Ratablog

Girl Report

Took the girls to see Dr F on Saturday. He confirmed they are tumors and he feels they're mammary. He also feels they're too small to remove right now. Of course, Abita and I will probably not have them removed, due to their age and the fact the tumors will probably return if we do remove them.

We've had a wonderful year with them, as did their first human. We'll spend the rest of our time with them, making them feel comfortable, happy, and loved.

With a very heavy heart

...we let Kanga go tonight.

As we mentioned, she'd lost an alarming amount of weight, but because she ate so well and seemed normal otherwise, we wrote that off to her age.

Last night, she stayed out with me quite a long time...she ate her macaroni and cheese while sitting on my lap, then she climbed on my shoulder and snuggled under my hair while I worked. I actually had trouble getting her back in the cage when it was time for me to go to bed...she kept crawling back up my arm.

Today when I came home from work, though, she was disoriented and off-balance. She tumbled down the cage ramp, and when I picked her up, she bit into my finger and wouldn't let go. I finally got her off and back in the cage, where she had a seizure.

I called Victor and explained...as hard as it was for him not to say goodbye, we felt it wasn't right to make her suffer the extra couple of hours.

I lost it at the vet...when I started explaining the weight loss, I equated that with her seizures and disorientation, and I started sobbing that I should have brought her in, that I'd failed her. Dr. G hugged me and reassured me that we'd done nothing wrong.

We expect that she had a stroke or another neurological problem, perhaps a tumor (though tumors usually come on more slowly, with a progressive loss of coordination...I can say that last night, she was as spry as ever climbing on me.)

This is never easy, but it was so unexpected it makes it harder.

Poor little Kanga.

The last picture I took of her was a few days ago in the basket with her gang. Before that, I took a few of her eating the decorations from my birthday cake:

I'd been afraid to post them because she looked so skinny I was afraid people would think we neglected her. I think you guys know how beautiful she was, though.

Spoke too soon

Two weeks ago I mentioned how some of our other rats were doing well. Things have changed.

Bandit has developed diarrhea. A trip to the vet showed lots of bacteria in his (liquified) poops; he's on three medicines. Fortunately, I can mix them in yogurt, so giving them to him is not a problem.

Kanga is still very skinny, but she's still eating.

Roo and Neiko have developed some lumps; they are almost certainly tumors. Neiko's is right below a nipple and is probably the inevitable mammary tumor. Roo's is probably a mammary tumor, but something about it suggests, personally to me, that maybe it isn't. Nothing scientific to go on, but something about it is just not right. It's in her lower abdomen (as is Neiko's) and...ah, heck, I'm no vet. They both will go to the vet this Saturday for a checkup.

If they are mammary tumors, we probably will *not* have surgery. It's been our experience they will just come back.

Again...

Jimmy did it again, or rather, George got Jim again. Not two days after the stitches were out, I discovered this gash on Jim's flank:

Very little blood, but since the last time it was worse than I thought, we went to the vet. The doc agreed that it wasn't as bad, and we're treating it with Nolvasan (a topical antibacterial) and oral Baytril.

I never heard a fight. I think what actually happened is that when Jim grooms George, George sometimes signals "I've had enough" by kicking Jim away with his back legs, and the cut is from his razor-sharp toenails.

George got his first manicure, a file-down with the emory board. And Jim is enjoying the pina colada mix we use to hide the Baytril. And the vet, of course, was happy to see me on our weekly visit, because he still has a kid or two to put through college.

And tonight's Bandit pictures

Bandit is still being dragged out nightly. Lately, though, I've been sitting with him downstairs, thinking he'd like to look at something other than the bathroom walls. It's a bit of a gamble; should he get away from me I have a feeling it would be forever and a day before we got him back in the cage. This evening, he seemed to get a little hyper so I took him upstairs into the bathroom, where he calmed down.

Where he likes to spend a lot of his time when he isn't sitting on my shoulder. He usually sticks his head into the crook of my arm and I scratch him right behind the ears--that rarely fails to get him to brux. If I stop, he'll pull his head out and look at me as if to ask, "What'd you stop for?"

Turned around and not looking quite so pleasingly plump. He's a cutie, isn't he?

He loves his scritches.

Pictures by Abita, text by Victor

Snuggly Arthur

I worry that the nekkid rats will get cold, so they always have blankets and other snuggly things in the cage. Here's Arthur:

I have a confession: the first time I saw a picture of a hairless rat (it was in a book on rat care I got when I applied to adopt Rizzo and Krycek, the Rats That Started This Whole Thing), I was creeped out. Now, I love 'em.

Birthday boys

Jack and George are somewhere in the neighborhood of two years old now, so when a friend of mine gave me a homemade carrot cake, I thought it would make a good birthday treat for the boys.

Jim got some too, of course.

Yep, that's a big shaved spot and stitches on Jim's side. A couple of weeks ago he and George got into either a tiff or some over-zealous grooming, and Dr. G had to neaten up the ends of the wound and irrigate it to make sure it healed up nicely. He alternated metal staples and nylon sutures; Jim has taken care of removing most of the sutures himself. The staples come out Friday.

(Never a dull moment around here, I'll say that.)

And what about the other rats?

I'll only comment on Oliver and the girls, since I spend most of my time with them.

Oliver is fat. Fatfatfat! He's not quite up to Calle's weight, but he's not a slim boy, which is something others have noticed happens with neutered boys. Of course, the fact we let him eat whatever he wants might have something to do with it.

Neiko has turned into the stashing queen. As soon as we fill up the food dish, she starts emptying it and stashing it. She likes to put it on the bench sleeper on the highest balcony, in a box on the lowest level, or in one of the corners in the bedding. This means I probably throw away a bowlful of food when I clean their cage.

Kanga is blind and very skinny. It doesn't seem to bother her except when she's out for playtime, since the arrangement of things on the bed changes slightly every day. The cage stays pretty much the same; then again, she pretty much stays in the hammock, except when she's eating, which is pretty much constantly.

Roo is fine. Nothing to report--she's a good girl, except when she spends too much time with Oliver, which makes Neiko jealous.

Clockwise from left they are Kanga, Neiko, Roo, and Oliver.

Bandit update

I've been working with Bandit nightly, taking him out of the cage for twenty to thirty minutes, in the bathroom (in case he should jump out of my hands. For a house with so many rats in it, we sure haven't ratproofed anyplace). He's been very good, for the most part.

Typically he'll shake like a leaf for the first five to ten minutes. If he has to go to the bathroom, he'll normally poop between the ten and fifteen minute mark. He's learned to climb up to my shoulder, and it's on my shoulder that he'll pee--usually on my neck as he crosses from left to right and right to left.

He's gotten to the point where he'll groom a couple of times, and I can usually get him to brux and boggle toward the end. This makes me feel a little better about him.

On the other hand, he's still showing some aggresive and territorial tendencies. He's still not thrilled with us going into his cage, and the other day he started huffing at me and Abita. He's also bitten Abita once and me twice.

The first time he bit me was last week, when he was on my shoulder and I reached up to scratch his ear. He didn't like that apparently, and he struck out and got me on my finger. I've no explanation for that at all.

The second time was this morning--I was trying to hand him a treat (I give him something by hand every morning, hoping to get him used to us) when he lunged at my hand and gave me two cuts on my thumb. None of the bites, however, were very serious.

The other night, we spent some time discussing what to do with him. When we adopted him we had originally planned to have him neutered next week; now, we're not so sure. It's possible he may prefer to be an alone rat and if that's the case, we don't see a reason to put him thru surgery.

We're considering intro'ing him to either Arthur or Oliver, just to see how he reacts to other rats. It will be a long process, but we're going to keep on trying.

Happy New Year

There's a southern tradition that eating black eyed peas on New Year's Day brings good luck. I wouldn't consider myself southern (though Maryland is south of the Mason-Dixon line), but why tempt fate, especially when Hoppin' John is easy to make, and tasty too?

Of course, the rats had some too.

Bandit

Rabskuttle

Jack

The green stuff is greens (turnip, kale, and mustard), which theoretically bring financial prosperity in the new year. With our vet bills, that'd be a good thing. The corn bread, as far as I know, doesn't mean anything but corn bread. The rats do love it, though.

Here's wishing everyone a happy and healthy new year!