I never really paid tribute to Bon yet.

The little pic is her baby pic and she truly did look like a fat little bon-bon. I never had an adult picture of her but I believe the picture with the dark blue background is very close to how she looked. She was quite a beautiful rat with a tail that was patterned like shifting sand.

Here is something I wrote shortly after she died.

In the little rat kingdom she was Queen. Penelope was her Merlin secretly running things and Dinky, the little Court Jester.

The humans were giant, but benevolent ogres. She had a special fondness for the one called John and even as weak as she was, she still boggled and bruxed when he petted her and fell asleep with him for one final nap. She was fond of me, too, in her way, and every once in awhile she would climb up on my chest and cautiously look me in the eyes like she was trying to bridge the interspecies communication gap.

Always somewhat grumpy, but never mean. A real rat's rat. She liked to be near her humans, but at arm's length. She would come to you when SHE wanted to be petted. She loved being scritched then for long periods of time and would wag her tail and close her eyes in bliss.

She loved her food and until the very last day nothing would keep her away from her Belgian chocolate pudding.

I will miss you my little curmudgeon. I'm glad you are at peace now and Queen of your new surroundings.

Labels: good-byes, pics

Penelope, AKA 3GR Lioness, came from 3 Girls Rattery in Washington.

I've been meaning to write this for a long time now. It still hurts for me to think about her and to see her pictures. Penelope was my heart of hearts. She was always Penelope Princess to me and always will be. Even as she was dying she still had a little ratlet's spirit.

I originally thought her breeder name of Lioness didn't suit her. As I grew to know her though, I discovered that she did indeed have qualities of a Lioness. She was totally brave. Scared of nothing, curious about everything. She loved to try new things, explore new places, meet new people. She loved people and was my greatest Rattie Ambassador. I used her to work with girls who had intense rat phobias (at the non-profit afterschool program where I work) and she never failed to win them over with her good nature and charming ways.

She adored me, as I adored her. As a little pup, she climbed up my chest one day and looked me in the eyes for a long time and it was as if one being was looking into the soul of another being. Whenever I was near she wanted to be with me. No matter where she was in the cage, she was always first out and last in. She was extremely affectionate. Even though she was ALWAYS busy and always going, she would check in frequently to give kisses and groom and sometimes to snuggle up in the crook of my arm or to lay on my chest and fall asleep bruxing in contentment.

Penelope was an incredibly smart rat. Although the tiniest girl in the cage, she ran it. Without a fight she somehow ruled.

I will miss her all my days and nights.

Labels: good-byes, pics

I cannot describe to you how much I adore these girls. I am babystruck. I love every move they make, every cute look, every sweet kiss. It is too much for words or pictures to adequately convey, but here's a picture, or two. I present for your viewing pleasure my sweet little Pezmerelda, Pezebel, Pez-o-matic 2000...

Labels: pics

Well, I've fallen off schedule a bit again. Been too busy playing with baby rats!

However, I realize I've been remiss and its time to make up for it. Naming, for whatever reason, was much easier this time. I was reading Terry Pratchett's "The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents" when I came across the character of Peaches and I knew immediately that that had to be the name of our little fawn girl. The book is wonderful and the character of Peaches is a charming, intelligent, ethical and sweet rat. The following
review gives a good feel for the book.

update 4-26-06 stumbled across a response byTerry Pratchett to the question of whether or not he has pet rats.

And, of course, I can't leave you without a picture or two of the real thing.


















The pic on the left, is Peaches left standing in shock as the cat toy feather snaps back on its elastic. Unfortunately the flash washes out her color.

The picture on the right is much closer to her true color, which has sort of a blue sheen. Linda, her "breeder-mother", thinks she may be a Platinum. Whatever she is, she's beautiful and sweet.

Labels: pics

I missed a weekend in here for posting so you are getting a bonus post... with pictures!

Labels: pics

This probably would have been a better October post, but I came across the pics the other day and it brought back fond memories.

I work at an all-girl afterschool program and my rats (used to) get to come to work with me until a rodent intolerant person nixed that.

All the girls adored my first 4 girls (Penelope, Bon-Bon, Gigi and Dinky) who got to come with me everyday and the girls bonded strongly with them. For Halloween, two of the girls decided to go as Penelope and Bon-Bon. They looked very cute with their ears and pin-on pink tails. K, the shorter girl in the picture, has kept her interest in rats. She kept a rat journal and wrote down info she found in books and on the net and at one point wrote Bella of Bellaratta's Nest (one of her favorite sites) and got a wonderful reply.

Jane, one of our group leaders and an amazing and creative seamstress, helped them with their costumes. Here's a pic of her modeling her creation.

Labels: pics

Well, I didn't write about it. I think I was hoping that if I didn't write it, it wouldn't really be real. For several days I have had 8 rats in 4 separate cages.

There were 3 days of blissful goodwill and friendship among the 3 girls after Bailey was taken out and then all hell broke loose. I don't know what provoked it, but Pickles gave Dinky a fairly serious bite to the neck, although I didn't realize it at the time (pic is of the bite after 3 days of healing).

I saw the ball of fur roll down the ramps. It looked just like those old-time cartoons where you see a ball of flailing arms and legs, exclamation marks and fur flying (and there was actual fur that flew!). I took Pickles out and put her in the travel cage for a time-out (recently vacated by the last inmate, Bailey, for her new custom-built "cage-for-one"). Dinky climbed into the hammock with Luna and it wasn't until the next morning that I saw the blood caked on her neck. That pretty much settled it that Pickles couldn't stay with the older girls. I don't want the last of their lives spent being stressed out.

So, we figured we'd put Pickles and Bailey together in the slightly bigger cage, give the two older girls the new smaller cage, since they're more sedentary, and put the boys in the big Martins.

Um... yeah... well, that was the plan, but it didn't go quite that smoothly. Pickles and Bailey first had to duke it out big time. We reintroduced them. Coated them both with vanilla. Bailey immediately pursued Pickles, mounting her and hunting her down. Her tail was swishing and she seemed excited by the chase. She has an obssessive nature that is difficult to understand.

Pickles didn't initiate the fights but she wasn't about to back down either. Although she is quite a bit smaller, she managed to raise herself up on her tiptoes to be taller than Bailey. She was able to hold the position longer and seemed to win the alpha role after about an hour of them boxing and fighting each other. Both of them pulled out handfuls of each other's hair but there was no bloodshed.

Only towards the end did Bailey start to seem slightly more submissive. They are now in the cage together and it has been quiet so far, but I'm sure it won't be the last of it.

Labels: pics

Tunnelers are what I call my rats who like to tunnel under things. They are the pushy little rats who insist on shoving their head between your calves to tunnel through, rather than just go over. These are also the rats who seem to like to chew great big holes in your couch and pull out all the stuffing so they can tunnel deep inside.

I have a couple of tunnelers and a patched futon that no one has been allowed on since I patched it. Linda B. from The Crafty Rat came up with a new blanket prototype, a pocket lap blanket, and I decided to buy one and give it a try to see if it might be a way to keep my naughty little girls from chewing holes in my sofa.

So far, so good. Pickles tried it out today and absolutely loved it. Dinky will be my next tester. The boys are not real tunnelers and didn't do much but pee on it (making it smell absolutely wonderful to Pickles, I'm sure!). And Pickles liked it much better when it wasn't on my lap. The size is perfect for my girls; big enough to adventure around in and small enough to fit next to me on the couch.

Linda doesn't have this on her website yet, but I'm sure if you're interested she would be willing to make one.

Labels: pics, product review

Parole denied.

Labels: pics

Bailey "i'll- huff- and- i'll- puff" Brown is in prison tonight.

Labels: pics

OK, I know I shouldn't encourage it and I try not to. I really do. But he is so sweet. He climbs down my shirt and snuggles up close to me. He makes the tiniest little bruxing sounds and sometimes he peeks out and looks right at me and I can see in his face that he feels safe and happy. He is just different than the other boys.

He likes to play. He'll even rough-house and wrassle sometimes, but most of the time he likes to snuggle. And what's wrong with that, anyway?!

I love my tiny little momma's boy. When he gets a little older his dark points should become somewhat more noticeable. Isn't he a pretty boy?

Labels: pics

Oggie is a nut. He is the one who makes me laugh the most. He is this little, tiny Black-eyed Siamese rat who thinks he is something else. He kind of reminds me of the Walter Mitty character. I imagine him having dreams of himself as a spy as he peers out of the blanket trying to sneak up on your hand or a space cowboy when he launches himself off of some high perch into the air. Climbing the backscratcher he is an aerialist performer. He goes so fast that almost every picture of him has motion blur. Even when everyone else is in focus.

John found a way to make him zoom. Oggie likes to stare at people. I don't know why exactly. If John looks at Oggie when Oggie is staring at him and says "Oggie!", he will race around like he just got caught in the act.

I used to roll over during the night and would wake up with some sense of being looked at. I would look over at the cage next to the bed and there would be odd, little Oggie looking at me.

Oggie loves the big boys. It was love at first site. I think his brother, Buster, is a little too tame for him. He likes to chase them and harass them until they have to catch him and turn him over and power groom him. And then he hops up and starts it all over again.

When Oggie gets older the dark points on his nose and rump should be more evident. One breeder I spoke with said that she didn't breed Black-eyed Siamese because of temperment issues. She obviously never met Oggie!

Labels: pics

• the name must fit the rat
• it must be easy to say
• it must not sound too much like another rat's name
• it cannot have any unfortunate connotations or connections

In addition to that, all the good names have already been taken, so finding a unique name adds a whole nuther layer. Sometimes names that seem good on a cognitive level just don't fit on an emotional level. And sometimes after a week or so it just isn't right anymore.

Some rats resist telling you their names. Perhaps it is because of some superstition that if you know their name you will have power over them. Perhaps it is because their real true name is unpronouncable in human-speak. I don't know. Some rats tell you right off, others prefer to be mysterious.

Such was the case with Otis and Bunnyman. No names sounded right. For the longest time they were the blue boy and the scruffy boy.

So we finally ended up with the name Otis because he's a blue agouti and we decided to name him after a blue's singer. (actually his full name is Otis "Bobblehead" Brown, most of our animals have Brown as a last name. No, I have no idea why.)

I thought he should be Stevie because he does this odd Stevie Wonder move with his head, sort of swaying it back and forth. (I have heard of pink and red-eyed rats doing that to see better, but he has black eyes so I'm not sure why he does it). Otis seemed to be the first name of several well-known blue's singers and then I had a dream conversation where someone said the name should be Otis. Maybe my subconscious was sick of thinking up new names. Anyway, that clinched it.

Otis is an interesting little guy. He is very sweet and very playful. He is the one who loves to hand-wrestle the most. Sometimes he will do little, gentle play nips and then run away like crazy and then run back for more wrestling. He loves to be scritched and will scrunch up his eyes and hold very still.

Labels: pics

Bunnyman got his wierd name because he is a weird rat and he has weird rat parents. I wanted a name that captured his sweetness and his craziness and he has these unusually big back feet and hops around like a bunny rabbit when he plays so I thought "Bunny".

John (my SO) said "nope...sounds like a girl's name, that won't work". He was thinking names like "Chopper" and "Spike" because he said that B-man looked like he came from the wrong side of the tracks with his wacky hair and sort of manly burliness.

"Well, what could we add to Bunny to make it sound more manly?" I asked.

Bunnyman.

I laughed so hard, but you know, in some wierd way it fit and so it is.

Labels: pics