To All Those Rats We Loved Before

Basil - 9/09 - 12/11

2011-12-29T20:31:00.000-08:00

I've been holding off on writing this memorial for Basil. I have been expecting his death for several months, so it was hardly a surprise. It still doesn't feel real, though, especially not on the heels of Socrates. After several months of brave struggle against his failing heart, Basil finally passed quietly on Christmas day.

Basil came to me as an 8-week-old baby, one of 16 little ones born to an escapee at Petco who had gone feral. The babies were hand-raised and fostered on a surrogate mom. He and his tilty brother Wesley were my first "official" rescues.

Basil was a rat's rat. He put up with people. Sometimes, if you caught him in the right mood, he would let you roll him onto his back and tickle his belly and kiss the minky spot on his tummy. But most of the time he just weathered human attention with quiet dignity so he could get back to tending to his rats.

He was a natural-born alpha. He gently tended to Token in his final hours. He taught the hoarding boys how to behave like real rats. He kept Einstein in his place. He was the glue that held the colony together and while he was tough, he was also fair. He saw the death of so many of his friends: Ripper, Sweeney, Token, Splinter, Locke, Stock, Beryl, Wesley, Socrates. In the end, he was very tired, and I think very ready to see his friends again.

So long, big guy. I miss you a lot, and the colony isn't the same without you.

Merry Christmas from the Ratmates

2011-12-10T02:25:00.000-08:00

I had a photo-shoot today with the rats. I was sad that Socrates wasn't there...but happy that both Basil and Einstein have survived well into their old age to enjoy.

The new guys are settling in nicely :)

I'm going to have to get better at making backdrops. On the bright side, tinsel is bright and shiny.

Basil is so handsome and tired. He's very sad after Socrates passed away, but I think he'll be alright. He's lost a lot of friends over the years.

Ban is adorable.

Merry Christmas and all, and to all a good night.

Socrates - September 2010 to December 2011

2011-12-10T01:33:00.000-08:00

A baby Socrates tells his brother Amadeus a secret

Sometimes, a rat's death is a long process. They get sick, their health declines, you nurse them, and finally it's time to say goodbye. Other times, though, it comes from nowhere. One minute you have a happy, healthy rat. The next, you find him cold and lifeless at the bottom of his cage.

That doesn't happen very often, but when it does it's always devastating.

Two days ago, I noticed something "off" about Socrates, but I couldn't put my finger on it. He didn't come out to say hello when I gave everyone their dinner. He was sleeping soundly in his favorite hammock, so I woke him up. He acted groggy, but seemed healthy. No bumps, no weight loss, no swelling, no respiratory sounds. He seemed totally fine, just sleepy.

So, figuring I'd woken him from a very sound nap, I put him back in the cage. The next morning, I checked in and he was snoozing soundly so I left him to sleep. A few hours later, I found him dead in the bottom of the cage.

I have no idea what happened. He's in the freezer now, and I'm debating if I want to have a necropsy done, or just let it go.

Socrates came to me with his brothers Amadeus and Normoth in September of last year. He was supposedly 8 weeks old, but they seemed closer to 5 weeks. His two sisters, Beatrix and Eiko, live with my rat-rescue friend Callie.

The "babies" have always been a little spastic, and Socrates was definitely a spazz. His greatest passion in life was climbing and exploring. I got very few photos of him because he was always on the move. You'd set him down for a moment, and then BAM! he was on the windowsill, on top of the cage, in the closet. Always everywhere but where he was supposed to be.

Socrates got along with everyone, but he was best friends with no one. He was too independent for that. He tolerated human affection, but he really wanted to be out exploring. He snuggled in hammocks, but during out time he had eyes only for adventure. He was his own rat, and he lived every second in complete control of himself.

His cage buddies, Amadeus and Basil, really miss him. Hell, I really miss him, too. I just wish I'd gotten to know him better.

Play hard, my little enigma. I hope you've got all the buildings in the world to climb wherever you are now.

Reading with Rats

2011-11-27T01:03:00.000-08:00

I've been rather lax in updating this blog lately. Rest assured, the rats themselves are not nearly as neglected as this blog :)

So why the lack of updates?

Well, because I got an early Christmas present on Sunday -- a brand new Kindle. Not the newest Kindle Fire, mind. Just the original 6" Kindle, the $79 model. It's exactly what I wanted, and it hasn't been more than a few feet away from me since I received it. I'm pretty much addicted to it.

Of course, there's nothing better than curling up in bed with a good book, unless it's curling up in bed with a good book and a rat. Some rats are better for snuggling than others. Some rats would rather chew on your Kindle, climb all over your hands, or sneak off the bed. Others will delight in ignoring you while they go about their daily routine. Others will curl up next to you, or on your lap, and enjoy absent scritches while you read. Of course, these rats are the best reading buddies.

You can see how "wasted" he looks here. He's not super skinny, but his sides are sunken in by atrophied muscle. Most of his weight is in his fluid-filled chest, thanks to the CHF

Lately, I've been enjoying Basil's company. He's such an old slug of a rat that he'll happily burrow down into the covers and snooze, and he matches the blankets.

He still doesn't really like people as much as he likes rats. He never will. But he tolerates my presence with all the dignity of an old rat royalty, and I can't ask for anything more.

Basil Still Going Strong

2011-11-08T22:36:00.000-08:00

Happy to report that after more than a month of heart meds, Basil is still doing great. In fact, despite having everything in the cage lowered so he can access food, water, nest boxes, and comfy hammocks without climbing, Basil insists on climbing to the very top of the cage.

He's been having some problems grooming himself, but he refuses to let me help. He's too proud. He's making some progress in cleaning himself up, but there's a patch of fur right above his tail that needs a good wash. I'll have to bribe him with some treats to convince his wounded dignity that being groomed by a human isn't so bad after all.

The Frustration of Poor Vet Care

2011-11-05T01:26:00.000-07:00

Photographs today courtesy of Basil, the handsome old man rat. He has congestive heart failure but won't let it get him down.

One of the absolute most frustrating things about rat ownership is the difficulty of finding vet care. I'm sure this is consistent with other types of exotic animals, but part of me suspects that it's especially bad with rats. There's a certain amount of glamour and grandeur associated with exotic reptiles or flashy birds that probably attracts aspiring vet students toward that specialization. Rats, on the other hand...I've met very few veterinarians who would even work with rats, and even fewer who seemed to really like them. The "it's just a rat" mentality is one then when coming from an individual, but from a veterinarian it's especially disappointing.

I've run into the "it's just a rat" thing with animal care professionals before, when working with local animal control. The hoarding situation brought out some of the best and worst in people; the realization that, to shelter employees, mass "adopting" of rats as reptile and raptor food was a superior option to finding them homes really speaks volumes about the way rats are perceived in my city.

A few months after the hoarding case in Las Cruces, I saw a similar case on the web. The difference? The rats in question were lucky enough to be in California, which has a really wonderful rescue network in place. Hundreds of rats were seized by animal control, removed from the shelter, spread out through foster homes, and placed with forever homes. Dozens of people were mobilized to help. The whole thing was a very smooth, clean operation, and nobody got fed to a snake. This is why sometimes it sucks to be the rat rescue person in Southern New Mexico!

But, anyway, I digress. I was supposed to be talking about vet care.

I've gone through three veterinarians in Las Cruces. My first experience was with Jornada Clinic, and it was awful. I've heard great reviews about their other small animal care and even care for other exotics, so maybe it was rat-specific, but I would never take another of my animals there again. I moved from there to East Lohman Veterinary Clinic. Dr. Cook was competent, but I never felt like she really liked rats, and a lot of her treatments were very out-of-date. For example, using sulfur-lime dips to treat lice on my rats. Ew. That lasted a few weeks before I gave in and started buying Ivermectin.

Finally I've settled on Dr. Calista at Calista Animal Hospital and for the most part I really like her. She's a sweetheart and genuinely likes the rats, which is already a benefit in her favor. She's also been willing to work with me whenever I've gone there. Overall, I've got no major complaints, but we've got a long way to go before I'd call her a really experienced rat vet. I'm thinking this year I might give her a copy of Debbie Ducommon's book for Christmas. It's normal to give your vet a Christmas present, right? When you spend as much time and money as I do, it probably is...

Top Problems You Meet With Vets And Must Work Around:

Vets won't give the right combination of drugs, or most effective drugs for the type of infection
Vets won't give a high enough dosage
Vets won't give a long enough prescription

Anyway. What set me off on this rant in the first place was actually care my friend Callie received in a neighboring town. Agnes, one of the little ladies she adopted from me, has been having respiratory issues that seem to have progressed to pneumonia, or at least severe bronchitis. The general agreement among the rat community is that rats of her age (20+ months) and condition is a combination of Baytril + Doxy, or Baytril + Zithro. You have to treat aggressively, with several weeks of strong meds.

Poor Agnes came home with a week's worth of Zithro. Not exactly ideal. Certainly better than nothing, but probably not likely to get things taken care of. We're working on convincing the vet to give more and better drugs, but the whole thing has really gotten me thinking about how frustrating it can be not to have reliable vet care for your pets. So many rescuers in other parts of the country have had absolutely mind-blowing, miraculous recoveries thanks to aggressive vet treatments. Around here, we're usually lucky to get the vet care we need.

Ah well. We'll have to work on them, one vet at a time, until we make a difference.

The Day Einstein Tried to Scare me to Death

2011-11-02T18:42:00.000-07:00

Einstein is...well, he's Einstein. Incorrigible. Mischievous. Pain-in-the-ass. Totally insane.

Over the weekend, he decided to try and kill me.

We did introductions with the new guys (Ginji and Ban) on a Thursday night. The basic philosophy behind rat introductions involves gently traumatizing all of the rats by putting them somewhere new and scary (like a bathtub, or a patch of floor they've never seen before), then encouraging them to bond by offering food. The rats unite against the common, scary enemy, chow down together, and forget to be territorial.

This works equally well with humans.

Anyway. In our case, the "new and scary" was the bed, and the food was a sesame-seed-covered-soynut treat, the likes of which you can buy at most pet stores. I've actually tried them, and they are in fact pretty delicious. What? Don't judge me.

Einstein apparently agrees with me that they're delicious, as he spent the entire of the night eating them and ignoring the rats he was supposed to be making friends with. He ate all of the treats I gave him. He ate all of the treats the other rats dropped or forgot about. Then he snuck over, found the bag, and ate a few more.

Einstein is not a very big rat. There's not a whole lot of room in a tiny little rat belly for all of those treats. And, come to find out, soy causes gas. This shouldn't come as much of a surprise to me -- I've experimented with tofu, after all -- but I hadn't foreseen this as being a problem in advance.

So imagine my terror when the next morning I open up the cage, and Einstein seems to have ballooned overnight!

I haul him out of the cage and started poking and prodding, then hauled out all of the other rats I own to confirm that, yes, his belly is definitely bigger than the others. Not hard, precisely, but firm, and distended. Naturally, I panic. My mind immediately starts churning with all kinds of terrible thoughts. What if it's an internal tumor, like what Velvet died of? What if he's having some kind of internal bleeding or hemmoraging? Maybe he fell and burst an organ! Maybe his kidneys are infected and swollen! Maybe he's dying!

There's no vet appointments until the weekend is past. Sure, I could take him to the emergency vet, but they're not exactly rat-friendly and could even do more harm than good, or at least charge me a lot of money to do nothing. I panic some more. I apologize to him for every bad thing I ever said. I start crying, because I had always thought maybe Einstein was going to live forever: He's always so energetic, and full of life, and insane.

Reluctantly, I put him back on the cage, although I ran back to peek in on him every few hours. He was always the same. A little sleepy and lazy, but no signs of pain or distress.

The next morning, I hurriedly pull him out of the cage, and find....

....That he's totally, completely back to normal.

The moral of the story: Don't eat your body weight in soy nuts.

A Belated Halloween Greetings

2011-11-02T15:27:00.000-07:00

I did a Halloween photo-shoot with the boys, but didn't get all the photos sorted out for posting until now. I fail, I know. Ah well -- better late than never?

I'm still working on getting really great photos like the drool-worthy offerings over at The Dapper Rat. I've got a long way to go, but I'm getting there. At least, I've figured out the focus on my camera, so that's progress right?

Without further ado, a very ratty Halloween:

Socrates poses with a gargoyle.

Socrates is my least-photographed rat because he's always busy being a handful. A mountain climber at heart, if you leave him alone for two seconds he will find some way to climb furniture, shelving, drapes, laundry, or any other vertical surface he can get near. Whenever he does finally sit still, you realize how big and handsome he is; he looks much smaller when he's leaping and scurrying!

Normoth is more excited by treats than the prop

Normoth is the spazzy white brother to Socrates and Amadeus. He lives with Ginji, Ban, and Einstein. He looks like a PEW, but he's actually hooded --a very pale champagne, maybe, or dove. At any rate, his eyes are ruby, not pink, and if you catch him in the right light you can see the hood. He squeaks in protest at being picked up and held: He'd much rather be out exploring. He's also a huge ham and is always acting like a doofus for a laugh, which makes him fit in rather well with his roommates.

Amadeus refused to pose with the gargoyle

Amadeus is the last of the brothers, and the biggest. He's a chubby dumbo with a constant "who, me?" expression. He's best friends with Basil, and has been named heir to the colony -- he and Basil seem to alternate as to who's the alpha most of the time. Amadeus squeals like he's dying whenever anyone comes near him while he's eating, no matter if they try to take the food away or not. His food obsession probably explains why he's about twice the size of his brothers...

This whole thing is just too tiring for Basil

Basil is 28 months old, and is slowing down a bit to age, but he can still show everyone who's boss. He thought the whole notion of posing for Halloween pictures was terribly silly, and he wasn't interested in being bribed with treats. He just sort of flumped down with a "fine, just get it over with" look and let me take some pictures. He has that attitude about most things involving humans. Basil doesn't like people nearly as much as he likes rats, and seems to think that interacting with humans is ill-fitting for his regal dignity.

Einstein is camouflaged into the backdrop

Einstein is my other "old guy." He's around 27 months but is hardly showing his age: He's as big of a pain in the ass as ever, and just as cute. He loves cuddles and will throw himself out the cage door to beg for attention. He also thought that the whole posing idea was really dumb, but he put up with it because I kept bribing him with snacks. Unfortunately, as soon as I gave him a snack he would run off and eat it in a corner, so the only thing I could get a picture of was his furry butt.

Ginji chows down with fervor

I'll tell you a secret. Ginji looks like he was posing very cutely with the prop, right? Well, actually he was just so hyper-foused on eating that he didn't notice or care when I just moved the gargoyle next to him. He hardly looked up, actually. In another life, I think Ginji might be a competitive eater. "Rat vs Food" maybe. I'm not sure who would win in an eating contest next to Amadeus...only one way of finding out.

At least Ban can behave himself

I only got 3 pictures of Ban during the entire photo shoot. All the rest of the pictures I tried to take ended up being of the tip of his tail, or lumpy blankets as he burrowed his way into them. He was infinitely more interested in the skeleton fleece than anything else I tried to give him. Once I plied him with food he consented to sit still for a few snapshots, on the agreement he could go back to the blanket immediately after.

The Rat Cage Set-Up

2011-11-01T23:26:00.000-07:00

Here's where it all happens!

One day, I hope to move into a larger apartment (or a house) where I can have an office/rat room. I like to daydream about having a room where I can let the rats free-roam while I write. In the meantime, the rats get to share my bedroom with me and my boyfriend (who very patiently puts up with all of their antics, even the wee-hours-of-the-morning squeaking and tussling and water bottle rattling).

I've got two main cage set-ups. The first, the "big cage," is currently housing Basil, Socrates, and Normoth.

It's a Superpets "My First Home" cage for ferrets. It's 2' x 2' x 3' and has 1" bar spacing, which I have messily wired-over in fabric cloth in an attempt to keep Einstein in, but that wasn't enough (he found a way to worm his way out where the door latched) and I hate the cloth so I'm working on taking it back off. The cage is big enough to comfortably house 6-7 rats.

The other cage is smaller, although I haven't done the measurements, and has 1/2" bar spacing. I've got 4 rats in it right now; I had intended to only keep 3 in there, but they were all so happy together I just left them as-is. Eventually I'll probably make a push to house them all together. Maybe when I finally buy the Criter Nation cage I'm hoping for.

Generally, my rat cages are all furnished in recycled stuff. I hold onto all my boxes and cartons from the kitchens, and give them to the rats. I also give them newspaper for bedding (although there's usually a layer of absorbent pellets below) and they rather enjoy shredding it. I've got a few hammocks that have been received as gifts, but usually I make my own by stringing up pants legs, old shirts, or whatever other bits of old clothes I have floating around.

The rats don't mind.

Ginji & Ban

2011-11-01T18:24:00.000-07:00

I had put rescuing for myself on hold for quite awhile. At first, the house was at max capacity. Then, as rats started to pass away, I didn't want to bring in anymore as I could hardly stand the heartbreak. Eventually, though, things settled down around the house and I started aching for some new guys.

Someone posted a "need rats gone asap" type ad on Craigslist, so I responded and went out to pick up these two. The owner was moving and unable to bring the boys along for some reason or another. He was nice enough, and though the rats have been fed a very poor diet they're otherwise in good health and very social.

I named them Ginji and Ban after characters in an anime I like called Getbackers. They names are oddly fitting: Much like the characters, these two are inseparable best friends who are total goofballs. Although they look nearly identical, Ban is actually older than Ginji by at least a few months; the guy who bought them said that Ban had been at the pet store for months while Ginji was just a baby when he got him. They probably did come from similar breeding stock, though, seeing as they were both bought at the Petsmart in El Paso.

Ginji is the one with the white spot on his head. He's the more out-going of the two and he loves food. He'll stand up on his hind paws to take a treat from you, and he'll run away to stash it before running back for more. Ban, who has some black spots on his shoulder, is a little more reserved and aloof, but also more cuddly.

Ginji investigate Normoth

Since they're both young and goofy, I thought they'd be good to intro in with Einstein, who has some major authority issues. They hit it off immediately. Normoth, who had been living with Einstein, also moved in with the crowd. I had originally planned to move Normy back in with his brothers, but he became fast friends with Ginji and I couldn't bear to separate them. One day perhaps I'll be able to move the entire colony together, but for now I've got it in two groups.

Lily (2.0)

2011-11-01T16:01:00.000-07:00

A few weeks after Kelsey's death, I received a phone call from my vet's office, Calista Animal Hospital. I was pretty baffled: I didn't have any appointments coming and was pretty sure I didn't owe them any money that week, so why the call? I slipped away from my desk at work to check my message.

The message informed me that a long-time rat owner had just lost one of her older ladies and was looking for a companion for her remaining rat, and wondered if I might be able to help her find a new rat or two to bring home.

I had to listen to the message twice. I usually get weird messages asking me to take the rat, not vice versa!

Anyway, I called her and discussed what she was looking for, and said I'd get back with her as soon as I found a match. Lucky for her, I found a girl needing a new home that same day: A "must be gone immediately" ad on Craigslist.

Picking the baby up turned out to be a bit of an adventure.

The people wanted to sell her to me for $50 with her cage, which I just couldn't accept. I offered to take the rat and leave the cage for them to sell. They waffled. It turns out they had a second rat as well that they wanted to get rid of (that had not been in the advertisement) but didn't want to give away for free. I explained I was a rescue, offered my references, but they wouldn't budge.

They were being rehomed because the people who bought them (college students, from the look of it) couldn't get them past the landlord. They'd spent money on buying them, and wanted to get that money back. The whole house had kind of a weird, uncomfortable vibe and I was eager to get out as quick as I could...but not until I'd made a valiant effort at bringing home the rats!

I called and explained the situation to the would-be adopter and she agreed she'd deal with them for the fee if I could pick up and foster for a couple days, so I did. They let me leave with the little black hooded girl that day, and the adopter came with payment and picked up the second girl (a dumbo champagne berk) a couple days later.

Lily (as the black hooded girl was called) turned out to be wonderfully sweet. A little nervous, like all petstore babies are, but gentle and cuddly. Last I heard she's settling in quite well at her new home.

It was a fiasco, but it worked out OK in the end. I'm especially pleased now to have another adopter at-the-ready the next time a few rats come my way that need new homes!

Kelsey

2011-11-01T15:16:00.000-07:00

I receive emails daily from an animal advocacy group here in town. Usually they're about dogs and cats: Owner surrenders, lost pets, people who need help paying for vet bills. Sometimes they're about rescue groups that need help, or are running an adoption event. Very rarely they'll be about an exotic, a bird or ferret or whatnot.

One time, it was a rat.

I actually got a barrage of messages about this rat, because everybody in Las Cruces knows me now as "the rat lady." So I got the regular email, plus another email, plus a Facebook PM, followed by a phone call. I was feeling pretty popular by the end of the day.

The rat in question was a tiny little female who had been caught running loose in somebody's backyard. It had been caught in the bird feeder and kept overnight in a trash can. The people were very nice, the sort of upper-middle-class household whose home is just a little too clean and who wanted the rat on their back porch gone without hurting it. They were very gracious and I thanked them profusely for doing the right thing by the rat instead of trying to hurt it.

When I got there, the rat was terrified. She'd had a harrowing time of things -- alone outside, then captured, then forced to spend a whole long night in a trash can out on a porch. She trembled a little when I picked her up, but she was OK. That's when I noticed the tumor: A big mammary lump just inside her hind leg. Suddenly I had a sick feeling in my stomach when I realized I had a pretty good idea why she was alone outside.

To be fair, she could have escaped from her home. There was an elementary school nearby, she could have been a class project that got loose. But I'm suspecting that somebody didn't want to deal with medical expenses and "set her free."

Well, anyway. She got named on the fly, because I made a vet appointment for her on the ride home. She was picked up on Elks street, so the first name that popped into my head was "Kelsey," and it stuck.

Kelsey was a sweet black variegated girl. High-energy and terrified from her ordeal, but she did enjoy burrowing and would rest underneath your shirt and start to relax after awhile. She never quite trusted me enough to take food from my hand, but she'd sniff it and then look at me warily, waiting for me to drop it so she could chow down. She would let you know when she was "done" with any situation; she was feisty and sassy and not afraid to bite if you pushed her limits.

Still, that tumor had to go. If it had been in another part of her body, I might have considered leaving it, but it was growing into her leg and impeding her movement, and she was having a hard time keeping it clean. I'd been down that road already with Echo, and had no interest in returning. Tumors are the reson why I choose to keep boys. The plan was simple: Get the removal, nurse her through the post-op, then send her to live with the girls at Callie's.

Fate had other plans.

The tumor was much more involved than it had looked from the outside. Bigger, too -- it was growing into her body as much as outside of it, and was involved in both her leg and the tissue around her anus. It had its own blood supply, and the shock of the removal was just too much for her. She started to recover from surgery, but then her tiny body gave out.

Losing Kelsey hit me hard. I still second-guess my choice to have the tumor removed, even though I know there was no other option. She was so young, and so bright, it was a shame to have her taken after just a few short weeks at my house. I can take a little comfort at least in knowing that she had a wonderful, comfortable time while she lived at my house.

Flower, Russell, and Agnes

2011-11-01T14:43:00.000-07:00

Callie had suffered a few losses recently and was looking to fill the gap with some more rats. She let me know about this and I set out my "feelers" and it didn't take too long to find someone looking for new homes for their little ones -- this time out in El Paso. Two girls and a boy (housed separately) that needed to be gone ASAP.

I crawled out of bed early, loaded up on some coffee, and headed out into the unknown. After getting lost several times (I have the homing instinct of a goldfish, which makes the rescue thing even more adventurous) I finally found the parking lot we'd agreed to meet in.

The lady who was rehoming turned out to be a pretty cool person. She had obviously taken great care of the little ones and loved them a lot. They're middle-aged, but overall in good shape, and she talked about them fondly. Unfortunately, she had a rat-phobic family member who had to move into the house, and no way of arranging things to keep them separated that would have been fair for the rats. So, they came home with me.

They got to spend a weekend at my house before heading off for Callie's. The girls are tiny, especially Agnes, who is the sweetest vari-berk. Flower is more out-going and dominant; she's the mis-marked capped girl. And, of course, Russell.

Ahh, Russell.

He's a hooded rex. Black, but faded with age, and going bald in patches as all rexes do. Balding rex fur is soft and woolly, like a baby lamb.

He stole our heart when he arrived, and my boyfriend almost didn't want to give him up, despite us being at full capacity in the house. He'd lived alone all his life as he had been bullied extensively by her other male, but he adjusted well enough. I normally wouldn't advise having a rat live by himself -- they're always so much happier with friends -- but in Russell's case he was very much a "people" rat and since he was an older fellow, I relented to let him go home by himself. He spends pretty much every waking moment out and about with Callie or her boyfriend, anyway.

Agnes has been having respiratory issues on-and-off since she arrived. She's being medicated right now, hopefully she's able to fight off the secondary infection so she can deal with the myco or (I'm afraid) Car-B on her own.

Fuzzy and Headspot

2011-11-01T14:24:00.000-07:00

A funny thing happens when word gets out that you do rat rescue: You start getting phone calls and emails about all sorts of strange things. But this was the first time I ever had someone knocking at my door in the early morning (around 2 A.M., in fact), yelling that they had an emergency. A rat emergency.

The person standing on my doorstep was someone I knew, at least -- my boyfriend's cousin. And considering the kind of hours we keep, 2 A.M. isn't an unreasonable time to show up at my house and expect us to be awake. Still, a rat emergency? Really?

As it works out, the emergency was that he had found two tiny pinky rats, alone and abandoned, in the Wal-Mart parking lot where he worked. And felt compelled to bring them to me to.

Now, I'm going to pause right here to explain a few things. First off, I'm a private rat rescuer, not a wildlife rehabilitator. I don't make a habit of dealing with wild rats at all. And, had I been there, I can't guarantee you that I would have stopped to rescue the little abandoned pinkies. I might have...but I might not. Circle of life, and all that. But, once they showed up on my doorstep, they were my responsibility, so I did the best I could.

They were probably 4-5 days old when they arrived. They were also freezing cold. I warmed them up and built them a little nest in a carrier, gave them a heating pad and some fleece, and set out to buy some kitten Esbilac formula, a few syringes, and a little Pedialyte.

Here's some advice: If you are ever in the position of raising orphan rats, there are several things that will make your life easier:

If at all possible, find a lactating foster mom. Trust me. Hand-raising orphan rats is nearly impossible and you will have much, much, much better luck if you can have a nursing mother feed them.
If you can't find a lactating rat, use kitten-formula Esbilac or other milk replacement. This will need to be warm when you give it to them, but don't mix the powdered formula with hot water as it will kill the nutrients. Instead, mix it with cold water, then heat it up slowly in a mug of warm water (do not microwave).
The rats will need to suckle, which means they'll need something nipple-like that they can form a seal around with their mouth and get milk out of when they suck. I tried using syringes with IV catheters for awhile, which worked OK, but it worked way better to use a small square of fabric soaked in milk. A bottle would be ideal, if you can find one with a small enough nipple
You will need to keep them warm with a heating pad, but give them the opportunity to get away from the heat source. You'll have to feed them every 2-4 hours, and then clean their privates with a warm, damp cloth to encourage them to poop and pee after every feeding. You should also be rubbing them down after each meal to encourage them to grow.
You really should find a lactating foster mom.

Anyway. The little ones were with me for exactly one week - from April 24th to May 1st. They never got proper names, although I referred to them as "Fuzzy" and "Headspot" because one had a little bit more fur than the other, who had a little bald spot on the top of her head. They were set to live with Callie when they weaned, but it was not to be.

I'm not sure what happened to the babies, in the end. Headspot had severe bruising to her paw and tail that ended up causing the tissue to swell, then necrotize. Fuzzy started bleeding rectally on the 6th day. They had some sort of internal hemmorage, and died in short succession -- first Headspot, then Fuzzy the day after. I'm not sure what caused the internal bleeding. Swallowing air, maybe, when trying to suckle. Or maybe they had a small amount of rat poison in them, from their mother's milk. From the symptoms, rat poison seems likely enough, but I'll probably never know for sure.

I still have nightmares about these babies sometimes. I wish I could have done more for them. It's amazing just how much you come to love a tiny, fragile, helpless life when you're the one responsible for it. After just a few hours, I felt the kind of fierce love that only a mother can have. I miss these babies. But I really hope I never have any more pinkies come my way without mothers.

Einstein

2011-11-01T13:22:00.000-07:00

Einstein was another Craigslist ad I answered: Rat, free to good home. I met with the owners and they handed him over a little reluctantly, explaining how sad they were to need to get rid of him but how happy to have found a rescuer to take him so they'd know he'd be safe. They were foster parents for a number of dogs through a local rescue agency so they knew all about it.

They were a young military couple who were heading to Germany for some reason or another, and couldn't get all the animals through customs. The young black berkshire had been bought as a companion to their older rat, Darwin, after Darwin's cage-mate had died. Now little Einstein was all alone and they hoped he'd make friends.

This didn't seem like it would be much concern at the time, as Einstein was terribly sweet. He climbed up in the sleeves or pockets of anything I wore and snuggled, and liked to groom me and carefully clean and trim my nails. No worries, right?

Well. As it turns out, Einstein is super sweet...but he's also a huge handful.

First, he arrived as a hormonal "teenager," and he's been insecure and full of bravado ever since. He's tiny for a boy, and terrible at throwing his weight around, but he always tries it anyway. He picks fights he can't win. He tries to dominate the bigger rats, but screams like he's being murdered whenever anyone comes close to him. When he gets bored, he barbers himself by pulling out his hair, so he has big ugly bald patches. When he gets bored of that, he barbers his cage-mates.

Oh, and he's an escape artist. He likes to worm his way out of the cage, climb into the food bag, pig out, and then climb back into the cage when he gets bored. I've woken up with him in my bed several times. Once, he even figured out how to pop the screen on the window and made his way onto the outside window ledge before we caught him.

It's hard to believe that he's two years old now. In my head, he's always going to be a whiny teenager. Luckily, he's aging very gracefully so hopefully he'll live to be ancient....the running joke in the house is that if anything kills him, it'll probably be getting run over by a car...or while sky-diving...

Basil

2011-11-01T00:06:00.000-07:00

Wesley and Basil came to me at 8-9 weeks old. Their mother was a Petco rat who had gotten loose and had a litter out in the store. The babies were discovered and raised on a foster mom, but were likely to end up snake food. Someone from the store emailed me about the situation and asked if I might take a few. I was new to the whole rescue thing at that point, and kind of bumbled my way through it, but I did bring home these two boys. Wesley passed away earlier this year, but Basil still lives with me.

Basil went from being a tiny mink baby to a BIG mink grown-up! As a youngster he was a gentle nursemaid rat, always making friends with everyone. Once Token and Sweeney died, however, he assumed the alpha role quietly and without incident. He's never gotten along well with Einstein, who's always insisted on challenging his authority despite being unable to actually maintain any kind of power. He had to play rough with the hoarding boys to keep them in line; Locke, Stock, and Beryl were kind of wild and needed to be taught how to be nice. They always drew blood when they fought with each other, but Basil was able to keep them all under control without shedding a drop. He has a firm, fair paw.

Basil's always been more of a "rat's rat" than a "people rat." He resists being held and would rather come say hello on his own terms. He gets comfort from other rats, and is happiest snuggled up with his best friends: First Token, then Splinter, now Amadeus. If you do manage to catch him in one of his sociable moods, however, he's lovable and squishy. He'll let you roll him over onto his back and tickle his belly. You can hold him like a baby and he'll just go limp in your hands.

He's a little over two years old now, and suffers from congestive heart failure. He gets exhausted easily, and his hind end is a little weak, but he is still able to climb into his hammock and rules what's left of his colony. He takes Lasix daily to help with his heart, and it's helping him a lot. I'm sure one day he'll let me know when he's ready to leave this world, but it's not quite yet. Hopefully I'll have many more months of sweet, sluggy Basil left.

Socrates, Amadeus, Normoth, Beatrix, and Eiko

2011-10-31T23:15:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-31T20:32:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-31T17:54:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-31T17:28:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-31T17:19:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-31T06:44:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-31T06:37:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-31T06:29:00.001-07:00

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

2011-10-31T06:23:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-31T06:13:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-31T06:08:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-31T06:02:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-31T05:51:00.000-07:00

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.