) actually came from? I am just asking because I noticed one of the posts stating that they were afraid of these types of animals o.0


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## 1a1a

I think the white doesn't trigger fear as much as the red eyes do, they look darn creepy up close.


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## ariananugnet

Ive only had one PEW out of all my rats, and i found it to be the sweetest thing. She was the only rat i had that wanted to cuddle, and she seemed perfectly smart to me.


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## GhostMouse

Cheshire, I suspect people find the pink eyes unsettling, as we're used to dark colored eyes in pretty much all animals (including ourselves). Also, pupil-less pale eyes are often used in movies/shows in connection with evil (and often powerful) characters.

You also might be interested in the Little Albert experiment. They wanted to see if they could condition a child to be afraid of something that he wasn't naturally scared of, and the "something" they chose was a white rat. At the start of the experiment, the child would play with the rat. At the end, he started screaming and crying if they brought the rat, or anything fluffy (a non-white rabbit, a cotton ball santa beard, etc.) near him.


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## Rozlyn

Unless they were born with some sort of medical problem, all rats should be around the same intelligence level. The difference you're noticing in your PEW is probably only related to its *vision *and* sense of smell*.


See here: http://www.ratbehavior.org/RatVision.htm



> Albino rats are probably severely visually impaired or blind within a few weeks of opening their eyes. Their retinas degenerate, their brains have trouble coordinating images from their two eyes, and they see poorly in both bright and dim light.
> 
> The albino rat will therefore need to compensate for its near-blindness by using its other senses. Unfortunately, albino rats also appear to have an impaired sense of smell when compared to pigmented rats. However, albinos do appear to have normal hearing.


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## Kiko

I always associated the red eyes with gems, but some people associate them with 'evil' and other crud like that.
It's the rat version of Big black dog syndrome, poor PEW's are left in rescues un wanted because most people would rather a pretty rat, just like many people overlook black dogs because they look 'scary'.


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## raabzbaby89

My PEW Pepper that I have only had for a couple of weeks, is soooooooooo sweet. I have never met such a licky rat in my life. She loves playing little games where I tap heron her back and she scurries away, then comes back for more. Pepper already knows her name, just because I've been saying it a lot. 

My other two rats, Mar and Moocah, are hooded/Himalayan mixes and are exceptionally smart. They catch on to tricks and figure things out extremely fast. I don't know if it would be right to compare Pepper to them, as they seem to have above-average intelligence.

I have yet to really teach Pepper any trick, but I think she could do it. I have always wondered though, if PEWs just seem a little dimmer because they can't use their eyes to learn tricks? Not that other rats have very strong eyesight, but it must help to see the treat, right?


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## Rozlyn

One of my first rats was a PEW, and he also was really licky (the most licky of all my rats to date) and sweet, despite being the dominate male of the cage. (He did start an awful lot of scuffles and saw himself as a big tough guy!)



raabzbaby89 said:


> I have always wondered though, if PEWs just seem a little dimmer because they can't use their eyes to learn tricks? Not that other rats have very strong eyesight, but it must help to see the treat, right?


That would make sense, considering they probably can't see the treat with their poor sight, and being that their sense of smell is worse than normal rats, she probably can't always smell it either. If she doesn't sense what's meant to be her motivation, then she might be less likely to perform any tricks.


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## Willeaux

I once had a somewhat large white rat with red eyes. She couldn't see very well, but she loved to be cuddled and stroked and she knew her name well. She was smart enough to jump out of an aquarium while her hooded, black eyed companion couldn't figure it out. (This was very long ago, I now keep my cats in much bigger, ventilated cages).


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## Kiko

Willeaux said:


> I once had a somewhat large white rat with red eyes. She couldn't see very well, but she loved to be cuddled and stroked and she knew her name well. She was smart enough to jump out of an aquarium while her hooded, black eyed companion couldn't figure it out. (This was very long ago, I now keep my cats in much bigger, ventilated cages).


I Hope your cats are not in small tanks LOL, haha i'm only teasing on typos though lol.

My big PEW boy is enjoying some turkey as we speak!


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## TheHermit

Hehe my James was certainly intelligent. He was the only rat I've ever had that actually told me when they were out of water. If I walked by the cage, door opened or closed, he would race up to his water bottle and lick frantically only a couple times then look at me. He would also wait there while I got more water and get a good drink when I put the bottle back.


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## BigBen

I've been reading this thread with interest, and want to put in my two cents' worth, even though I won't be getting my first rats for another week. :-(

Albinos of any species look weird, and they are very uncommon in the wild (except among polar bears, perhaps) because of the lack of camouflage. It must be the color of the eyes that causes the fear, because white-colored animals of other species are quite popular (and perhaps the general prejudice against rats is playing a role here, too). I had an albino rabbit when I was a kid, so the coloration of PEW's seems normal to me, and I find PEW's just as beautiful as any other rats.

By the way, speaking of the general prejudice against rats, apparently I have moved--in a very short time--from disliking and fearing rats to the point of being idolatrously in love with my new friends even though I haven't even met them yet. In fact, I find that I can't imagine ever owning any other kind of pet anymore! Is this normal, or has my brain been rotted from the unrelenting-cuteness-factor?


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## Ratzy

Thanks everyone in this thread for good info. Just got a pair of red eyed girls a few days ago and am learning about their vision/smell differences. They do startle quite easily. Also I have been so surprised that neither of them has even tried crawling off of the couch or bed yet! It makes sense now.... and so far has been handy, so I don't have to worry so much about them running off and getting into trouble, since I still have work to do in rat proofing my room!

Seems like yes, it would be harder to train them to do tricks vs. dark eyed ratties since they take longer to recognize/identify treats. This doesn't bother me at all since I am not so much into trick training - I prefer to watch them invent their own games and tricks!

Seems like the red eyed beauties may be slightly more inclined to be major cuddlers too once they do know/trust you - bonus! I am so excited to get to know them and vice versa. It's been a long time since I had my previous rattie girl (who had dark eyes).

Also, I thought their red eyes might take some getting used to, but they are not scary at all! In fact they look super cool - in some lights/angles, they look like they are lit up! Sooooo cool.


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## Alethea

Eye color, coat color, markings; all of the above, have nothing to do with intelligence or personality. It all depends on the rat. Animals are just like people, in the sense that our outward appearance has nothing to do with our minds. So saying that PEW's are not as smart as hooded rats would be a false statement


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