Thanks for the links Tom & Shante. Shante, that Noggin's rat at DAZ really looks nice, especially with the hooded fur texture from the pet store rats add-on (I LOVE hooded rats as pets, and the hooded Long Evans rat was my favorite strain to work with in my research - such a great temprament and SO intelligent), but it's a bit spendy for me. I'm really new at 3d art, but it seems to me that even their low-rez animals are awfully spendy.

Tom, I use DAZ Studio 4 because it was free and surprisingly easy for me to learn, so even if the rat/elephant download gets fixed, I don't think I can use it if it's a .3ds file. I suppose that's a drawback for using free software - there's a lot of free stuff online in .3ds format... But if you haven't seen them yet, the rats at DAZ that Shante suggested really look good if money's not an issue. The starter poses that come with the Noggin's Rat are really life-like. I think the designer spent a good deal of time studying their movement for those poses.