New Blog
I got the new blog up!

We actually registered a domain name just for the rats...I will probably leave the 4 Legs Good stuff for here now (shame on me...starting a new site when I never even finished this one...the pages for Sandy, Mugger, and Gumbo are still just drafts on my hard drive).

Anyway, the new page is intended to be a bit useful...our experiences with rat care...as well as a rat blog. I imagine Abita and the piggies will make the occasional cameo, though.

Come on over...the blog URL is www.ratinabox.com/ratablog.

Missing the babies
Well, I've been away awhile. First it was work, then vacation (the one I was planning when I found out kennels look like jails, my very first post here, I think), and now the rodents are on a little sleepover at grandma's. Our plumbing is being ripped up tomorrow (hopefully--it was supposed to start today, but the plumber had some mysterious euipment trouble) and since I don't know if the work involves noxious fumes or scary noise, the animals are staying at my parents' house. We took the rats and guinea pigs last night...my dad claims indifference to any animals but dogs, but I caught him giving yogies to Pinky. She can charm anyone.

Because of space limitations, Bob is stuck in a travel cage for the duration. He's in a snit...maybe it brings back bad memories of his lab days. Last night he wouldn't even take a Toastie.

The girls and Curly have to stay in a smaller Martins (this is just their carry cage...like packing the family in the stuffed station wagon for the trip, then actually vacationing in the cabin with just three rooms.)

So right now I'm in the ratless rat room. I miss them...

Tonight...just dinner pictures. Everybody got grilled corn on the cob (yay for summer!):

Calle, while not pictured, did get his corn, but not until his abscess got cleaned out. He is healing up very well.

Calle is back from the vet, with what turns out to be an abscess, so it can't be closed up. Instead we need to flush it twice a day and administer topical antibiotics, and a systemic for good measure. Pinky also got another antibiotic--her fourth--to try to knock this URI out for good.

The bright spot is that Calle is completely oblivious to his injury, and Pinky to her sneezes. The next best thing to healthy rats is rats who think they are healthy.

Mab didn't make it last night. She stayed long enough for her mom (yeah, I have become one of the pet owners who refers to myself and others as "mom"..."owner" just doesn't work) to get home, then died in her arms. I was crying reading about it...for Mab, and because I remember the decline of Riz and Krycek, and because I see Bob, in particular, showing his age.

Tonight my extra prayers are for Amerie.

Pinky is still sneezing, but worse yet, V. picked up Calle this evening and found a puncture wound. It is the weirdest thing...no blood in the cage, Calle is acting completely fine, but he has this...hole. And obviously he is going straight to the vet tomorrow morning.

Sigh.

My thoughts tonight, besides worrying for Calle, are with Mab, and old girl who is fading away...and good night to Scraper, Ghost, Coconut, and Godiva.

Sometime last winter I found an online forum of rat owners. I usually shy away from online discussion groups...too many flame wars and hurt feeling and so on...but this one seemed very calm and welcoming.

I quickly got to know some of the regulars and their rats. There was one rat, Ellie, who began having seizures around the time I joined the forum. I sent Ellie's mom everything I had found when researching seizures for Leather.

Poor Ellie, though, didn't fare as well as Leather (whose seizures resolved after a few months...we guess she outgrew them) and she ended up on phenobarbital eventually. She also had other health problems and just plain aging.

I heard today that Ellie is gone. I'm almost as upset as I would be if she were my own girl...though she lived on the opposite end of the country and I knew her only from pictures and stories.

Before I go to sleep at night I find myself running through a mental list of the rats who are sick or recovering from surgery, and of course their worried owners. And I've come to care and worry about the people...there's a woman who lost her house and pets to a fire, a woman battling cancer, another who lost her husband. I find myself praying for and thinking of them as well.

From our ten rats I've come to care about dozens...and made a connection with dozens more people.

Good night, Ellie.

I've been trying to find news about the Covington exotic pet ban, since it was supposed to go into effect yesterday, but I didn't see anything. Right now the officals there are being inundated by letters from angry rat owners, as well as many other species, I'm sure.

Tonight we had spaghetti and TVP sauce for dinner. Witter's picture hasn't been here yet, so here he is enjoying some:

Pinky is still a little sneezy, but I am hearing some improvement. Bob seems to be adjusting to the Curlyless life, and Curly seems to be fitting in fine with the girls. We now have an empty big cage for Witter, although V. is thinking of having him neutered after vacation to see if that makes him and the rest of the boys more compatible. It'd mean another Martins cage purchase...or cutting holes to connect the ones we have now...but hey, cost is no object here.

I heard today about a city in Kentucky that is banning the ownership of many "wild and exotic" pets, including rats. There's a massive letter-writing campaign going on, and according to the Kentucky Post rabbits, gerbils, guinea pigs, and hamsters have been removed from the banned list. I can't imagine having to turn over my pets to the city to be euthanised over such hysteria, and I'll be very interested to see how this plays out.

Trading Cages



We made the cage switch...here is Bob in his hat in his new SuperPet one story cage. I started with him and Curly...the cage was big enough for Bob's hat, the igloo, and Curly's wheel, but the two of them were hissing and follwing each other around.

So I took the "extra" Martin's 695 (the one originally meant for the five rink rats, had Witter's introductions been more successful), out in some new toys, put in the girls and Curly, then held my breath.
At first Curly chased each girl around in turn, much like he does when they play, but he settled down. All four of them explored the new cage quite a bit, but as I type this, Pinky is asleep in the hammock, Curly is asleep on a balcony, and only Schwartz and Leather are still up, rearranging the bedding.

We took Pinky into the vet this morning (all the staff at the vet's office had been up all night at the hospital getting rabies shots, after a ten-week old kitten they'd treated turned out to be rabid. I did not ask--I don't think I want to know--what happened to the cat.)

Doc says Pinky's lungs are stll clear, which relieves me enormously; I was afraid of pneumonia. He added Bactrim to her meds, and hopefully that will knock out whatever this is. They boys are responding well to the Baytril, at least, and Kono, Calle, Witt, Schwartz, and Leather are fine. One sick rat is bad, ten would make me a basket case.