dotratz

Bye bye Sid

2010-06-18T04:09:00.000-07:00

On Monday 14th June 2010, Sidney at last popped his clogs aged around 2 years 7 months - the longest lived rat we have known.

Sid had a lot of character. He preferred things to either other rats or people, enjoying solving the puzzles we put in his cage. All the advice says not to keep rats on their own, but Sid seemed to much prefer it that way, and remained remarkably bouncy and lithe until the last 2 months of his life.

Unlike Barack, Sid was unappreciative of human ways, and he never learned to type, which is why this blog has not been touched since Barack died in the summer last year.

rat stars

2009-06-26T04:32:00.000-07:00

The little human purchased a new (secondhand) camera and has been snappy us silly, and we have been posing when it suits us. Sidney is the easier to shoot because his white fur does not require such a long shutter speed, but he tries to make up for it by running around a great deal. Here are some samples:

miniones

2009-02-27T19:15:00.000-08:00

I have been meaning to blog for some time, especially when some rat with the same name as me became president of the United States of America. What a coincidence! Here I am leader of the free rat world, and there he, president of a big country! Not as big as the free rat world of course, but still quite impressive. I wish him luck. It's not always easy being a big important leader. Several times a day I have to jump up and down on Sidney to teach him who's boss. And then there is all the power groooming....

Anyway, the reason I have to post is that all the mouse snacks have passed away - and me and Sid never even got a nibble! They had got pretty quiet. They used to come out and sit and watch movies on the little human's knee. Monty was starting to look a bit ill, with sores on his feet and cloudy eyes, while Vaughny remianed quite chipper. But one morning a couple of weeks ago there was Vaughny dead in the cage! Then two days ago Monty was having difficulty breathing and last night he was found dead in the cage too. Oh dear! I do hope the little human doesn't get "empty cage syndrome". Last thing we need is more mouse snacks that we aren't allowed to eat!

I am the Alpha Rat!

2008-06-15T05:05:00.000-07:00

On 1st June we were all quite upset when PiXie decided to breathe her last in the arms of the little human. But we did not have long to mourn because only a few days later one of the little mouse snacks (they call him Freddy) suddenly got very quiet and then died. Freddy had been the top mouse-snack (the Alpha), so was the chief defender of the tiny tribe. Perhaps with PiXie his arch-nemesis departed he saw no reason to cling to life. There was a swift shift of power in the mouse-snack cage - Vaughny started to look much healthier and started to dominate Monty. This was rather a surprise since Monty had always been 2nd mouse-snack, and we'd always assumed Vaughny's apparent indifferent health was caused by the fight in his youth with Emily, a fight from which he still bears the scars..

Meanwhile, back in my house, Sidney had not reacted at all well to the parting of his lover, PiXie. He started to get angrier and angrier. While we could still sleep nose to nose, whenever he was awake he was chasing me, or stomping round the house and trying to take chunks out of the humans. This last is really silly - humans cannot jump out of the way as fast as we can, and since they are not very strong, they bleed and whine pitifully if you bite them.

One day I heard the humans say "we have to have his balls". Although I was surpsied how lonely I got while Sid was being given so much special attention now it is great - I am the Alpha rat! There's no stopping me! Sidney does what I say! I groom him lots and he does not bite me. My fur is growing back and, so are the humans' fingers.

Bruxing Barack - leader of the free ratworld!

Rat and Mouse

2008-05-11T03:49:00.001-07:00

A while ago Pixie taught me to use the computer. I have written a few emails since then, but this is my very first blog post. Hello world! Sidney and I have settled in well at the rat house. Recently Pixie has been feeling unwell. Actually we are quite worried about her - she is looking quite old now - I can't believe she was ever that tiny pixel of a rat that started blogging at such a young age.

Sid is a humourless sort of a guy and he gets cross if everything isn't just so, but I do like to tease him. He then chases me round rather a lot, but since he isn't very agile I leap out of his way and then sit on the top of something giggling at him. When he isn't being cross with things, Sid likes to sleep...on his head. Very old school, our Sid...

On the other hand, I like to try new things. From a young age I have enjoyed taking tea. I like to drink from mugs, and also chew the tea leaves from the tea strainer. The little human says she wants to upgrade her computer soon (to one of these), so I have been aiming my mug spillages in the direction of the air vents on the computer. Yesterday I got an extra tickle for toppling a tall glass of sticky juice. If the keyboard hadn't been protected with a plastic cover it would have been toast. Afterwards I found a new mousey friend to curl up with. do you think she likes me?

Obama v McCain

2008-03-08T16:52:00.001-08:00

There is hot competition in the rathouse. Barack and Sid are both eating as hard as they can. In the first week Barack gained a whopping 55g, but since then Sid has maintained his lead, even pulling away slightly at the last weigh-in yesterday.

The boys seem to think this is all very important, but I can't see why. I am still more than 100g bigger than either of them - which makes them just pretenders to the throne.

I am used to boys being pretty lazy things that doss around reading the paper and licking their torpedos all day, so I have been quite surprised by Barack. He is a fun guy! He is very quick to learn mischief and is already running rings round the silly humans. For example, he has mastered jumps of 2-3 feet. I wonder if I might be able to teach him how to do use the computer. Well, we'll see.

goings on in the rathouse

2008-02-17T00:53:00.000-08:00

I haven't blogged for a while, because I have been so upset. In January, Mummy (Emily) died. Don't know why. She just got weak over a month or so. I was very worried when she was ill but since then I have just felt down and not had the energy to write.

Yesterday it all changed and suddenly life has got very interesting again. I found, camped out in a cage in the living room, these two... They say their names are Barack Hussein Obama and John Sidney McCain. But those are stupid names and far too long for such tiny ratlets, so I have decided to call them "Bruxing Barack" and "Sidney". They are real wimps and easy to beat up. I just knock 'em over and they lie on their backs squealing. They both tell me they will soon be president of the United States of America, but really I find that hard to believe when me, a little Pixel of a girl rat, can knock 'em down with one paw and a slash of my tail.

Happy Year of the RAT!

2008-01-09T04:05:00.000-08:00

We enjoyed an excellent Christmas this year. I was hoping that on Christmas morning each of us would find a nicely fattened mouse snack, tied up with string at the end of our hammock, but no, our stockings contained exactly one macadamia nut each! The big human's Mum saved the day, however. She is most generous and showered us with delicious presents. Here is a video of me opening the best present, with carols playing in the background. On Christmas Day afternoon we enjoyed a feast of duck bones, which were also very tasty. Meantime the mouse-snacks still fatten in their cage (now 100g each!). I think they even got a couple of the gifts. You know, they are primitive beings, and enthusiatically chew wooden blocks and run in wheels and the like. Don't they realise that the wheel doesn't actually go anywhere?! Dim little mouse-snacks.

Human training

2007-10-17T04:59:00.000-07:00

It is surprisingly easy to train your humans. Our Big Human is especially easy to train. He has long been able to perform simple tricks but, as you can see, he has now been trained to hold our blueberry pastries for us while we eat them, so that we don't have to get out paws sticky. I know it is not good for him, but occasionally we even let him have a little nibble of pastry as a reward for being such a good boy !

Mad Mice Snacks

2007-07-04T05:56:00.000-07:00

The Mice Snacks are still growing. This weekend they passed their official tripled-since-petshop weight of 60g. Not bad going for only 30 days. Yet still we proper rats are not allowed to eat them up.

Recently they invented a dumb game. The Big Human managed to film one of them playing, although sometimes all three will play at once. Thing about mouse snacks is they don't know when enough is enough. They would play this silly games all day long if the Little Human would let them.

mice snacks

2007-06-18T00:34:00.000-07:00

As well as corn me and Ma have been attempting to enjoy some little mouse-snacks. After Ma got a chunk out of one of the mouse-snacks their cage has now been turned into a difficult puzzle. We can smell the mouse-snacks inside but we just can't get in through the stupidly fine mesh. We can't even grab a succulent and no doubt very tasty toe!

The little idiot taunts us with pictures of the succulent morsels which, actually are growing amazingly fast and will soon be a whole meal each! Do you think perhaps they are just being fattened up for us?

The one "helping" with the sewing is called "Vaughny". You can see where Mummy took a bite out of his nose. Unfortunately it seems to have healed up well. ...sigh ... well I suppose at least that means we have more mouse-treat to enjoy later, when we find a way in to the cage.

corn o matic

2007-06-18T00:22:00.001-07:00

Of an evening I do enjoy a corn on the cob. The little idiot has the very bad habit of trying to steal my corn. What a meanie she is.

The mini-ones

2007-06-09T00:57:00.000-07:00

The week after the death of the best rat ever the little human (hereafter the little idiot) remained inconsolable. What's worse, her lover the big human was also absent. I can't see the fascination with males myself. I mean Phil was fun for a shag and a cuddle and of course we were sad for a half a day when he died, but he was bone idle, never lifting a finger to help with the renovations to the sofa, couldn't be bothered to knaw through a macadamia nut shell and worst of all never left the comfort of the sofa to explore the world.

So, anyway, come Tuesday the little human was off to - the Pet Shop. And what did she come back with?

These!

The bloke at the pet shop told her they were rats, but I'll tell you they don't smell like no rat and in fact I quite fancy one as a tasty snack right now. All I know is that they are a "lesser" species, that deserve to die. The little idiot tells me they are multimammate mice. Well - they are boys, so I guess that is the main thing. At least they don't stink like mice do and they don't seem quite as stupid as mice either. But I don't think they are very pretty do you? At least they are nothing compared to beautiful beautiful me!

best rat ever

2007-06-09T00:41:00.000-07:00

The little human and the big human have known many many rats and they tell me that Phil-rat was the best rat ever. He died on 26th May at about 2 years of age. He didn't have a day of illness his whole life, not even a sneeze, until he developed a lump on his backside about a month before he died. The lump grew fast and spread across his flank. It felt like a lot of the lump was internal, so prospects didn't seem great and he slowly became less active. Then on the night of 25th May he felt cold. A cold rat in the evening is often a dead rat the next day but Phil seemed OK the next day and ate some cereal in soya milk quite enthusiastically. Then he died at about human lunchtime. Me and mummy were very sad because Phil was our luvver, and so we went and hid at the top of the cage until the umans came home. The big human went away the next day for a whole weeeeek so it is just as well Phil died when he did because the big human was Phil's best friend and he wouldn't have liked to be lonely.

trick rat

2007-05-14T03:03:00.000-07:00

I am a trick rat. I do loads of really cool tricks. I climb curtains and jump large distances up and down. I am also conducting serious research undermining the structure of the sofa. Usually the humans are faar tooo slooow to catch me on film, but recently they saw me climbing the window and wer quick enough to film me climbing down. I am hoping that I might get an audition for a part in Spiderman 4.

R.I.P BillRat

2007-05-14T02:53:00.000-07:00

On 7th April Bill-rat died peacefully. He had repeated abscesses (~4 over several months) on each side of his jaw but actually at the time of his death was not suffering from one. He had become quieter and quieter over a couple of months and had started to get very tired after trying to run about. I guess he may have had heart failure although he didn't look blue (which is a sign of oxygen not getting round the body very well). Phil-rat was sad to lose his best friend so ever since then me and Mummy have been living with him to keep him company. Phil-rat keeps trying to convince us to bear his sons, but while we enjoy the mating game every so often we prefer to remain unburdened by motherhood.

The Ratty Troubles - or, an instant jet-lag cure

2007-04-07T18:29:00.000-07:00

The little human went away, and then she came back. She seemed very tired in the mornings. The big human says this is called "jetlag". But the big human and me and mummy, we invented a jetlag cure. The big human makes a cup of tea and gets some breakfast cereal flakes. Then he takes us and the tea and the flakes down to the little human and puts us on her bed. We have a wonderful time running around nipping her nose and her toes and crawling into her clothes and loudly munching on the crispy cereal, and dipping our noses in the tea. It is our favourite fun time. In only a few minutes the little human is wide awake, but if she does fall asleep again we nip her on the nose until she wakes up. No more lazy mornings for the little human!

R.I.P. ColBol

2007-02-05T04:57:00.000-08:00

At New Year Colin seemed very ill and we all thought he was a goner, but then he mostly recovered, although stayed in a one level tank due to increased head tilt/ balance problems. He continued to improve and by last Wednesday he could wander around on the floor heading where he intended (rather than falling over due to balance problems). On Thursday he seemed less well and the little human noticed that the side of his face seemed a little swollen. Then on Friday night he felt cold and was a bit fluffed up and it didn't seem possible to warm him up. So in a way it was not a surprise to find him dead on Saturday morning. He wasn't that old and his fur was beautiful, even as he lay dead in his tank. We all wanted mittens made out of Collie fur!

Bye bye Colly Bolly Number 1 rat best friend!

Here's a pic of Col when he were very young.

Happy Ratmas

2006-12-29T02:55:00.000-08:00

A few days ago it was Christmas! This was a new experience for me and my mum and we got very excited about it. Here we are unwrapping our present. Ever since we have been enjoying munching on turkey bones, macadamia nuts and we even got to have some delicious brussel sprouts. The humans also offered us something called Christmas pudding but we were having none of that....ugh!

Today we got another Christmas present - a new house! It is so much bigger and posher than our old house. It came in the post from Martin's cages. The little human allowed the big human to put it together, which he did splendidly. Then we spent the rest of the afternoon jumping around in the new house. Can you see me out exploring in the picture?

Hooded Rats

2006-12-22T05:47:00.000-08:00

I have been surfin' some Japanese rat blogs. From what I can make out most pet rats in Japan are either husky or hooded. There are also some white rats, and more solid colours too, but they seem less common. Bill and Boris who live here are almost one colour all over - with only a splash of white on their chests. Bill is especially unusual since he has funny dumbo ears and also rex fur. Mummy and Colin are, however, huskies (or roan, as it seems to be called in the US and UK these days). As you can see from the picture I don't like to be defined by silly human definitions and am confusing them by being both hooded and husky.

Japanese Pouched Rat

2006-12-17T00:56:00.000-08:00

Africa is home to the largest species of rat in the world, the African Pouched Rat. In the USA some people keep these gigantic rats as pets! I think they would eat straight through the walls of a typical wooden Japanese house in about 5 minutes, so I hope there aren't any here!

The Giant Japanese Pouched Rat is an even rarer species. Like the African variety it is 2 foot long, but unlike the African variety, it has two heads. Here is a picture of one that the little human photographed just this week. Pretty scary huh?

Incidentally, Africa is also home to the world's smallest mouse , the African Pygmy Mouse. This is probably a better pet for a Japanese household. They are incredibly small, clean and don't smell, so suitable for Japanese tidy-living in a small space. However, they are also quite fragile and not fond of people in the same way we rats are, so it is probably more like looking after a decoration than a pet. They are also said to be more seriously noctural, whereas we rats can be woken up at most times of day and will play. Since the quarantine laws changed in Japan in Sept. 2005, it seems to be difficult to find these pygmy mice in pet shops, although I wouldn't have thought it would be so hard to breed them here.

Nearly doubled

2006-12-07T00:21:00.000-08:00

I am now 140g, which is nearly double what I weighed when I came into the new rat house 2.5 weeks ago. The smaller human tells me I am only going to be a little rat (who is she to talk!) but I am hopeful I will be bigger than Mummy, who is only 210g. For comparison, PhilBossRat is 550g!

It is not that clear in the picture, but I am developing some long hairs at last. You can see how my fur is lighter near my belly. Mummy says that they are called guard hairs and that the new fur will spread all over me from toe to tip in the coming few weeks. Soon I will be a grown up!

As you can see I have been reading a variety of books to improve my mind. In Japanese Buddhism you can gain wisdom by turning round a revolving library of books. In ratty Buddhism the same knowledge is gained by nibbling on a wide variety of books.

Movies

2006-12-06T00:20:00.000-08:00

Lots of things happen in the new rat house that didn't use to happen at the old place. One of the most exciting is that we regularly get to watch exciting movies. One of the most inspirational ones was called Mission Impossible 2 which involved a human doing things like hanging from their finger tips from cliff edges as well as posing in order to look as pretty as possible.

Ever since we saw the movie, me and Mummy have been practising our moves. Of course we are both already more attractive than the actor so we don't need to practise that part. Hanging from fingertips does, however, require lots of practise. While Mummy has been jumping from the BIG human's shoulder to claim a fingernail purchase on the bookcase, I have been hanging off the smaller human's clothing by my toenails and then just when I am only hanging by only one toe I swing myself round and climb vertically to the human shoulder. This is a lot of fun and, since we hear that the lead actor role is now vacant, we are hoping that we will soon get offered deals to star in future Mission Impossible movies.

Unfortunately the humans' photography is really not very good so we are not sure that the talent scouts will discover us! This movie is of my Great Uncle Colin. As you can see he was a fantastic stuntrat in his younger days.

BIG RAT!

2006-11-27T00:19:00.000-08:00

This is Phil, the big boss of our house, who I saw for the first time today. Since he is the big boss I haven't actually met him. I wouldn't know what to say to him; he is so clever and handsome and worldly wise. Mummy says I am not allowed to put up a photo of him on the wall of our cage, because we girl rats must do more with our lives than think about boy rats. I think this is very hypocrital since all she has done from her teenage months is bring up babies!

It is rumoured that Phil has never had a days illness in his life, not even a sneeze, and that he travelled to Japan, across the Pacific, stowed away on a ship. And he sleeps only one hour a day. He's a great rat.

Colin

2006-11-25T00:18:00.000-08:00

Here is another one of the boys! Don't you think he looks a bit like me? It could be that he is my Great Uncle Colin! In the first picture Colin is about 3 months old. The second is a year later (yesterday). From looking at pictures on the internet he seems to be a blazed berkshire platinum, His eyes are ruby. Isn't it interesting how his colour has faded? Could he be a husky rat? Husky rats start off almost black and then get more and more grey through time, but I have not seen such a pale one before. Colin is a very interesting colour but he is a bit small and weedy. I am not so scared of him as I am of Billie! When he was younger he climbed around a great deal and was very athletic. Recently, when the weather got cold he developed a slight heat tilt. At first he was quite disorientated and frightened, but now he is getting more and more secure again. There are three possible causes of head tilt. It could have been an inner ear infection caused by mycoplasma pulmonis that all rats have, or it could have been a stroke. Pituitary tumours can also cause head tilts but since Colin is improving now, this seems unlikely. The first seems most likely since Colin also has noisy breathing , undoubtedly myco related. The strange thing is that he did not seem very ill when he got the head tilt. Perhaps it was only a relatively minor attack.

Billie's Abscess

2006-11-25T00:17:00.000-08:00

Recently I saw one of the boys. He is a bit scary. Just now he is even scarier than in this photo because he has a sore face.

Billie is about 15 months old now. He is probably about 3 months old in the photo. One day the side of his face swelled up. It was a general swelling. It looked perhaps like a mosquito bite, although it is past mosquito season now. Perhaps he had fought a mukade .. I wouldn't be surprised, he looks like such a thug I would expect him to be out fighting mukade every Friday night. There was a little mark on the outside. Billie had obviously been scratching the area a lot since his toenails were very dirty. These were cut immediately to blunt them. Over the next few days the swelling went down and, to the relief of some and fear of others, we all thought Billie was going to be OK. But then a couple of days later a hard swelling started in the same place. This was clearly an abscess.

The usual way to treat a rat abscess is to wait until it is well developed, and has formed a scab then rip off the scab and clean it out fully with saline solution or hydrogen peroxide. A non-facial abscess is not usually treated with antibiotics. However facial abscesses in rats don't seem to have a very good outcome. Sometimes it seems they are signs of a deeper problem but we really thought Billie's abscess was caused by an injury of some sort so perhaps we could be more hopeful. The abscess was already quite large when treatment was started. Billie seems very quiet and his eyes are quite red, particularly the one on the side of the abscess.

Treatment:

Day 1. The abscess was bathed in hot water with a little ethanol in it, several times a day. The outside was cleaned with hydrogen peroxide.

Day 2. In about 24 hours a scab formed on the abscess. This was softened and removed using hydrogen peroxide. The hole was enlarged using some very sharp disinfected (with ethanol) scissors. A quite revolting green pus came out.

Day 3. The scab was removed (bathed with hot water and hydrogen peroxide) and the abscess will rinsed with hydrogen peroxide morning and evening. Some green pus came out in the evening.

Day 4. Billie seems livelier. There is less red round his eyes. The abscess was rinsed in the evening. The hydrogen peroxide fizzed quite a lot but no pus came out. There is quite a large firm area round the abscess but the abscess itself seems smaller.

Day 5. Abscess rinsed in the evening. No green pus, but seems to be some more solid white stuff. Some of this has been apparent in previous days but this time I cleaned it all out with hydrogen peroxide, cotton buds and a pair of tweezers (to carefully pick bits out!). The abscess is now more like a narrow but quite deep crater.

Day 6. Same as yesterday, more white gunk had accumulated which was removed. Crater seems considerably less deep. Billie seems back to his usual self, and is much more likely to be seen washing and eating than just sitting.

Day 7. Same as yesterday but abscess approximately halved in size. Swelling round area of original abscess has gone away.

Day 8. Abscess halved in size again. Tonight it was more like a scab with the merest smeer of white underneath. Just a small dint remains.

The abscess seemed cured after that, but it reccured in December, following the same pattern as previously (general swelling which went down and then an abscess formed). The difference was that the abscess was in the same place but on the other side of his face! I started bathing the abscess as soon as it appeared this time and it burst when smaller (on 25th December) and took only 5 days to get to about "Day 7" stage above.

Day 3 in the rat house

2006-11-22T00:16:00.000-08:00

Hello. My name is Pixel. Three days ago some big BIG big people came and took me and my Mum away from our hot, noisy and smelly home and brought us here. Here is a picture of me with the BIGGEST of the BIG people. The BIG people talk very funny, but maybe they are OK and at least I am not longer being bovvered by my pesky brothers, Taroh and Tatsushi and my strict Aunt Ayako. I can still smell boys though....sniff sniff sniff...

When I arrived they weighed me and told me I was 75g. I feel like all I have done since I arrived is eat and sleep. It is much easier to sleep here and the food is great! All we ate in the old place was seeds. Our new cage is a bit bigger than the one at our old home and of course only the two of us have to share it. It has wire sides so I can clamber all over it. I keep falling off things and Mummy keeps smacking me. Mummy says that one day, when I am grown up, we will escape and move to a bigger place. My Mummy's name is Yoko, which the big people pronounce as "Emily" which is a bit odd, I think.