Ah, I see you've never kept pet rats. There is heaps and gobs of money in treating these guys. They only live a few years and are as personable as dogs. People

Ah, I see you've never kept pet rats. There is heaps and gobs of money in treating these guys. They only live a few years and are as personable as dogs. People regularly pay crazy amounts of money for intensive surgeries to take out tumors and fix their varying other ailments. If someone managed to extend rat lifespans by even a year or two, there'd be a line of people at their door just begging to throw money at them. You'd think rat owners would be more blasé about death, but it couldn't be further from the truth. Really though, for most illnesses they just get human drugs on a much smaller scale. My vet prescribes metacam when they're very sick, which is also what I got after my last surgery. They get the same antibiotics I've taken previously. Apart from the parasite drugs, I don't think my rats have ever been prescribed something I haven't taken before. After all, there is a reason we use rats to model drugs in humans