Equipment for surfers is pretty basic. You have your surfboards, your wetsuits, your sex wax (not how it sounds!) and a few accessories that are more about fashion than function. The only variation on any of these things will be purely down to taste, from different colours to slightly different sizes. After these things you just need the wind to be blowing the waves in the right direction and you're away.

Of course, there are slightly different variations when it comes to wetsuits because they have to fit well to be effective. Likewise, different size surfboards will suit different size people. Given that surfing is a huge sport among young girls just as it is with bigger built males, it makes sense that they would need different size surfboards to make the sport manageable.

So what size surfboard would you need for a rat? Strange question you may think but is it? Rats love water and despite their bad reputation they do come with quite individual characters and with more sense than they are given credit for.

A fourteen year old from Hawaii decided to take his rat down to the beach for a dip in the water simply to wash him. But rats are natural water lovers with an adventurous spirit and were quite keen to get back in the water, the young surfer reported.

Because of this, he then fashioned both of his pet rats a couple of surfboards that were only one foot in length and took the rats into water up to four feet deep. At first they would slip off the boards and their owner would take them back to land to dry out and warm up but always they turned back towards the water. Eventually, the rats were able to stay on the boards with more skill and balance than the average human surfer.

The rats are even able to stay balanced on their surfboards whilst riding 'tubes'. They balance their boards through a tunnel of water as the wave breaks over them. Most of the locals see this as the rats having fun - and surely if they weren't they would simply swim ashore and not show a keenness to go back in the water.

However, some groups have complained that this is cruel to the rats, that they are not toys and should not be treated as such. Naturally, rats would spend much of their lives in the wild living and swimming through sewers so how can swimming in the sea be seen as cruel and why should people not get enjoyment of this sort from their pets? It has long been proved that people who own pets and have daily interaction with them are generally much less stressed and healthier people than those without pets.

Would the do-gooders of this world stop pet owners from putting a wheel in the animals cage? This would be seen as exercise providing you see animals as dumb creatures but all pet owners will tell you this is not so, that their pets can be adventurous, are capable of doing things purely for fun and that they need the exercise, whatever form it should take. So, why not a surfing rat?