These times always make me wonder whether I shouldn't switch to a cat as a pet after all, because there you might have a decade before it starts getting all the old age ailments rather than a year with a rat before the problems tend to start.

Yeah, your chances with a cat are a lot better. Sure, you might get unlucky and get a cat that needs a lot of medical attention early on, but with rats you have the certainty that they will. And that every 2-3 years you'll go through the same heartache again when you have to say goodbye. I sounds hard.

Also, nothing is quite like the feeling of a cat purring while using a part of your body as a cushion.

I was a vegetarian for the first years we had our cats, and the food never bothered me. But I stopped eating meat for health and environmental reasons, not because of an aversion to meat.