Sad News

Glia, our youngest rat, died last week. She was very very sick. Her cancer had progressed pretty far. She was having a difficult time breathing. Eventually she stopped eating and we had to feed her with a medicine syringe. I was planning on having her put down this week, and then on Friday she died in my lap. I'm really glad I was with her. We took a bunch of pictures of her last week, because it was clear she was fading. Here are some of the best ones:

I realize that half of these are of her eating. It's because getting her to eat was a big event all last week. She was really starting to shut down. We had to encourage every bite.

Honestly, it was a bit of a relief. She was not living a very comfortable life the last few weeks. I'm glad to know she's not in pain anymore.

So now it's just Myelin. She's our last rat. We won't be getting any more rats, I've decided I'm done with pocket pets for now. After Myelin is gone (which won't be for a while) we'll get a kitten. For now, we're giving her lots of attention, because rats aren't very good at living alone. Luckily, Myelin enjoys human company. She's very social. So I think she'll do okay with being an only rat.

If anyone has ideas for little rat puzzles we can put in the cage to keep her busy and stimulated, please let us know! I'm going to be making little pinatas out of paper towel, filled with snacks. I'll hang them so she can't brace them against something to open them - she's gonna have to get up on two legs and work for those snacks! Although, the last time I tried that, they just pulled the pinatas into the hammock...

Thanks everyone for the condolences on Facebook. I'm gonna try to get back to blogging more regularly. I have a cooking post planned (when don't I?) so hopefully I'll get that up soon. Bye for now!