Socrates, Amadeus, Normoth, Beatrix, and Eiko

After the hoarding situation, someone emailed me asking if there was any way to help.  The hoarded rats had all found their way into new homes by this time, and there were no other rats looking for homes just then, so I offered to save the person's email address and let her know if a situation came up.

Awhile later, I found an ad on Craigslist for someone who had bred too many rats for their snake.  The breeder was desperate to get rid of them, as they were too big to feed the snake.  In the ad, they were reported as having been three females, around 8 weeks old.  I excitedly sent off an email to the enthusiastic adopter, she confirmed that she'd love to take them in if I could pick them up and foster them until she was able to come into town (she lives a town away, in Deming).  I agreed, and set off on a trip to the thriving metropolis of Canutillo to pick up a few rats.

Well, as it works out, "three female 8 week old rats" turned out to be more like "five rats, two girls and three boys, that are barely 5 weeks old if they're a day."  The owners just sort of handed me a shoebox full of rats and took off.

My adopter took in the girls, but was unable to take the boys, so I unwittingly added them to my house.  That was pushing my rat limits to the max, but it worked out.  The best part is that the adopter, Callie, turned out to be a pretty awesome person and we've remained friends since.  She maintains a pretty awesome blog, herself, which you should check out.  

Anyway.  The boys I kept were a dumbo black berkshire (Amadeus), a top-eared black berkshire (Socrates), and a white fellow with a very, very pale hood; the jury's still out if the hood is pale champagne, dove, or some other color.  My boyfriend named him Normoth, after one of his favorite World of Warcraft characters.  They all still live with me, and have grown to be big, handsome man-rats.

Their sisters, Beatrix (an agouti russian blue) and Eiko (a black berkshire), live with Callie.

Master Splinter

Splinter was rescued from the air force base in Alamogordo.  

The people who had him were snake owners who were trying to breed their own food.  They quickly realized that they didn't enjoy the snakes nearly as much as they thought, and were in over their heads in rats.  I was unable to take the two pregnant females, although I very much wanted to.  I was able to rescue this guy, though, and can only hope the girls found a good home.  

Splinter was a rex, beige hooded rat.  In his old age he started to go a little bald, the way rexes do, and he had a permanently disgruntled expression thanks to the curl of hair between his eyes.  We used to call him Mr. Grumpy-face.  

He fell into place as Basil's right-paw man, becoming the beta rat of the colony.  The two of them were very close, and Basil took his loss hard.  Splinter passed away of some sort of neurological issue that caused slow, creeping paralysis -- a stroke, perhaps, or a brain tumor. 

Wesley

Wesley and his brother Basil came to me as 9-week-old babies.  Their pregnant mother had escaped from her cage at Petco and had her litter loose in the store.  The babies were discovered -- I believe the mother had been killed in a trap -- and raised on a surrogate mom.  Someone called me begging to take some so they wouldn't all end up as snake food.  

Wesley had a head tilt from an inner ear infection.  I treated him for the infection and he never had any balance issues as a result of it, but he always tilted throughout his whole life.  

He was always an outgoing, exuberant youngster.  Always curious, always on the go.  He mellowed out a little in his old age, but he never liked to be held or snuggled -- he was always much more eager to explore.  He got along with every rat he met and was always making friends.  

He ended up with a pituitary tumor.  It caused deteriorating weight loss and poor coordination, but he did alright with it for a few weeks before finally going severely downhill.  His last day, he ran out of the cage to give me a kiss; when I came home from work that evening, he had passed quietly in his sleep. 

Locke, Stock, and Beryl

These three boys were my rescues from the hoarding situation.  For rats that were essentially feral and had never been socialized, they were all incredibly sweet.  They had some issues, to be sure, but they were definitely not "bad" rats by any means and I was lucky to have them in my life.

Beryl was my boyfriend's favorite, his "heart rat" as they call them.  He used to keep him out on the desk when he was playing videogames, and share snacks with him.  We even brought Beryl to a family get-together once, in his carrier, and everyone slipped him table scraps.  Stock was always more of a rugged loner, always causing trouble with the rats he lived with, but he was very sweet with people and loved to give kisses.

Locke passed away suddenly and unexpectedly from heart issues just a few weeks after he came to live with me.  The shock of it still hits me, sometimes.

Stock stayed with me for over a year.  He was about 18 months when he had a debilitating stroke; he recovered well from the first stroke and continued to be a sweet, lovely squish for another week before a second stroke claimed his life.

Beryl lived to be 22 months old and finally passed away from congestive heart failure.  We were treating it aggressively, but it just wasn't enough to sustain him.

Las Cruces Rat Hoarding Rescue Story

My first "official" rescue, the case that really solidified my position as Southern New Mexico Rat Rescue Connection.  Previous to this, I'd always been doing rescues privately by contacting individuals through Craigslist or other sources and arranging pick-up that way.  I had signed up with the local humane society as a "person interested in rat rescue" -- basically, an arrangement that they would call me if a rat ever came their way.  I also subscribed to a "friends of the animals" mailing list, so I could keep an eye out for rats.  Generally, there isn't a lot of news that comes through these channels.  Rats are just not a popular enough pet in a rural community like Las Cruces.

This situation, however, was a huge shock.  A woman had a handful of mixed-sex pet rats that escaped from their cages, went feral in her house, and started breeding indiscriminately.  This hoarding situation rapidly inflated, and by the time I got a phone call from the local animal shelter, there were over 200 rats that had been captured from the house.

I get this phone call:  "Hey...we have on some paperwork here that you're a rat rescue.  Can you take 200 rats?"

(We got a ton of news footage...you can see one report here)

The week that followed was pretty tumultuous.  I obviously don't have the space or resources to take hundreds of rats.  I wasn't about to let that stop me, though!  Straight away, I started sending out emails to nearby rescues and animal advocacy groups...posted ads on Craigslist asking for any help possible...and posting to the two major rat forums I'm part of, GooseMoose and RatShack.

And here's the most amazing thing: People stepped up to the plate.  People from Albuquerque started calling asking for ways they could help.  Families in Las Cruces offered to help foster.  People volunteered to drive rats.  Then a rescue from British Columbia, Little Mischief Rat Rescue, offered to take as many as I could get transported up there.  What were the odds of getting rats from Las Cruces all the way to Canada, though?

...As it turns out, better than you'd think.

A private pilot and rat-lover from Los Alamos called me and offered to fly them to Washington.  He explained that he owns an airplane and often visits friends and family in Washington state, so he could easily take rats up there if someone from Vancouver come meet him there.  I nearly fainted when he called.

Unfortunately, we were up against some pretty mighty odds.  The humane society here is not equipped to handle small animals, especially not in that quantity.  They wanted them gone as soon as possible, and while I was struggling to arrange homes and transport for the rats, the shelter was literally giving them away first-come, first-serve to anyone who would take them: Including people who intended to use them for food.

I understand why they did it, and I also understand that a number of the rats who were taken went to a reptile rescue in Albuquerque and a raptor rehabilitation center in Southern New Mexico.  I respect both of those organizations, and it was better that than have to euthanize them all and have the bodies go to waste, or else leave them crammed into the tiny cage they were kept at in the shelter.

Still, it makes me so frustrated to realize that I had the ability to take nearly all of them, if they had only given me a little bit more time.

Also, as luck would have it, I was in the hospital getting my gallbladder removed for the majority of the rescue operation, so I had to orchestrate the whole thing from my laptop while doped-up on pain meds.  I was fielding phone calls and emails and getting people connected as best I could.

Altogether, we managed to rescue 42 rats.  Three stayed with me; the others got homes throughout New Mexico, Idaho, Washington, and British Columbia.

The whole experience was probably one of the most magical, electrifying things I have ever had the pleasure of doing with my life, and it's also led me to meet a number of valuable rat contacts here in Las Cruces, as well as kickstart my relationship with Any Rat Rescue in Tucson.

Token

Token was a big guy who came to live with us when an acquaintance could no longer keep him.  He had lived alone all of his life due to animal-aggression, but I was able to successfully integrate him with my colony when he moved in, so he got to have some friends in the end.  Token was a big, chubby sweetheart of a rat who was always very licky: He loved to give kisses.  He did need some help grooming as he was so large, but he was quite patient about it and never had any complaints.  He was best friends with the then-infant Basil, and totally adored piling up into the hammock with his new friends.  

He came around September '09 and passed away in February 2010 from a sudden stroke. 

Sweeney Todd

Sweeney Todd was my first "rescue" in the sense that someone gave him to me when they could no longer care for him properly.  A coworker friend at Petsmart found out that I loved rats, and asked if I would take this lone boy she had saved from the shelter.  Not much is known about Sweeney's past before the shelter, but he had lived for several months all by himself.  You would have expected him to be neurotic or antisocial from that ordeal, but he was the sweetest, gentlest rat I've ever known.  

Everybody loved Sweeney, even people who didn't like rats.  And he loved everyone back.  He was devoted to his friend Ripper, and when newbies came into the group he welcomed them lovingly.  He was the alpha of the cage, although you'd never know it looking at him -- he ruled gently and lovingly, and everyone was obedient to him just from sheer devotion. 

In his middle age, Sweeney suffered from an inner ear infection that gave him a permanent head tilt and balance problems.  He ended up needing to have his teeth trimmed regularly and had to eat a liquid diet in the end, but he never complained about anything.  He passed away quietly in his sleep on Christmas Eve of '09.

Mr. Ripper

Mr. Ripper came from the Petsmart store where I worked during graduate school.  I had recently adopted another fellow, Sweeney Todd, and wanted to get him a friend.  This sweet himi boy had been returned to the store after the people who bought him decided he wouldn't get along with their existing rats (they didn't bother with intros, just dumped them into a cage together) and I felt bad for him because he was so much older and bigger than the other rats at the store.

Ripper was a sweetheart.  He had an affinity for boxes.  He was always climbing inside of them, and I have very few pictures of him without him burrowing into something or another.  He was also a consummate food stasher, he always kept piles of lab blocks hidden away.

In his old age, he experienced hind-end degeneration and lived out his last months as a bit of a slug.  He finally succumbed to pneumonia when he was around 27 months old.

Echo

Echo was Lily's sister, another of the Nicodemus/Velvet babies.  She's the only agouti rat I've had since Nicodemus.  I love agoutis, but they're not very popular so you rarely run into them among pet store stock.  She had a twin sister from the litter who was just a shade darker; her twin lived with my roommate all throughout college.

Echo outlived her mama by a few months.  She was born in September of '06 and died July of '09, making her just shy of 3 years old.  She, like nearly every other rat in the litter, had tumors.  In Echo's case, they were benign mammary tumors which she had for several months before they began to impede her movement, forcing us to let her go.  I had chosen at the time not to have the tumors operated on due to not having a vet I was comfortable with in the area and my history with her daddy.  I worry sometimes that it wasn't the right choice...but I think she was happy with it in the end.

Echo was a sweetheart of a rat.  She never caused any problems for anybody.  She liked to groom eyelashes and once she stole an entire slice of pizza from me.  Her death led me to the Rat Shack forum, which in a way led me into rescuing.

Lily

Lily was one of the Nicodemus/Velvet babies I kept for myself.  There was just a hint of rex in her fur, a slight waviness that belied her daddy's heritage.  She was a lovely color -- and just as blonde in personality as she was in coloration.  Seriously, Lily was a food-obsessed bimbo for all of her life.

She spent most of her time obsessing over the food bowl.  If she wasn't eating food out of it, she was stashing bedding into it.  I have no idea why she felt it necessary to bury the food bowl with bedding, but she did.  She would carry it up two levels of cage just to stuff bedding into the bowl.

She lived to be nearly 3 as well before succumbing to a number of very aggressive tumors. Fittingly, when she died she did it nose-first into the food bowl.

Black Velvet Pandora

Black Velvet Pandora, aka Velvet, was the tiny black-hooded girl I fell in love with the day I adopted Nicodemus.  I really shouldn't have adopted them together, but you live and learn and I certainly don't regret the joy of having a litter.  The babies were a joy to raise and taught me so much about rats.

Velvet lived with me for a very long time.  I got her in September of 2006, and she finally passed away in spring of '09, quietly and without fuss.

Velvet was hilarious.  An interior decorator at heart, she would tear apart the entire cage to rearrange it to her liking.  She was never satisfied unless she had done everything herself.  She'd chew down hammocks, shred up nest boxes, drag igloos around, and was constantly stealing items from my room to go hide in the cage.

She also liked to chase her tail.  She would carry the end of her tail around in her mouth, tugging herself around in circles until she got dizzy and fell over.  She used to amuse herself by climbing up onto a shelf, then pulling herself tail-over-ears onto the floor of the cage.

She struggled with respiratory ailments on and off throughout her life, but lived to a ripe old age regardless.  She was an amazing mama-rat, and the softest rat I've ever met in my life.

Nicodemus

Nicodemus "S.R." Sewer Rat was only with me for two short weeks, but he managed to completely steal my heart in that time.  

After Athena died, I was rat-less for a few months, the only time I've had a rat-free home since I started.  I was so lonely and miserable that my friends all conspired to get me new rats for my birthday.  Armed with a gift card, I headed to that same Petco where I'd gotten Squeakers and Athena.  I had decided this time around that I wanted boys, and no white ones.  I wanted something as different from the girls I'd had as possible so there'd be no bad memories.

Well, that didn't quite work out, because as soon as I got there I fell instantly and immediately in love with a little black hoodie female.  And just as instantly in love with this handsome dumbo agouti rex male.  They were all housed together (at the time, this Petco didn't separate its genders - that has since been changed).  I waffled on it a lot, but finally decided I'd take them both and neuter the male.  

Unfortunately, he didn't survive the surgery.  The vet I took him to advised me to withhold food and water the night before surgery; this is unnecessary in rats, and downright dangerous due to their high metabolism.  Whether that was the reason he never came out of the anesthesia, or if there was some other health concern going on, I will never know.  It still breaks my heart to think of how little time we had together.  

He did however leave a legacy behind: 8 baby rats, mothered by the black hooded girl I brought home.  It was incredibly dumb of me to leave them together while waiting on the neuter, and I don't advocate anyone breeding their rats, ever.  But it worked out OK in the end.  I found homes for all of the babies with close friends, so I was able to keep tabs on them for their whole lives, and raising those babies taught me a TON about rats.  I did so much more research, between trying to find peace of mind about his sudden death and then educating myself about babies.  This is when I found The Dapper Rat, and started to get really serious about rat care. 

The babies: 

Athena & Squeakers

Athena and Squeakers came to me in 2004, my sophomore year of college.  They were my first rats and I made a lot of mistakes with them, but they taught me so much.  Unfortunately, as they were my first rats I also didn't take nearly enough pictures of them.  I don't have ANY photos of Squeakers at all, and the pics above are the only surviving pictures of Athena.  They were both PEW girls pulled from the feeder bin at Petco.  At the time, feeder rats were about two dollars cheaper than "fancy" rats.  Since then, there's been some pressure on pet stores to stop selling live feeders, so most pet stores are now having owners sign adoption contracts guaranteeing the pet will not be used as food.  It's a small step in the right direction.

Anyway.  Squeakers died just a few months after she came to live with me, of unknown causes.  She died in my hands and I will never forget it.

Athena lived on for just about two years.  She grieved terribly when Squeakers died and become somewhat vicious.  I never tried to give her another friend, although I wish I had -- it would've made her life much happier.  Despite being territorial (and sometimes downright bitchy) Athena was a lovely girl.

She was put to sleep after a long struggle with respiratory disease.  I was out of the country at the time, so I don't know all the details...the person who was rat-sitting had to make an extremely difficult decision that night!

Squeakers and Athena were my gateway rats, the ones that really started my love for rodents.