Vincent is a one-year-old therapy rat who has been travelling to schools and libraries to help children learn to read by offering comfort and happiness.
Children can find it a lot easier to practice reading to animals, thanks to the therapeutic benefits of being around animals, and because animals aren’t going to judge them for making mistakes.
Although Vincent the rat can’t offer help with grammar or advise on how to pronounce words, he does offer the friendly listening ear children need to improve their confidence when reading aloud. And, thanks to Vincent’s naturally calm nature, he’s proving to be the perfect companion!
Vincent is part of Pet Partner’s Read With Me project. The scheme provides children with a friendly animal companion who they can stroke and give cuddles to while they practice reading.
“What makes this special is that Vincent will not get on to the kid if they mispronounce a word or skip a sentence or two,” Vincent’s owner and Therapy Rat Handler, Abby Chesnut says.
“If you think about it, if someone keeps correcting you every time you read out loud, it can become disheartening and you might not want to do it anymore. The point of the program is to improve reading confidence.
“I have the child sit in a bean bag chair next to me and I sit Vincent on the arm of it so he can “see” the pictures. Rats have poor eyesight so I sometimes ask the child to put the book close to Vincent so he can see them. Vincent just has to sit there and listen.”
Sounds simple, but Vincent has undergone a lot of training to ensure he can offer the correct support.
Vincent’s training is all thanks to 26-year-old Rat Training expert Abby Chesnut. As well as running her successful blog Healing Whiskers, Abby also works as a volunteer Therapy Rat Handler.
Abby hopes to create a virtual online class to help people train their pet rats to become therapy rats, so we’re likely to see more rats helping children in the future!
The online class will be useful if being a Therapy Rat Handler sounds like a career you’d enjoy, or if you want to train your own pet rats to become a therapy rats just for fun.
For Abby, her journey to becoming a Therapy Rat Handler began when she came across a local therapy animal group called Compassionate Paws, who then put Abby in touch with Pet Partners. Through Pet Partners, Abby learned how to get her pet rats certified as therapy animals.
Abby began training the two pet rats she had at the time, who were called Jasper and Oliver. Sadly, Jasper started have some seizures, so Abby stopped his training, because she felt it would be unfair to continue, and focused solely on training Oliver.
Abby and Oliver went on to visit colleges, libraries, and public events, to show and educate people on how lovely and incredibly intelligent rats can be.
Oliver went on to work as a Therapy Animal for a year and a half before he passed away. But, just before Oliver died, he and Abby had started a reading program at a library and Abby didn’t want to disappoint the children, so she found a new rat breeder.
When Abby visited the rat breeder, she quickly fell in love with two of the baby rats. One was a small wavy-furred rat she went on to call Vincent, and the other was a cute rat she called Xavier.
Once they seemed ready and mature enough, Abby started their training. “For therapy rats, they need to be on a towel, or in a basket, wearing a harness, be good with loud noises, different smells, and be around lots of people” says Abby.
“They cannot have bitten any person or domesticated animal, and if you want people to give them treats, they need to be gentle.
“At first, I worked with both Vincent and Xavier to see who would be better suited to be the next therapy rat. I had six months, (per Pet Partners rule, pet rats have to be with their owners for six months before their evaluation), to get them acclimated to the outside world from the comfort of a basket.
“I started with a snuggle sack I made, which is just a soft pouch they can snuggle in, and put it in the basket with both of the rats inside. I would let them sleep in there while I did work on the computer.
“But, over time, with baby steps, I got them comfortable with the basket and going outside.
Abby quickly noticed how different her pet rats’ personalities were, “During playtimes on the bed, I noticed Vincent really enjoyed hanging out in the basket. This was a big plus for me. Xavier, on the other hand, was more interested in exploring everything he could get his little paws on.”
While Xavier was lovely, he was much too curious about everything to be suited to the training required to become a Therapy Rat. Thanks to his strong ability to focus, Vincent was chosen to begin to undergo more serious training to become a Therapy Rat.
His training program became more challenging and involved further training, nail trimming, baths, and litter box training. Then last October, he underwent Pet Partner’s Therapy Animal Evaluation.
Vincent was kept in a basket while he was handed around. Then he was given challenges such as meeting a dog, given a treat, and facing loud noises, while being observed to see how he’d react. He passed first time with flying colors!
It means Vincent is now allowed to officially practice the role of a therapy animal in high-stress environments such as hospitals and airports.
After Vincent completed his evaluation, he and Abby have been helping children and young people in schools, libraries, colleges, and at public events.
Helping children to feel more confident when reading aloud, therapeutically calming peoples’ stress levels, and promoting Compassionate Paws.
Abby thinks the benefits of Vincent’s support are amazing and extremely helpful. “We started in November, and have been visiting there every other week since,” says Abby.
“We’ve had kids come and go, but two boys in particular, have been there pretty much every visit, and have had major improvement.
“They are older, but on the autism spectrum, so their reading level doesn’t quite match.
“At first, they were uneasy and stumbled their words, and now they are reading faster and clearer with confidence to boot!”
Abby hopes that seeing Vincent’s success at helping people will encourage and inspire people to be more open to accepting rats, and hopes to see more rats working as Therapy Animals, because they really do help people.
“Rats are amazing animals,” says Abby. “Wild rats and pet rats are very different with pet (or fancy, as they call it) rats being domesticated, just like dogs or cats.
“What got me into them in the first place was seeing a video of a couple of rats doing tricks just like dogs. I do tricks with my own dogs and I wanted to do that with rats as well, but I kind of got side-tracked with training them for a different and more thoughtful purpose.
“They are insanely smart, clean, and oh so very cuddly! Rats clean themselves like cats all the time.
“I actually give Vincent a bath before each event, and even then he is constantly licking himself afterward.”
Vincent’s sweet and kind nature, his love for strokes, and love of travelling to new places and meeting new people, makes him the ideal poster boy for Therapy Rats.
“He is a really sweet innocent little boy,” says Abby. “His favorite foods are sweet potatoes, peaches, watermelon, corn, and yogurt drops.
“He loves cuddling with his brother Xavier, and a major dislike would be becoming bored from not getting any attention.”
Abby and Vincent work on a volunteer basis, so if you’d like to support them so they can continue doing this great work, you can donate through the Healing Whiskers website, or treat yourself to some Vincent-themed goodies!
Update
Vincent passed away due to cancer in October 2020. He helped so many children during his life, racking up a total of 97 hours volunteering as a Reading Therapy Rat, visiting around 1000 people, and travelling 2.5k miles to attend reading sessions and therapy events.
You can support current Reading Therapy Rats, working hard to help thousands of children by donating through the Healing Whiskers website.
