One Year On!

Backblipped on 18th July 2012

A day of two halves today!

The first half was a celebration. Exactly one year ago today I walked into a local branch of Pets at Home and asked how I could go about getting some rats. I came home with two mature rats, aged around 18 months, called Charlie (the Agouti Berkie) and Moses (the Champagne Hoodie) who'd been brought in for rehoming.

I'm so delighted to be able to say that Chas and Mo have exceeded all possible expectations in every single way. Not only did they train me in how to look after rats properly, they also helped me through some tough times last summer, and cared for me so well.

Furthermore, they have exceeded my wildest dreams for their own life expectations. Both are clearly old men now, Chas had a bad chest infection earlier in the year, but got better. Mo had skin problems, which cleared up, and he's now starting to struggle with his hind legs, but both are still with us, still beautiful, and have set up my male mischief to be the relaxed and wonderful place that it is.

Even though I now have quite a big family of rats, and a huge variety of boys and girls: posh pedigrees, random rescues, accidental kittens from friends, hairless, rex, top-eared, dumbos, in a whole host of different colours and sizes, Chas and Mo will always be very special to me - they were the first two of many, and I will always be grateful to them for being such a fabulous pair of men.

And I am more delighted than I can say that they're still with us, and still showing young male rats who arrive here that it's a good and happy place to live, with lots of love and cuddles.

Thank you Chas and Mo. xx

As to the second half of the day.

I was due to go over to Scharwenka's in the afternoon, and then go on to a gig where the Wonderspouse was performing poetry. Since I was scheduled to be out late and the weather was pretty nasty I decided it would be wise to let the cats in and give them some food before I left.

I opened the door as usual, and Tiggy came hurtling in and dashed over to the food. However, there was no sign of Felix.

Some sixth sense made me aware that all wasn't well. 99 times out of 100 in these circumstances I'd have simply gone out and assumed he was out hunting or something, but I decided, on this occasion, to go and look for him.

I went over to the garage, unclipped the lock and opened the door. He was lying on the bed (yes, we have an old bed in the garage). I whistled the whistle that usually makes him come to me, and he didn't. I went over, and he raised his head slightly. I picked him up, took him in to the house, and he started to cough weakly.

At this point it was obvious he was not well at all. I called the vet and got an appointment straight away. Then I called Scharwenka and the Wonderspouse to let them know that arrangements had changed.

The vet took his temperature, which was raised by a couple of degrees, and gave him a long-acting antibiotic injection, with instructions to bring him back if he got any worse.

I didn't go out - just came home and made Felix comfortable. He purred softly as I stroked him. Poor boy.