Our beloved pet rat Isis died today.
Years ago we had three rats - Beatrice, Ramona and Weatherby. They were wonderful little creatures and we loved them desperately. Unfortunately, rats have very short lifespans (about two years) and we had to watch as two of them died of tumors and the third, poor little Ramona, died of HEARTBREAK. Have you ever seen a heartbroken rat? It's not pretty.
So we vowed that there would be no more rats. It was just too sad.
But we never did throw the cage away....
A year and a half or so ago I was in Petco and saw a mommy rat with her two newborn babies. I told Wes about them and though I wasn't really planning to get one, I did go by daily to check on them on my way to the subway. One day one of the babies was gone (snake food) and the bad Petco people had placed a male adolescent rat in with the remaining pair. The boy rat was leaping all over them and trying to mate with them. The mom was so tired she could barely fend him off and the baby had only just opened her eyes.
So obviously they came home with me.
The mom, Cleo, was very sweet but very shy. Years of pet store living and poor treatment meant that she never did fully warm up to people.
But her baby had never known fear....
We got to watch her nurse and were there when she ate her first solid food. We watched her and her mother groom each other. We watched as she developed into the ruler of the house - she was not scared of any of our dogs or cats, even the chihuahua who barked at her. She would chase them and nibble their toes. You could put her in a room to play and when you came back you merely had to call her name and she would come running like a puppy.
When her mom died, we worried that she would get lonely and neurotic but she never did. She just became even more fearless, loved playing with the cats, and (when the chihuahua was elsewhere) would wander right through the middle of the living room floor, not sticking to the wall like other rats.
She was not two years old yet and had no tumors that we could see. She did not appear to be sick at all until this morning, when Wes noticed that she seemed a little lethargic (not uncommon - rats are sleepy creatures!). We are glad that she never had to suffer or slow down.
We will miss you, Isis. We loved you.
