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Still here? Excellent! You're in for the CUTE OVERLOAD of a lifetime. I'm about to tell you about the cutest pets I've ever owned -- my pet rats:
These are the first pet rats I ever had. The white one's name was Nymeria, and the brown one was Arya.
My wife works at a career & technical high school, and one of their programs is Veterinary Science. To get the students used to working around animals, they keep a bunch of rats around; they're easy to handle and cheap to replace. Well, one night, a couple of the female rats managed to break out, and found their way into the male rats' cage. A month later, there were many, many more rats in the Veterinary Science department than they could comfortably keep. The call went out to adopt them, and my wife, who'd spent a lot of time getting to know the cute critters, put our name in for a couple. So they came home to us.
At first, we put them in an aquarium to live, but we soon realized that the lack of aeration and climbing surfaces was a major detriment to a couple of young rats on-the-go. The smell was bad, and they were bored out of our minds. Luckily, we were able to find a guy selling an iguana cage on craigslist, and it worked perfectly! It had multiple levels that they could climb between, plenty of room to put in a little nest box, and a removable tray for the bedding! The girls took to it immediately, and were climbing and playing with abandon before we knew it.
We liked to take them out of the cage to play, although sometimes that was a mistake. Nymeria was pretty sociable, and willing to sit on your shoulder for long periods of time, but Arya was a bit of an escape artist, constantly trying to sneak away and explore. Shortly after we brought them home, we set up some space on our couch for them to run around and play. Nymeria had a grand old time, but Arya just wouldn't stop slipping under the cushions. Eventually we got tired of fishing her out, and pulled the cushions off, only to find that she had wormed her way through a hole in the fabric into the structure of the couch itself! We spent over an hour trying to lure her out with peanut butter, but she was just too wily. In the end, we were forced to cut the back of the couch open to get her out. We learned a lesson that day: DO NOT LET ARYA OUT OF YOUR SIGHT.
Rats only live for a couple of years, and we made the most of it. We let the girls ride around on our shoulders while we went about our daily tasks. We bought them treats and toys, hid food in crazy places in their cage, gave them baths, watched them wrestle, and learned to love having them in our home and in our lives. We took them on vacation! They were an important part of our family. But nothing lasts forever.
About a year after we got them, Nymeria developed a recurring sneeze. We were a little concerned, but it didn't seem to be bothering her, so we just kept an eye on her. Eventually, though, we noticed a bump growing on her nose. It grew larger and larger, until eventually it was interfering with her eating and drinking. We tried everything we could; we even got her some dog antibiotics, and it helped a lot, but they ran out and it just continued growing. She tore it open a few times, but it didn't help; we could tell that she was in a lot of pain, but we didn't know what to do. We agreed that it wasn't worth taking a rat in to a veterinarian, so we just tried to make her as comfortable as possible.
One morning, I woke up and went into the living room to find Nymeria lying on the floor of her cage, stretched out and stiffened. Her nose was torn open, but her sister was just staying away from the body. We placed her in a shoebox with some of her toys, packed it with newspaper, and duct-taped it shut. Then we went out to the dumpster, lowered her in respectfully, and said a few words about what a great pet she had been. My wife cried, and I wanted to, but I knew I had to stay strong for her.
We were concerned about Arya -- rats are very social creatures, and without a playmate, we thought she might suffer some mental issues. But she seemed to get over her sister's death without difficulty; when we got them, Nymeria had been the dominant one, but over the course of her sickness, Arya had slowly come to win most of their wrestling matches. And it seemed that the newly dominant Arya didn't mind being alone at all. Besides, she was nearing old age herself. She continued on running around and playing as though her sister were still in the cage with her.
Arya slowed down gradually, until one day she started to have what appeared to be a seizure. She got over it after a few minutes, but it seemed to have permanently damaged her control of one of her legs; after that, she moved around very slowly, and occasionally would just spin in circles when she tried to walk. She became less and less interested in playing or climbing, until she finally decided to just stay on the bottom floor of her cage. But before too long, even eating food seemed to require more coordination than she could handle.
I tried to nurse her along by feeding her peanut butter (it had always been their favorite food) and giving her rags soaked with water to suck on, and that seemed to bring her to her senses a little. After a few days of that, she was back to eating food on her own, and was a lot more active. But it was not to last. She soon lost interest in eating again, and even the peanut butter I tried to give her had lost its allure.
One night, she seemed to be breathing heavily. I wrapped her up in a little towel and took her out of the cage, trying to give her what comfort I could. I held her, and in the light of the TV show I'd been watching, I felt her heart beating more and more slowly, until finally she went still. I showed her to my wife, who, without speaking, went and got a shoe box. We gave her the same burial her sister had gotten, but this time, I let myself cry.
Losing a pet is hard -- even a short-lived one like a rat. We talked about getting more, but both of us knew we weren't really ready for that. So it went, for months and months -- we cleaned their cage out, and it sat there, empty, sterile, lifeless.
But a few weeks ago my wife mentioned that the Veterinary Science department was looking for some people to provide a foster home for some rats over the summer. It would only be a few months, and then they'd be going right back. But it would give us the chance to put the cage back together. It would give us the chance to come home to some squeaky little creatures who were nothing but interested in us. It would put a lot of cuteness back in our lives, and it would make us very happy. It would give us a family again.
A few days ago, my wife brought home our new girls. Just for the summer, but ours nonetheless.
Rose and Eva:
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| My wife wants to call them different names, Notches and...I don't even know. The names she picked are terrible. |
It's going to be a really fun summer; that much is certain.
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