1466: Lara Laid to Rest

A day I had a feeling that was coming, but didn’t want to think about happened today: our pet rat Lara passed away, from the looks of things during the night or the early hours. We came into the lounge for breakfast and she was just lying there, sleeping peacefully underneath the little log cabin in her cage. She didn’t look as if she had suffered; she had just obviously thought it was time to pass on, so fell asleep and didn’t wake up.

While I had maybe been expecting and worrying about this for a lot longer than was strictly necessary — she was a pretty old lady, as rats go, and she’d obviously been developing a few health problems over time — that doesn’t stop it being any less upsetting and sad to see it come to pass, however peacefully she passed away.

Lara was part of our family. She was not only the first pet I’ve ever owned myself — along with her cagemate Willow, who was taken from us well before her time — but an important part of the home Andie and I have built for ourselves. She was a presence I had grown accustomed to; I enjoyed seeing her face peeking out of a Pop-Tarts box — she loved hiding in boxes — and to see how she’d scurry frantically to the cage door at the prospect of treats. Especially yogurt. She loved yogurt.

She had her own distinct personality that developed over time. We initially called her Lara because in the original pairing of her and Willow, she was the one who came out of her box first and started exploring the cage, climbing all around it like the Tomb Raider heroine. (Willow, conversely, was shy and meek, much like her namesake in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.) As she grew older, she became a little chubby and discovered the concept of “comfort”. We’d put a hammock with a furry lining in the cage and she’d often be found reclining in there; we gave her some pieces of an old towel, and she’d always find wherever she thought was the best possible place to put them, then sit and relax on them as her newer, slightly younger cagemate Lucy would buzz around her excitedly.

Seeing Lucy today is making me feel a bit sad. As I type this, I can see her climbing around the cage, sneezing and inxeplicably digging in the food bowl as she always does, but she seems to be a little down from her usual energy levels. I couldn’t tell you for sure whether or not rats actually “feel” anything emotionally, but my gut tells me that Lucy is lonely, and that she misses Lara; she has spent much of the day tucked up in the Pop-Tarts box her cagemate loved so, and would only come out with a bit of encouragement. I certainly know that Lara felt very attached to Lucy: any time we’d take Lucy out of the cage for whatever reason — to take her to the vets, for example — Lara would panic and begin frantically searching around for her uncharacteristically energetically, so I can’t help but feel Lucy probably feels something similar. Only for her, Lara isn’t coming back. I feel sorry for the poor little thing, so I have little doubt she’s probably going to get quite spoiled over the next few days.

This is always the saddest, worst part of owning pets. They offer such warmth, happiness and companionship when they’re alive that it’s difficult not to feel like a member of your family has passed on when their time is eventually up. I still find death quite difficult to deal with, to be honest, though I don’t think that’s necessarily a particularly bad trait to have in the grand scheme of things.

So it was that we said goodbye to Lara earlier. Living in a third-floor flat, we don’t have a garden of our own, but fortunately the border of our building’s car park has some soily flower beds. We laid her to rest in a fresh Pop-Tarts box, dug her a grave and planted some flowers above her.

I hope that wherever she’s going next that she is happy, and that she thinks back fondly on the time she spent with us, and with Lucy.

Goodbye, Lara. We love you.

1137: Animal Magic

I could sit and watch animals for hours, and have done on numerous occasions in the past. It can be pretty much any animal, too, so long as it’s not a scary one like a big hairy spider or a snake that could kill you or a shark with frickin’ lasers on its head. The majority of my animal-watching over the years has been taken up by the observation of cats (both live when I was younger — including one memorable occasion when I was hanging out with my friend Woody, we both got absolutely munted and found my family’s cat inexplicably hilarious — and more recently on the Internet courtesy of Maru) but I also often find myself oddly enraptured by a friend’s tortoise any time I go to visit and have an idle moment (seeing him munching nonchalantly on lettuce is oddly hilarious — the tortoise, not my friend, obviously). Most recently, though, I find myself spending an altogether healthy, reasonable and perfectly normal amount of time staring at our pet rats Lara and Lucy and have absolutely never got up in the middle of the night if I can’t sleep purely to go and see them.

It’s been oddly fascinating to watch their behaviour change over time, because both of them have absolutely developed their own personalities. Lara always used to be the dominant one over her original cagemate Willow (who sadly died a few months after we got her) but was always a lot more confident and friendly — Willow, meanwhile, was shy and nervous, and prone to biting if she felt threatened, which was quite often. She got out of the cage on one occasion and it was an absolute nightmare to get her back in, as she was too terrified to realise that we just wanted to help her get back home. (We did, eventually.)

After Willow died, Lara very obviously became very sad. She was much less energetic than she used to be, and spent a lot of time just sitting in her “saucer section” house that hung from the roof of the cage staring out rather pathetically. It was heartbreaking to see, so it wasn’t long before we decided to get her a new playmate. We introduced the two of them to each other on “neutral ground” (the bathtub, where they couldn’t escape and skitter off), they had a good sniff around each other and a bit of a poo, then both cooperated when we put them in their little carry box and subsequently back into the cage.

Lucy, who is a fair bit younger than Lara and consequently much smaller, seemed to have a difficult time adjusting to her new home initially, as Lara spent a lot of time fussing around her and seemingly frightening her. On one terrifying occasion, we found Lucy lying on her back completely motionless and were worried that she had suddenly died. Fortunately, we discovered a couple of minutes later that it was just a “submission” thing — it was her way of accepting Lara as the queen of the cage. She spent a few days cowering in the corner and not wanting to come out, and gradually built up her confidence. On one evening we put her in her carry box but in the cage so that Lara could get used to her scent without harassing her, and Lara got in an absolute panic, frantically scrabbling around and trying to get into the box because she thought she’d lost her new playmate. They were both fine the next day.

Fast forward to today, a number of months later — I forget how many exactly — and the two have settled into a healthy dynamic. Lara, as the older one, is for the most part a little more “careful” about what she does — though not always — while Lucy is clearly the “annoying younger sister”, regularly sniffing around Lara and occasionally… well, all right, fairly regularly giving her a playful nip in an attempt to kick off a play-fight which she’ll inevitably lose in a flurry of rolling around and screeching. (Rats can be very loud if they want to be, surprisingly — though it’s mainly Lucy who makes all the noise, as Lara doesn’t seem to squeak much at all.)

Lucy has also become the adventurous one — if we open up the cage, she’s always the first one to come out, start exploring and want some fuss from us. Lara will come out and demand some attention, too, and will also go off and explore, but it’s always Lucy who comes out first. She won’t stand still. Lara, meanwhile, who is bigger, older and a bit more “world-weary” now — at least, those are the personality traits I attribute to her — is much more receptive to standing still and being petted, and will even sometimes come crawling up me to sit on my shoulder if I sit in a climb-friendly position.

Lara hurt her leg the other day — she was limping around and obviously didn’t like putting weight on it, but didn’t seem to be in too much pain. She certainly wasn’t complaining, anyway, but it was clear that she wasn’t quite as mobile as usual. (It transpires that rats are fairly prone to sprains — given the regularity with which they fall off things in an extremely amusing manner, I’m surprised this is the first time either of them have done it.) She spent a lot of time just resting, occasionally coming out for water or food, but for the most part just snuggling down in a comfy, warm spot and letting herself heal naturally. (Rats heal super-quickly.) Rather than being her usual irritating little sister self, Lucy seemed to know that something was wrong with her “adoptive sister” and left Lara alone for the most part, occasionally popping in to snuggle up and keep warm with her or help her groom herself. The two were obviously communicating somehow, and it was really heartwarming to see. After a couple of days of rest, Lara was back to her old self, and the pair were back to their usual dynamic.

When I think of all that time I spent alone and depressed back in 2010, I find myself wishing that I’d discovered how joyful it is to have your own pets sooner, as it would have probably saved a large degree of my sanity around that period — if not my money, of which I didn’t really have any at the time. I mean, I always knew that having a cat around was awesome from my childhood, when our family pets Penny and Kitty were fixtures in the household, but somehow the thought of owning my own pets had never really crossed my mind. Largely because most rental properties specifically state that you’re not supposed to have pets in them, of course, but seriously, the amount of damage a tiny rat can do is significantly different from the chaos a small dog can wreak!

Anyway. Yeah. Pets are awesome. 9/10. Get one.

1082: Squeakers

Apologies for the lateness of the hour, but I’m on the Very Definitely Final Dungeon in Trails in the Sky, and it was getting rather difficult to stop playing. It was one of those times where you start playing at an eminently reasonable hour in the evening, look up and it’s suddenly nearly 2am. Oops. I will likely push on to the finale tonight, since it’s the weekend and all.

But I don’t want to talk about Trails in the Sky today. (Well, I do, but I am specifically choosing not to.) Instead I thought I’d talk a bit about our pet rats. Those who have been following for a while will remember we got Lara and Willow back in June but Willow sadly died a few months later. We left Lara on her own for a little while to see how she was, but she became much less energetic and looked very sad, so it wasn’t long before we went out to try and find her a playmate.

I was a bit worried about this, as Lara and Willow knew each other and got along very well with one another despite being polar opposites personality-wise — Lara is adventurous, curious and mostly quite gentle; Willow was nervous, jumpy and had a habit of biting. (I didn’t get bitten, but Andie assures me that a rat bite fucking hurts.) I’m not sure if they were related, but they certainly got along well. What would happen if we introduced a new, unknown rat into the mix?

We found out when we got Lucy, who was younger than Lara and thus about half her size when she first arrived. We introduced them to each other on “neutral territory” (the bathtub, in this case) and they both had a wander around and a bit of a sniff and didn’t seem to mind each other, so we put them both in the cage to see how they got on. Lucy just hid in the corner not moving for several days, with the exception being the time she terrified us by lying down on her back and pretending to be dead to stop Lara hassling her. We were worried that Lara was being too aggressive towards her, so we tried putting Lucy in a carry box for the night so she could get some rest, but put the carry box inside the cage so that Lara could get used to her scent.

Lara’s behaviour when we did that was both adorable and heartbreaking. You could see her panicking. She thought that we were taking her new friend away from her, and she was frantically scrabbling away at the box trying to get to Lucy. Lucy, meanwhile, was happily getting some rest at last. When we opened up the box in the morning, both of them were fine, and over time they got to know each other, established a pecking order and Lucy started behaving a bit more normally.

The thing that surprised me about owning rats is how much personality the pair of them have. I’ve never owned small furry creatures before, so I didn’t know much about them. (My family had cats when I was younger, and my brother has dogs and cats, but no small furry things.) But the pair of them do obviously have different attitudes and responses to things. I’m not sure how much of this is me projecting human characteristics onto them, but it certainly looks that way, anyhow. As I said above, Lara is adventurous, curious, mostly gentle, protective of Lucy and absolutely loves coming out of the cage to explore all the nooks and crannies of the room. Lucy, meanwhile, is cheeky — there’s no other word for it, really. She regularly sneaks up on Lara and tries to bite her playfully, and you can see Lara just gritting her teeth and putting up with it most times it happens, though occasionally she’ll give Lucy a slap on the nose. As Lucy has grown, she has become more confident, and will hold her own in the play-fights the two of them have now rather than losing every time. She’s also just started coming out of the cage to explore, though not quite as far afield as Lara just yet, and she’s much more talkative than Lara, who stays quiet most of the time. Lucy, meanwhile, is always squeaking (I never knew before owning rats that they squeaked like mice!) and makes a hell of a noise when the two of them are play-fighting, which made us worry a bit the first few times they did it.

Rats are great pets, then. They’re very social — they’ll get up and climb up the side of the cage to come and see you if they know you’re nearby or if you talk to them — and they’re fun and relaxing to watch. They’re amusing and entertaining once they get brave enough to step out of the cage and wander around the room, too, though they’re almost impossible to catch standing still, particularly if they’re female, as apparently female rats are much more inquisitive than the somewhat lazier males. It’s also a bugger to get them back in the cage if you’re in a hurry, but both of ours will return of their own accord when they’ve had enough “playtime”, so I assume this is fairly common behaviour.

I’m glad we got them, in short. It’s nice to have a bit of life in the house when I’m stuck here working by myself (or on evenings when Andie is elsewhere, like tonight) — it helps the place feel less “empty”. I sort of wish I’d learned this a bit sooner. 🙂

#oneaday Day 966: Rest in Peace, Willow

This is Willow. She was lovely and cute and adorable and liked to bite people a little bit too much. She was a scaredy-rat but was slowly starting to come out of her shell. The first day we got her, she just sat in her box, too petrified to move, but over time she became more and more confident and started to assert herself more. Her cagemate (and possibly sister) Lara was very much the dominant one in their relationship, but Willow very occasionally managed to come out on top — more so as she grew older, larger and more confident in herself.

Willow died this morning. I feel like we had barely had time to get to know her — we’d only had her about two months or so — before she was snatched away from us far too soon. She’d been ill for around a week — she’d been out of sorts and dirty — but we’d been told that rats were prone to this sort of thing at times, and she’d probably get over it.

Unfortunately, she didn’t. Last night, she was very shaky on her feet, but was at least walking around, unsteadily getting food and drinking water. When I came down this morning, she was lying on the floor of the cage, unable to support her own weight. I put food and water in front of her and she couldn’t summon the strength to take it. Her sister was fussing around her, trying to clean her, obviously trying to liven her up. It was heartbreaking to see. Rats can’t talk, but all I could hear in my imagination was Lara whispering “please don’t die, please don’t die.” I was saying it to myself, too.

Half an hour later, she was gone, lying peacefully on the floor of the cage in silence. I don’t know if rats feel emotions or not, but her sister looked sad, and was sitting in her little house, keeping away from the body. She looked at me with sparkling eyes and I just broke down in tears. Little Willow was gone, and poor Lara was left all alone.

I buried Willow in the garden and left Roger the squirrel, a garden ornament who had taken up temporary residence in our living room, guarding her. She’s at peace now. I hope she didn’t suffer too much.

I’ve often found the subject of death to be an interesting one to write about creatively — if you follow my “Creative Writing” category you’ll find plenty in there — but I find it a terrifying prospect to deal with in real life. Not the prospect of dying myself, mind — that doesn’t occur to me — but the prospect of having to deal with bereavement. Today was a potent reminder that I have had to deal with relatively little tragedy in my life compared to some people — but at the same time, a lack of experience in dealing with death makes it all the more difficult to know how to respond when it does happen.

You may feel that a little rat is not worth mourning or grieving over — particularly when we had so little time together in the grand scheme of things — but I get very attached to pets, regardless of size and species. It is perfectly normal and healthy to mourn the loss of someone or something that has been a “fixture” in your life, something you came to expect to see every day, which is why I feel great sorrow at Willow’s passing.

Rest in piece, little rat. We loved you dearly and hope you’re in a better, more peaceful place now. If you see Kitty wherever you are, I hope you’ll be friends.

#oneaday Day 904: Furry

We’ve had our pet rats for a little while now and they’re both starting to get a bit more confident. Willow, the shy one, has grown significantly more than her sister Lara, making it quite an amusing sight when they play-fight in the evenings.

One thing I find with all animals is that I can’t help but anthropomorphise them. They are little people to me, even though I know they can’t understand the things I’m saying and that the cute little nibbling thing they do on your finger isn’t necessarily a sign of affection — it’s more likely them determining whether or not I’m something they can eat.

This means I do silly things like talk to animals. I talk to cats. I talk to dogs. And I talk to our rats, even though they probably find those freakishly huge giants who keep dropping treats into their home utterly terrifying.

I can’t help it. I don’t know why I talk to them when I know they can’t understand me. But I do. I say their names, hoping that they’ll learn them. I hope that they’ll come when I call them. When they do do something, it’s easy to assume that it’s because I did something to encourage them. If I say their name and they jump on the side of the cage to climb up and see me, it feels like “I did that” even though it’s probably just coincidence. (I know that you can train a lot of animals to respond to their names and to come when you call them, and that rats are surprisingly intelligent little furballs, so it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that they are responding to me and coming to see what I’m doing.)

I guess this sense of attachment I feel to pets, and the assumption that they are somehow “little people” rather than “not particularly intelligent bundles of fluff”, is what makes them good companions and nice things to have around. And animals certainly do have their own personalities — our two rats have clearly defined character traits, and the two cats who have been a part of my family in the past both also acted in their own unique ways. The two cats who live next door to Andie and I now, too, are both their own “people”, though they are both united in their desire to get into our house as often as possible. (They haven’t succeeded since we got our new sofa, and are being kept well away now we have the rats, too!)

The downside of seeing pets as “little people”, of course — and I apologise for getting maudlin here — is that it makes it hard to deal with when they pass on. I recall feeling genuine grief — like, the sort of grief you feel when an actual person dies — when both our family cats died. One such outpouring of said grief can be found here, from the early days of this blog.

But let’s not focus on sad things. We have pets now, and they are great. They are becoming much more confident, too, so soon we might even be able to actually take them out of the cage, pet them and play with them. They’re still a bit too jumpy for that just yet — Andie’s had a couple of bites just from trying to pick them up — but they seem to be learning that the Big Scary Things who keep opening their cage are actually sources of Treats rather than things to be feared.

We have thus far resisted the urge to fill Facebook with rat pictures in the same way people with new babies incessantly fill Facebook with baby pictures (please don’t change your profile pic to your baby, it’s creepy) but I’m sure that will change as they get happier and more at ease with us. So you can look forward to that.

#oneaday Day 889: Rats!

We got two pet rats yesterday. We didn’t start the day intending to end it with some pets, but they were cute and we’ve been fancying having a pet for quite some time. Given that we’re renting our house (and contemplating moving at some point, too) it’s not practical to get a cat or a dog, which would have been our first choice, so something small, cute and furry that doesn’t go very far was ideal, really.

I’ve never owned my own pet before. Sure, my parents had cats for most of the time that I was living at home, so I was used to having an animal around as a child and very much loved both Penny and Kitty. But since leaving home (on both occasions) I’ve never had a pet that is “mine” (or “ours” in this case). It’s a slightly daunting prospect, if I’m honest, because getting a pet is essentially saying that you’re confident enough that you can take care of some form of small furry creature well enough that it not only doesn’t die immediately but also (hopefully) comes to love and appreciate you.

Our two rats haven’t quite got to that stage yet as they’re both very nervy and scared still, but they’re getting there. One thing that has struck me about them is how clearly-defined their personalities are. Never having owned a creature of the “small and fluffy” variety before, I never really thought about them having particular personalities. I know from experience that dogs and cats have their own distinct character traits, but I’d never really considered rats as being the same. It does, of course, make sense — every creature, whatever species it is, is different and will react to situations in different ways regardless of primal instincts. At the most complex end of the spectrum, we have humans with their various neuroses, phobias, passions and addictions. And at the other end, we have our two rats, whom it’s impossible not to assign very “human” characteristics to.

One of our rats (who has since been dubbed “Willow”) is very shy. When we first got them she sat completely motionless for a very long time just staring at us. She’s moving around a bit more now but is still startled by loud noises and doesn’t like to be watched while she eats, drinks or indeed does anything. She’s already grown in confidence, though, so she’ll be fine in no time, I’m sure.

The other rat (since dubbed “Lara”) is the complete opposite. She likes to explore. She was the first to come out of the box and wander around the cage. She was the first to find the food and the water. She was the first to start climbing around the bars on the side of the cage — and she’s really rather good at climbing, too. She seems to be the smarter of the pair, as she figured out very quickly how to get into the “hammock” they have hanging from the top of the cage, and spent a very comfortable-looking few hours in there earlier today. Willow, meanwhile, came close to figuring it out but didn’t manage to get in there, and tended to bolt if we actually picked her up and put her in there.

I’m looking forward to the two of them coming out of their shell a bit more — they’re both very young and very nervous at the moment, but I have several friends who keep rats and say they’re great pets that are very friendly. It will be interesting to see these little balls of fluff grow and change over time, both physically and in terms of personality, no doubt. For the moment, they’re very cute and fun to watch; as time goes by, I’m sure they’ll become wonderful companions and parts of the “family” (for want of a better word).

#oneaday Day 130: Cats are Awesome

I could write about the whole Brink flame war, but I already did that professionally earlier, so I won’t go over the same ground.

Instead, I thought I’d write about why cats are awesome.

This is inspired by the visit I had today from one of next door’s cats, who is the very best example I’ve ever seen of a curious cat. She came in, demanded a bit of attention (which she got, as I have a genetic condition which means I cannot walk past any cat without at least attempting to pet it) and then proceeded to explore the house. She started upstairs, where she climbed onto my desk, wandered around behind my computer and then trod all over my keyboard while I was trying to send an email. She then looked very tempted to leap out of the window, but I encouraged her not to.

Next, she paid a visit to the lounge, where the piano is. Despite my polite requests for her not to, she jumped onto the piano and looked curiously into the inner workings. The lid was down, I hasten to add, and there clearly wasn’t space for a cat.

Except there was. She managed to squeeze herself into the gap under the lid and disappear completely, the only evidence that she was there at all the sound of the bass strings vibrating slightly. Then a little head poked out as she attempted to extricate herself with some difficulty. I could have put the lid up for her, but she got herself into the situation she was in so she was damn well going to get herself out again.

You don’t often think of animals as having “personalities” but cats very much do. The two cats who used to live in the family home (one after the other, not together, as neither were that fond of other feline company) both had distinct personalities, with Penny, our first cat, being all but convinced she was human and our family doing nothing to dissuade her, even inviting her to have Christmas dinner at the dining table on more than one occasion — and invitation she graciously accepted. Our next cat Kitty, on the other hand, was a bit dim but very affectionate, and made it her mission to make even self-professed cat-haters like her.

I know dogs have personalities too. But they need walking and they poo in the street and are rubbish at entertaining themselves, whereas cats are quite happy sleeping all day, stealing cheese and sunning themselves in the garden, with human interaction only coming when they feel like it, thank you very much.

So yes — given the choice and opportunity to have my own pet? Cats all the way, clearly.