American Fancy Rat and Mouse Annual Show

Festival Location: Hacienda Heights, CA, USA

Festival State: Californian Festivals

Festival Type(s): Bizarre Festivals, Animal Festivals

By: © Nelson Taylor 2009

It's not uncommon for lovers of rats and mice to want to be taken seriously. Fine, they might love little creatures, but they have big ideas. Out of this need arose the American Fancy Rat and Mouse Association in 1983.

Now, every year the AFRMA hosts many different mouse and rat shows around California, but the biggest has been held every January for the last several years in Hacienda Heights. (Note: At press time the AFRMA was thinking about changing the 2000 location to Rialto, CA.) Just like any other animal show, judges evaluate rats and mice on standards set for eat type of creature.

Their goal? It's to promote and encourage the breeding and exhibition of fancy rats and mice as pets. Karen Robbins, a spokeswoman for the AFRMA, says, "Rats are very intelligent and can be trained like dogs. They are clean like cats -- always washing themselves -- and are very personable. They know their owners and want to be out with them." Mice, it seems, are not so smart. They are about as personable as guppies in a fishbowl.