Icon from a picrew by grgikau. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
well, that’s a question with kind of a funny answer!
see, the oldest domesticated rodent in the world is the house mouse, domesticated an absolutely staggering 15,000+ years ago. that’s older than cats, sheep, cattle AND horses!
also, we didn’t do it to them. they did it to themselves.
basically what happened was, humans figured out how to harvest and store grains long-term, and a strain of a local mouse population in Eurasia in turn figured out that human-owned grain stores were the place to be!
and from there, they moved into human dwellings.
basically, these mice accustomed themselves to human proximity in exchange for resources, and intensified this tolerance over the ages until they found that they were now a completely different SPECIES from when they started!
exactly the same as every other domesticated animal, except that we didn’t consent to it and also we hate them for piddling in our shoes.
BASTARD.
and from there, it really wasn’t much of a stretch to notice that these little miniburglers were actually kind of adorable, and just nab a couple and start breeding them to be pretty. they were already domesticated, so the stretch from “pest” to “pet” wasn’t very far at all!
in fact, you could say it was just a letter away :)
i’m obsessed with this painting called tomato king and i’m even more obsessed with the man who drew it. his name is stuart dunkel and he is a classical oboeist and he also paints tiny little oil paintings of mice living their best lives. he looks like this.
Diane Ozdamar -a french illustrator, graphic designer and photographer from Paris.
As far as I can remember I have always loved rats and any rodent people would call “pest”. When I first got pet rats, I was thrilled to discover they were so clean, smart and affectionate, very far from the nasty dirty rat myth most people believe in. Thus, I decided to rescue and foster abandoned and abused rats until I could find them a forever home. This led me to take pictures of them: finding a home to a rat is not an easy task since they suffer from a very bad reputation and I had to make their cute personalities stand out so people would consider adopting them.
