#oneaday Day 145: The love of a good cat

Apologies for last night’s bleakness. Not entirely sure what came over me. I think it was just the fact I turned the TV on to watch something while I was having something to eat and I was immediately confronted by a “Dell AI” advert that… didn’t advertise anything whatsoever. But anyway. That was then, and this is now, and now I am back from my overnight stay and monthly visit to the office, and I have been welcomed home by my wife and cats.

My wife is jealous of how much our cats love me. And not just our current two; I was clearly favoured by both Ruby and Meg also. I haven’t particularly done anything special to make any of them favour me in particular, but I can confirm that both Oliver and Patti have been all over me ever since I returned home.

And it’s nice. There is something wonderful about the completely (well, mostly) unconditional love you feel from an animal. Both Oliver and Patti simply like being with me. We don’t have to be doing anything “together”; they both just like to be in the same room as me, knowing that I’m nearby, and that if they feel like jumping on me to harass me for some attention and/or treats, I’m right there, nice and convenient.

I’d always known that having a cat around was a genuine joy. I grew up with two of the most wonderful cats you ever could imagine, for starters, and I still miss them both dearly. I have doubtless told this story many times before, but our first cat Penny was very much my “nursemaid” when I was very little, and as I grew up I felt very close to her.

After Penny passed on peacefully one night, it wasn’t long before my family decided that we didn’t want to be without a cat, and so Kitty (we didn’t name her) joined us. She was a wonderful bundle of joy who loved nothing more than jumping into your lap and lying down, regardless of if you were trying to do anything. Sadly she left us, well before her time, after an accident in the road outside our house.

I still think of both Penny and Kitty, and love them both dearly.

And having pets of my own has brought me immeasurable amounts of joy. I consider myself incredibly fortunate to have been blessed with such wonderful pets consistently — though the fact that every pet I have had has turned out to be such a wonderful companion makes me wonder if the way you nurture them as their carer has as much impact on their overall personality as their general nature. If so, that hopefully says something positive about me.

The only thing I wish is that I’d explored the possibility of having my own pets sooner in my adult life than I did; right from when Andie and I first adopted a pair of rats because we thought it might be fun up until the fussy little mogs who are currently adorning various surfaces in my living room, pet ownership has been a wonderful thing.

There are challenges, of course, and it is sad when you have to say goodbye to a beloved pet. But the possibility of those sad times in the future should never take away from the amount of joy pets can bring you. And, as with Penny and Kitty, the pets we have lost over the years are still with me in their own way, too. Willow, Lara, Lucy, Socks, Clover, Ruby, Meg… I will never forget any of them.

Pets are wonderful companions, excellent listeners and never judge you. And now, I cannot imagine ever being without them.

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#oneaday Day 40: The Cat’s Routine

One of our cats, Patti, is very set in her ways, to a degree that I don’t think I’ve seen in any other cat. She has Her Routine, and we must adhere to Her Routine, otherwise she gets very shouty at us.

The Routine begins anywhere between 5am and 8am with her telling me (not my wife) to wake up. This is accomplished through a combination of standing on me, yelling at me and tapping me with her paw, inevitably with just enough claw extended to make it slightly painful, and inevitably somewhere that you really don’t want a claw, such as my eyelid or lip.

Once I am up, she will continue to yell at me until I go downstairs and put some biscuits in her bowl, which she may or may not deign to eat. Around this time, I must also provide Oliver, the other cat, with some wet food, because he likes wet food and is a growing boy. (Patti should not have wet food, because she tends to throw it up almost immediately. She often ends up eating Oliver’s leftovers, which is usually fine for her apparently delicate digestion to cope with.)

After this breakfast routine is done with, she will almost certainly disappear somewhere in the house for a significant portion of the day. It might be on the windowsill in our bedroom, it might be behind my desk in my study, it might be under my chair in my study, it might be on “her” stool in the spare bedroom. We do not know what she is up to during these hours, but we have determined that if she does not wish to be found, she will not be found. On more than one occasion this has caused a mild panic.

At some point during the day, she will emerge from wherever she was hiding and start hassling me at my desk. This usually takes the form of sitting between my legs and occasionally clawing my knees and thighs. To date, I have not determined what, if anything, she actually wants when this part of The Routine is unfolding. Sometimes she wants a refill of her glass of water — oh yes, both cats refuse to drink out of their water bowls and instead prefer to have a glass left for them: one in the living room, one on the upstairs landing — and sometimes she wants attention. Sometimes I swear she’s just doing it to be annoying.

At some point between 10pm and 11pm, she will decide that it is time for bed. If we are in the hallway, she will attempt to lead us up the stairs. If we are not making any movements that look like they might conclude in the bedroom, she will hassle me (not my wife) repeatedly until I comply with The Routine.

Once in the bedroom, she will sit in Patti Spot on the corner of the bed, usually getting slightly in the way but not enough for me to want to move her, and sleep there for most of the night. Sometimes she will disappear for a while during the night — often to go and eat — but she is usually there in the morning, ready for The Routine to begin anew.

As set in her ways as she is, I could probably learn something from her. And, given that she’s in the “yelling at me to go to bed” stage, that’s probably what I should go and do.

Attempting to process some bad news

You’ll hopefully indulge me for a while, as we had some devastating news today: our beloved cat Meg appears to have liver cancer, and there’s nothing we or the vet are able to do about it aside from attempt to make her feel comfortable and loved for the immediate future.

Meg is just shy of 12 years of age, and neither Andie nor I are ready to say goodbye to her. She’s been such an important part of our lives for so long at this point that I’ve been hit very hard by the sorrow of knowing that our time together is coming to an end. I won’t speak for Andie, because she doubtless has her own feelings on the matter, but I can at least talk through how I’m feeling in an attempt to process the situation.

A bit of background for those curious: we’ve had Meg since she was about 2 or 3 years old. She was a rescue cat, but she and her companion Ruby hadn’t been mistreated or anything like that; they’d simply been put up for adoption because someone in their former home turned out to be allergic to cats. We fell in love with both of them almost immediately, and they joined our family in 2016.

Ruby, sadly, had an accident in 2018 and left us well before her time, and Meg was clearly hit hard by the situation; she was clearly pining for the company of another cat. We suspect (though we’ve never known for sure) that Ruby may have been her kitten, which made the situation doubly sad. But we decided quickly to adopt another cat, both because we enjoyed having two cats around and we didn’t want Meg to be sad. And so Patti, a nervous little black cat who had something of a troubled start to her life from the sound of things, joined us.

The relationship between the pair was initially somewhat cautious. Despite being a complete scaredy-cat (no pun intended), Patti had a habit of launching herself towards Meg at high velocity when she first arrived, making Meg a little uneasy about her. Over time, they came to tolerate one another, though, and while I know Meg would never admit it, I’m pretty sure they even came to like one another.

We knew something was wrong with Meg a few months back when we noticed she was looking obviously skinnier than she had ever done, and, taking her to the vet, it seemed that she had indeed lost rather a lot of weight. She had a blood test that came back without any real indication that anything was wrong, ruling out common causes of sudden weight loss such as hyperthyroidism and diabetes, but we were still a little concerned.

It took a couple more appointments, including today’s, where she was put under general anaesthetic and examined thoroughly, to discover what was actually wrong with her. And now we’re kind of at a loss. We don’t want to lose Meg, but we also don’t want her to suffer.

At present, she’s actually doing reasonably well considering the circumstances, but she hasn’t been eating as much as she has done in the past, which accounts for the weight loss. And, realistically, things are not going to get any better from here. But we’re not ready to say goodbye just yet, so we’ve got some medicine to hopefully make her feel a bit better for now, and we’ll have to see what happens from there.

I don’t know if I want to say that death scares me, because I’m not sure that it’s death itself that scares me. It’s more the knowledge that I do not handle grief well at all, and the difficulty I have in picturing a life without someone or something that has been such a major fixture in it for so long.

Meg is such a precious, loved part of our family that even contemplating moving forward without her is enough to bring tears to my eyes. And the prospect of telling someone else “yes, it’s time for her to die,” as you regrettably often have to do with pets, is near-inconceivable. I don’t know if I can do it. But it’s also not fair to lumber Andie with everything.

Part of my brain knows, rationally, that all lives come to an end, and often a lot sooner than we would like, particularly when animals are concerned. That same part of my brain knows that it is the right thing to do to just let her go when simply existing is too difficult or painful for her. But another part of my brain says “what right do I have to decide that for her?”

I think part of why I have so much difficulty dealing with and processing this sort of thing is that there are no answers. There is no “right way” to handle it. There is no person you can go to for help and get everything resolved neatly and without pain. There is just that period of grief, pain and sadness awaiting, and I unfortunately know from past experience that when you’re in the middle of it, it sometimes doesn’t feel like you’ll ever be able to break out again.

This is what scares me. I know that I will be completely devastated with grief for quite some time when it is finally Meg’s time to pass on. And I can’t help but worry about how I will cope when something even worse happens in the future. Because I know it will, one day. Hopefully not for a good long while yet, but it will.

The things I’m feeling are not, I suspect, unique to me by any means. But it’s difficult to talk about them, which means it’s difficult to find a suitable outlet to express and process the storm of emotions that situations like this bring to one’s mind. I have been in floods of tears off and on all day, and I don’t know what else I can do. Because there probably isn’t anything else I can do.

Writing those feelings down is as good a solution as any for now, then, I guess. At least then I can look back on them after the fact and perhaps learn something from them — and hopefully those close to me will also have a better understanding about how I’m feeling and why I’m struggling.

In the meantime, Meg is now home and doing as well as can be expected. She’s just had something to eat, as she hasn’t had anything since last night, and I’m sure she just wants to get some rest now. She will be loved for however much time we have left together, and anything beyond that we’ll just have to deal with as it happens.

2510: Cats

I haven’t talked much about our two cats since we got them a while back, so as a break from all the Final Fantasy XV (it’s pretty much all I’ve done today to enjoy a much-needed day off) I may as well talk about them a bit.

Our cats Ruby and Meg very obviously had established personalities when we first got them. Initially we were led to believe by the people at the animal shelter that Meg, the slightly older one (and possibly the mother of Ruby, we’re not sure) was shy and hesitant to trust, but she’s emphatically proven that to not be the case since she’s settled in. Now she’s the most vocal of the two of them, making it abundantly clear when it is dinner time, but I also think of her as the more “mature” one of the two, since when she comes for some fuss she sits down and just chills out, perhaps even dozes off. That said, she does have a tendency to dribble if she’s particularly happy, which I wish she wouldn’t.

Ruby, meanwhile, is a very active cat. She likes to come and bug you for fuss, and if you provide fuss, then she won’t sit still. She likes to demonstrate her enthusiasm for fuss by walking back and forth over you with no regard for your personal space or anything you happen to be doing at the time. Heaven forbid you have a controller or phone in your hand at the time, because if you do and Ruby wants fuss, the thing in your hand is getting headbutted until you pay attention to her.

Ruby also has a thing about licking people, which was initially weird but is something we’ve just learned to sort of tune out. Of course, to a visitor, getting licked by a cat would probably still be weird, but it’s just what she does. I can’t quite work out why she does it, whether it’s an attempt to wash us or just because something on our hands tastes good, but, well, it seems to be a habit that is already in place and, since it’s not doing anyone any harm, I’m certainly not going to try and train her out of it.

I’m grateful for the cats’ company, because they seem to appreciate us being around. I really enjoyed having the rats to sit and watch and talk to while they were still alive, and I get the same feeling from the cats. The difference is that the cats are a bit more communicative than the rats were (though all our rats were most certainly very much aware of us and knew how to look cute in order to extract treats from us) and a lot more independent. The latter aspect in particular makes it all the more pleasing when they choose to come and spend time with us; they want our company and enjoy our company, and that’s a nice feeling, even if they sometimes decide to express that at inconvenient times.

Pets are great. I loved having a cat growing up and I missed having animal companions in the years since leaving home before we finally tried our hand at keeping rats and eventually our long-awaited cats. Ruby and Meg will hopefully be with us for many years to come just yet; they’re very much part of the “family” now and it’s getting hard to imagine how our previous life was without them.

2379: Two Cats

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After the sad departure of Clover a little while back, it wasn’t long before Andie and I decided that it was far too quiet in the house without a pet around. It was surprising quite how much “presence” Clover and her predecessors had had in the house, and indeed it felt rather empty without her.

So it was that we headed off to the Stubbington Ark, a local RSPCA-run animal shelter, where we went “just for a look” at the cats they had up for adoption.

Naturally, we immediately found not one but two cats that we wanted to take home with us, and so we decided to set things in motion sooner rather than later. A couple of days later, a representative from the RSPCA was sniffing around our house to make sure we weren’t some sort of cat-killing psychopaths, and thankfully we got the all-clear; then yesterday, we got to pick up our new friends and listen to them howling at us from inside the cat carrier while we drove them home.

This is Ruby:

ruby

And this is Meg, which we’ve decided is actually short for Megatron. (If we were able to name our own cats, we were going to call them Patrick Stewart and Megatron, but Ruby and Meg both already had names, so Meg will just have to deal with being an effeminate Megatron on occasion.)

meg

They’ve both settled in very well, very quickly. The spare room is now “their” room, so far as they’re concerned, and they’re already finding the best places to sit and be in the way as much as possible.

We also had the inevitable “new pet scare” on the very first day we had them; Meg managed to jump out of a window that was only open a crack, and went for a little explore outside. Thankfully, she came back of her own accord after a few minutes, and we’re now sweltering in a house with no open windows while they get fully accustomed to their new home. It’s a rite of passage with every new pet that something like that has to happen, it seems; when we got Lucy rat she decided to pretend to be dead ten minutes after we got her home, which was mildly upsetting (though in retrospect it was probably to try and get Lara off her back, because Lara was fussing over her to a ridiculous degree); and pretty much all of the other rats managed to escape their cage quite early in their time with us and hide under various items of furniture.

So yes. We now have cats. Friendly cats. If you visit us, be prepared for that!

2369: Farewell to Clover, Last of the Rats

Hi Clover. You left us today, and that made me very sad. I’m sure it made you sad, too, but we both knew that it was time for you to go. I actually thought you were going to leave us yesterday, as you looked tired and miserable, but you hung on until today, because you’d always been a stubborn little thing. I’d like to think you clung on to life for a bit longer because you didn’t want to leave us, either — as the last of our rats, you’d be leaving us alone — but I guess I’ll never know how you really felt.

I can tell you how we felt, though, and how I felt. We loved you very much, and you will be sorely missed. Night-time won’t be the same without the sound of you scuffling around in your cage in the dark and eating things in the crunchiest way possible while we’re trying to sleep. And I’ll miss the way you’d always come up to the door of the cage when we came to see you — not just because we’d usually give you a treat, but because you liked our company, too.

I won’t speak for Andie, as I’m sure she has her own things she wants to say to you in private, but I’ll tell you how I felt. I’ll tell you a secret, in fact; out of the five rats we’ve had over the last few years, I loved each and every one of you to absolute pieces, but you were — don’t tell the others — my favourite. I fell in love with you the moment I saw you in the pet shop. You were patterned a bit like your predecessor Lara, who had passed away and left her cagemate Lucy all alone, but you had an adorable scruffiness to your fur; I could never quite tell if you were actually scruffy or if it was just that you had slightly longer, fluffier fur than other rats.

Whatever the reason, I knew I wanted you to be our friend, along with your friend Socks, whose own unique adorable feature was the fact her shiny grey-brown coat had an enticingly fluffy white bit on her belly. And while, like all rats, it took you a while to get out of that initial stage of seeming absolute terror at everything, you quickly became friendly, getting on well both with us and with Lucy, by now an old lady rat who had clearly been pining for some company ever since Lara left us.

Out of you and Socks, I could never quite tell if you were “the smart one” or not. Socks always seemed to get up to more mischief than you, but I’m pretty sure you did your own scheming on the sly when we weren’t looking. You certainly knew how to give us an irresistible, pleading look that would almost always result in you getting a treat of some description, but I like to think you thought of others too. You were always there for me when I needed you, and when I wanted to talk — when things were going badly, when I felt all alone, or when it was the middle of the night and I just couldn’t get to sleep — you’d always come and listen, never judging, never answering back (and, I choose to believe, not just because you couldn’t) and always making me feel better.

I’m sorry life became such hard work for you towards the end, but I’m grateful that you hung on for us as long as you did. You were well over two and a half years old when you left us, which is super-old in rat terms, and I’d like to think that you stuck around as long as you did, despite your declining health, because you knew how much you were loved, both by Andie and by me.

I’ll miss you, Clover, just as I miss Socks, Lucy, Lara and Willow every day. I love you all very much and I hope that wherever you go after you leave us, you have a happy time, free of fear and adversity, full of treats and bursting with eternal joy.

Goodbye, Clover. And thank you for being such a special part of my life. I’ll never forget you.

2120: Farewell to Socks

Hello, Socks.

You can’t read this, because you can’t read. And because you’re a rat. And because, saddest of all, we lost you today after your battle with illness. But I wanted to write this for you anyway. Perhaps someone wherever you’ve gone has my site bookmarked and can read you this post, or perhaps they can just feed you bits of poppadom as you try and figure out, once and for all, whether or not it’s possible to get to the top of the wheel.

We brought you into our lives to keep Lucy company. Lucy was older than you, but she was very lonely after her friend Lara passed away peacefully, so we decided to get her some friends. That was you and Clover. You were both so tiny, but both of you captured our hearts right away; you because of your sleek, grey-brown coat, and Clover because of her endearingly scrappy-looking, extra-fluffy fur. We brought you home, and while we were worried about how Lucy would react to some unfamiliar new friends, as elderly as she was getting, it wasn’t long before our minds were at rest and she was fussing over the pair of you. Where Lara had once been the one to fuss over Lucy — who always seemed “younger” than Lara, despite being a similar age — now Lucy was the one fussing over the pair of you.

You were both very jumpy when we were first getting to know you. You seemed to feel safer when Lucy was around, though; the three of you would even come and wander around on the bed if we let you. Clover built up a bit more confidence than you; you were always the scaredy-rat, starting at any noises slightly louder than “silent” and being a bit more hesitant to come and be sociable.

You came around, though, partly with a bit of help from the treats we liked to spoil you with, and both you and Clover started to take on your own distinct personalities — and we grew to love you both as much as we loved Lara and Lucy (and, for the short period we knew her, Willow). Clover was more adventurous and sociable, and quite possibly — forgive me — the brighter of the two of you, though both of you quickly came to recognise things like the sound of a treat bag being rustled, or a piece of lettuce being pushed through the bars of the cage for you to find and enjoy.

You were the active one, though; you loved running on the wheel, even when you were a little bit too big for it and its curvature made you have to bend at some funny angles while you were running. You’re a rat, though, and thus made of rubber, so it never seemed to be much of an issue for you. It’s because you were so active and energetic that it was so sad to see your decline, though; we’d become accustomed to you charging around the cage, climbing into every nook and cranny just to see if there was anything interesting there today. To see you suffering with a wheeze that made it look painful to breathe, let alone eat or do anything more strenuous than move a few feet around every half an hour, was heartbreaking. We really felt for you, and we know that you didn’t like it when we grabbed you and gave you medicine, but I think you knew that it was for the best; the last time I gave you some, you barely struggled at all, and it all went in your mouth rather than over our bedsheets and clothes.

We hope you know that we loved you very much, and that we were very sad to see you suffering. We didn’t want to have to say goodbye to you, and we did everything we could to try and make you better, but every night before I went to sleep I worried — or perhaps hoped? — that I’d wake up in the morning and you’d have found some peaceful rest with no more suffering. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you turned out to be a stubborn little fighter, though; even though there wasn’t much you could do towards the end, you kept on hanging in there, having a little nibble at some food when you could, indulging in your favourite pastime of draping yourself over Clover’s sleeping figure when you just wanted to warm up a bit, propping yourself up against the side of the cage to help yourself breathe a little easier.

Clover loved you very much, too. The two of you were very much a pair, and it’s hard to contemplate a future where Clover’s by herself without you by her side. But that’s what we’re facing now. We will miss you very much, and Clover will too; she’s been very tired for a few days, because it’s plain to see that she’s been fussing over you and wishing she could do more to take care of you, just like we were. I hope she understands that it was time to say goodbye, and that wherever you are now, you’re happier and more comfortable than you would have been wheezing in that cage. One day you’ll be reunited; we hope it won’t be too soon, because we love Clover a great deal, too — and, because, God’s honest truth, it was impossible to pick a “favourite” out of the two of you — but when that time comes, I like to think that you’ll be together again, free to do as you please, like munching your way through a massive poppadom without any sort of consequences.

We love you, Socks, and though you can’t see the tears we’ve shed today — and doubtless will continue to shed for a little while yet — we hope you know how much you meant to us. You were part of our lives for far too short a time, but in that time you were part of our family.

We’ll miss you. Sleep well.

1600: Clover and Socks

As some of you will remember, we got a couple of new(er) rats a while back, initially to give Lucy Rat some company after her cagemate Lara died, and then to keep each other company when Lucy passed away not all that long afterwards.

It’s been interesting to get to know Clover and Socks since we’ve had them, as they have markedly different personalities to Lara and Lucy. While Lara was a lazy rat who enjoyed attention and Lucy was an energetic psychopath who also enjoyed attention, both Clover and Socks are much more reserved. Scared is perhaps the word, although it seems to be the strangest things that set them off — certain noises and certain sudden movements will send them bolting for the nearest piece of shelter, but with other things they’re absolutely fine.

I’m not sure if they’re actually proving more difficult to “socialise” than Lara and Lucy were, because in retrospect it was relatively late into both of their respective lives that they started coming out of the cage of their own volition, exploring, responding to stimuli and, indeed, doing absolutely anything for a prawn cracker or piece of lettuce. Socks and Clover, meanwhile, are both willing to come out and explore a bit — Sock in particular likes climbing up on top of the cage where she has a Lego house in which she can hide — but they’re not yet willing to be picked up or petted with any reliability. It’s a shame, but hopefully they’ll come around eventually.

They do both have very distinct personalities that they exhibit when they’re not running for shelter, however. Socks is curious, cheeky and keen to run around — both of them will run on the wheel we originally got for Lara and Lucy, but Socks does it with far more regularity — while Clover is a little more timid and careful about what she does for the most part. I say “for the most part” because there are times when she’ll skitter around the cage, dig a big hole for no apparent reason and then look out as if to say “…what?”

Rats are very interesting pets to have and, despite the fact they have a slight tendency to keep antisocial hours — Socks and Clover both tend to get up and be most active when Andie and I are going to bed — they’re good company. They’re not the same kind of pet as a dog or cat, of course — while those animals will happily wander around and come and see you when they damn well feel like it (although most dogs, in my experience, are attention whores even more than cats are), rats are a pet you have to actively engage with due to the fact that they’re — in most cases, anyway — not free to just roam around your house at will.

It’s kind of a shame that they’re not in some ways, as it’s fun to see them wandering around on the floor. And it was some “out of cage” time that gave me the fondest memory I think I have of Lara in particular: it was back when we lived in Chippenham, and we’d let them out for some reason — I forget exactly why, perhaps to clean them — and I was upstairs doing something on the computer. Suddenly, I felt something on my feet. Thinking it was just an itch or perhaps a fly or something, I moved my foot, but then looked down only to see Lara trundling around on the floor of my study; she’d climbed all the stairs in our Chippenham house — which must be like ascending a mountain for a rat — and come to see me, presumably by following my scent.

I miss Lara and Lucy, particularly as Socks and Clover are yet to come out of their shells enough to interact with us a great deal. But I’m sure we’ll become friends eventually, and then I’m sure we’ll have some fun, silly stories with them, too.

1505: Farewell to Lucy Rat

We had to say goodbye to the late Lara rat’s former cagemate Lucy today.

She’d always suffered to a certain degree with respiratory issues — she was a very sneezy, snuffly rat — but she had never let things get on top of her, and had always been full of energy and life. Even well after she was out of her “childhood”, I continued to think of her as “the childish one”; “the silly one” while Lara was “the mature one”.

This is silly of course, since they were both rats and both consequently prone to acting like little furry psychopaths at a moment’s provocation, but still I couldn’t escape the personalities that I’d ascribed to them.

We first got Lucy shortly after Lara’s first cagemate Willow died very young. We didn’t know much about keeping rats at that time — still don’t, probably — but it was abundantly clear very quickly why people said that rats were sociable creatures, and that you should keep them at the very least as a pair. Lara was very lonely after Willow died, losing nearly all of her energy and spending most of her time just sitting in the plastic “house” we hung from the cage’s ceiling, staring out at us. It was heartbreaking, so it wasn’t that long before Andie came home with another little box from the pet store, and Lara had herself a new cagemate.

Lucy was incredibly shy when we first got her. She spent her first few days in the cage attempting to hide in the corner, burying her head in the bedding on the floor. This didn’t stop Lara fussing around her, though; we were worried that the two might not get along, since they weren’t from the same group, family or whatever, but it turned out it was the opposite that was the case — Lara cared for her a little too much if anything. Eventually, we put Lucy in a carrying box but still inside the cage so she could have a little peace from her doting cagemate — Lara, meanwhile, became adorably frantic with worry, trying desperately to get into the box and to her new friend.

Over time, Lucy came out of her shell — though not before she gave us a scare one day by playing dead very convincingly — and started to take on the cheeky personality we came to know her as. She’d harass Lara, occasionally giving her a playful nip on the ear or getting in her way when she was trundling around the floor, but it was clear the two of them cared for each other very much. When Lara hurt her leg and was limping for a day or two, Lucy laid off her a bit and instead stayed with her, huddling around her for warmth and looking to all intents and purposes like a little furry nursemaid. As soon as Lara was back on her feet, however, it was business as usual once again.

When Lara died, we saw Lucy start to behave in much the same way as Lara did when Willow died. She became uncharacteristically lethargic, retreating into the hiding places in the cage and not coming out unless we specifically poked her. We tried to give her as much love as we could, but it was clear that while she appreciated our attention, it was the companionship of her own kind that she was looking for.

So it was that we came into ownership of Socks and Clover, two much younger rats. Again, we were a little worried that Lucy might not take to them, but they became friends very quickly. Socks in particular took to following Lucy around and copying her; it was very cute indeed.

A few times in the last couple of months, Lucy had become very wheezy and was obviously having trouble breathing. It worried us each time we saw it, but it usually passed in an hour or two and was normally a sign that she’d simply been overexerting herself — she wasn’t as young as she used to be. Last night, she had an episode that worried me; with good reason, since she was still puffing and wheezing today, and clearly didn’t have a lot of energy at all. We took her to the vets — tell them your pet is having breathing problems and they tend to magically have a same-day appointment available, it seems — and sadly we came to the conclusion that Lucy was in pain, miserable and unlikely to get better, even with treatment.

And so we said our goodbyes and put her to sleep. It is very sad, as always — both Andie and I have had several good cries over our dear departed little furry friend — but it’s better that she’s released from her suffering rather than being forced to live on in obvious pain and discomfort. Besides, now wherever she is, she can catch up with Lara and get back to biting her ears for all eternity. Won’t that be nice, Lara?

Lucy now joins Lara buried in the small patch of garden behind our building. In a way, I’m glad they got the chance to be together, but it’s still sad we had to say goodbye to her the way we did. As cute and friendly and curious as rats are — they’re wonderful pets; I would have never considered them before we got Lara and Willow, but now I’m a total “convert” as it were — their time on this Earth is tragically short, and so before long you find yourself having to say goodbye to them.

Goodbye, Lucy. Andie and I will treasure the happy memories you gave us, and we hope you’re in a happy place now. Say hello to Lara for us, and we hope we brought you as much joy as you brought us.

1472: New Friends

After Lara died, Lucy rat was very lonely. She seemed reasonably all right for a few days, but took a turn for the worse over the next couple. She’d spend most of the day hiding in her box and not being very sociable — she’d come out for a bit if you made a fuss of her, but before long she’d go back into hiding.

It’s strange and fascinating to see, in a morbid sort of way. Watch an animal who is suddenly left all alone after having become accustomed to the company of another, and it’s very clear that they do “feel” things — whether that’s true “emotions” as we know them or simply more of a survival instinct “oh shit, I’m not as safe as I was before” isn’t entirely clear, but they definitely feel something.

And it was heartbreaking to see in Lucy rat’s case. She was normally such an energetic, silly little thing, so to see her so lethargic and unenthusiastic about everything was difficult to deal with. And so, after confirming via a bit of online research that yes, rats really do prefer to live with others of their own kind, we went to the pet store and picked up a couple of young playmates for Lucy. (We got two because, practically speaking, Lucy is getting older, too, and we didn’t want a new playmate to be left in the same situation when Lucy does eventually leave us.)

They’re a lot younger than her — they’re literally half her size — but so far they appear to have been getting on well with one another. One in particular has been following Lucy around, snuggling up with her in the little hideaway and generally being very friendly. The other doesn’t appear to object to the presence of either Lucy or her young friend — whom she previously lived with in the pet store, so was at least accustomed to the presence of — but is still very shy, preferring to sit very still in the corner and hope no-one notices her.

The two of them are very distinct both from one another and from Lara and Lucy. Lucy is all white with a few light grey splotches here and there, while Lara was mostly white with a dark grey head and grey patterning on her back. Socks, as one of the newcomers has been christened, is all dark grey except for her belly, which has a white stripe down it. Clover, as the other one has become known, has more of a splotchy pattern all over her, plus a noticeably more fluffy, slightly messy-looking coat.

It’s very early days for us to get to know them yet, but they’re very cute and Lucy seemed immediately happier as soon as she had some company. It’s always a slightly nailbiting moment when you introduce new rats to one another, especially when one has been living somewhere for a while. We had the same moment after Willow died and we got Lucy to keep Lara company — Lucy spent her first few days hiding in the corner and, on one memorably terrifying occasion, even decided to “play dead” worryingly convincingly for a while. Before long, though, the two of them at least appeared to be friends with one another, even if Lucy was always a cheeky little shit towards Lara.

I’m looking forward to seeing how the three of them get along with one another, and I’m sure there will be further updates as they start to come out of their shells a bit.