Samantha Martin isn’t afraid of critters that scurry, slither and go bump in the night. That’s because Samantha, 30, is right at home with them. She runs Rat Co. & Friends, a traveling zoo/circus, out of her Chicago home. Her animal family includes everything from chickens and bunnies to spiders and snakes.
“I like them and they seem to like me,” she says of her boa constrictors and tarantulas. Yikes!
Her house/shop looks – and smells – a lot like a petting zoo. Visitors are greeted by Sasha the squirrel, who has the run of the shop. Cats are draped in every nook and cranny, while large turtles inch across the floor, seeking a quiet, cool spot. Chickens strut around as if they own the place because the more predatory animals – like a kinkajou (a member of the raccoon family), two ferrets and 40 rats – are locked safely behind caged doors. But Samantha’s pet rats are the true stars of her animal kingdom. Although they might look like ordinary rodents, these rats are talented (they’re not the kind you see in dumpsters; these rats are bred to be pets and are disease-free). They climb ladders, jump through hoops, bowl, shoot basketball hoops and answer phones. And you should see the moves they make when fighting over a doughnut!
When they’re not performing at parties and schools, they’re flying to Hollywood to star in an MTV video. They’ve appeared – “scurrying around and acting like rats,” Samantha says – in videos for Megadeth and Depeche Mode.
Samantha gets her rats to perform tricks by using hand signals and rewarding them with pieces of banana or doughnut when they do something right. “It takes a lot of patience,” she says. “You have to really like animals to train them.”
