My first two rats, Mercutio and Romeo, were extremely aggressive towards one another. They would always fight, bite, and make aggressive postures at each other. They couldn't even be within two feet of one another.

Until I introduced Othello, my newest baby dumbo rat to them. I don't know what happened, but Romeo and Mercutio stopped fighting immediately. They even began to snuggle with each other, something that has never happened in the year that I owned them both. They began grooming each other and fell asleep curled up together.

So I thank Othello, who, according to the animal technician at my pet store, is a very rare Rex Dumbo rat. He has wavy hair instead of straight hair so it looks like he has a perm. And now I have a happy family of three Shakespearean rats.