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.