You get better protection if you use your credit card. The key difference is that when you claim on a credit card under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act, the credit card company is legally liable.
A pet rat can live between 2-4 years maybe longer it just depends on how well you look after it.
The pet rat is a domesticated breed of the brown rat (rattus norvegicus). Rats have been domesticated for over 200 years. Selective breeding of many generations of Norway rats over all those years has produced the domestic rat of today which comes in many different colors and markings.