The end of an era

Firstly I have some good news, little black foster mouse was successfully neutered yesterday. Given what happened with Paradox I was so nervous I felt physically sick until I knew he was round after the surgery, it didn’t matter that I was sure logically it was the best thing for him or that all those other neuters have gone without a hitch my stomach was in knots! I am so very very relieved that he’s OK and won’t have to live alone and even more so that the other four foster boys are still getting on fine!

However that is not the only difficult thing I had to deal with yesterday. I know I don’t normally talk about the ratties in my posts here because I wanted to keep it my mouse diary but today I’m going to have to make an exception. When I went to collect mousie from the vet yesterday afternoon I also took my darling rat Tess to be PTS. She has been suffering from HLD (hind leg degeneration) for some time now but up until this last couple of days and with medication she has coped well. It has however been very hard watching her decline and I’ve known that sooner or later I was going to have to make this decision. When Tuesday night she had deteriorated again I knew deep down it was time, very upsetting but as I’ve said not unexpected.

This did however leave with me with a problem in the shape of Meg, Tess’s only remaining cage mate. As I’m sure many of you know rats don’t do well on their own and Meg in particular most definitely wouldn’t. She loves other rats to bits but has always been nervy with people, when we first got her in October 2005 she wouldn’t come out of bed unless all the lights were off, screamed if you tried to touch her and was generally terrified of everything. It took a lot of time and patience to get her to trust me and even now she isn’t one for cuddles and fusses.

It was with all this in mind that I made arrangements when Tess first got ill for Meg to go and live with some other rats when Tess passed away. There was only one rat owning person I could think of that I trusted enough to leave my gorgeous girl with so I was delighted and not a little relieved when she agreed to take her. Still it was with a very heavy heart that after the stresses of mousies op and losing Tess I travelled the hour long journey to take Meg to her new home last night. I figured it was better for her to meet her new friends as soon as possible after Tess ‘disappearing’ and given the intros apparently went without a hitch, meaning Meg didn’t have to spend more than a few hours alone I’m glad I did. However the down side for me is having gone from my last two rats to none in the space of a day. My living room has a empty cage containing ratty debris and my heart is sore. I’m very glad to have the mice to fuss over today.

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