A PET owner has shared the hilarious moment her rat was caught red-handed drinking from her McDonald’s cup – with the straw.
Maddison Thomas was left in fits of laughter last Wednesday when she caught her pet rat in the unusually human act.
Maddison from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, had heard the room go suspiciously quiet – void of the usual sounds of rummaging and exploring from her two rats – Remi and Dip.
The 17-year-old glanced down from her bed and snapped a photo when she realised three-month-old Remi was stood on his hind legs, taking a drink from her Coke Zero.
The hilarious image shows Remi perched over the white McDonald’s cup, clutching the white paper straw with both paws.
The white and gray rodent appears to be almost the same size as the cup, and has his mouth wrapped around the end of the straw, apparently taking a sip in an extraordinarily similar fashion to a human.
Remi’s tiny paws look to be holding onto the straw for dear life, while his mouth and eyes are fixated on the forthcoming fizzy drink, seemingly blissfully unaware of his entertained audience.
The McDonald’s logo can be seen on the side of the large cup, which appears to be more than half the size of Remi, as he drinks almost his weight in Coke.
Maddison shared the cheeky rodent’s antics on social media last Wednesday, writing: “Just been caught red-handed”.
The post has since received over 700 likes and dozens of comments from users who shared their amusement at seeing Remi’s replication of a very ‘human-like’ task.
Hazel Howard said: “Fabulous photo, those little hands.”
Jonina Pepperell commented: “Oh, the little tinker. Now that is one cute baby.”
Lorna Seaton said: “Oh, busted.”
Angela O’Donnell commented: “OMG, that’s so funny.”
Speaking today, Maddison said: “Remi is three months old and he is lovely sometimes.
“Although, he can be absolute chaos too sometimes – he’ll unwrap chocolate himself and run off with it or he’ll drink my drinks, as seen in pictures.
“I can’t forget the time he chewed a hole in our old mattress, took all his food in there, went to sleep and wouldn’t come out.
“I had thought it had gone quiet and wondered what mischief they were getting up to.
“I turned over and spotted it, then told my boyfriend to quickly grab my phone because I thought ‘how smart that is that he’s actively known what a straw is for’!
“I was quite shocked at the fact he knew how to do that but I also couldn’t help but burst out in laughter.
“I thought it was so cute the way his paws wrapped around the straw and I honestly thought it was the funniest, cutest thing.”
Rats are seen as very intelligent creatures, often mimicking human behaviour.
This is, in part, due to having brain structures similar to those of primitive humans, resulting in modelling what appears to be very human-like actions.
