Pipsie & Chockie

Pipsie & Chockie

Our first girl rats

Pipsie and Chockie were our first girl rats. We had always had little boy rats before, so we thought it would be fun to have a pair of girls. We had read about how girls were more active than boys, little did we know.

Pipsie and Chockie were tiny when we got them. They had just arrived at the pet shop as we turned up. At first we just thought they were over excitable being such tiny babies in a new home, but no. We soon realised that the homes our little boy rats had been happy living in were not big enough. A trip down the pet shop and we returned with a parrot cage that only just fitted in our car!

Derek made some Perspex shelves to add to the parrot ladders, ferret tubes, hammock and anything else we could lay our hands on to make their home interesting. The two little horrors liked it, though it is a big job cleaning it every week.

Pipsie and Chockie’s cage used to be in the living room, but two rats chewing the bars and clambering for attention while your trying to have a quiet sit down is not relaxing. So we moved the noisy little pair into the dinning room. Meal times have never been the same since.

Chockie has developed a tumour on her tummy; it is the size of a small orange (tangerine size) as Chockie is only a small rat this is quite big. We took her to the vet as soon as we noticed a small lump, the vet informed us that it would be inoperable and the best thing to do is keep her happy. We have moved our little rats into a smaller home and made sure all tubes and shelves are easily accessible for Chockie. It is a very frightening experience for us. However Chockie is taking it all in her stride, after all she doesn’t know. Apart from a few problems climbing she is very happy, she looks very cute waddling across the floor.

Chockie and Pipsie enjoying a treat

Little Chockie’s tumour grew to a size where it was beginning to affect her life. Her back feet were straining to touch the floor, not that it stopped her climbing bars and getting into trouble. We had to make the very difficult decision to take her to the vets, before she began to suffer. Back in July when we first noticed Chockie’s tumour it was very frightening, the vet warned us Chockie may only manage a couple of months as tumours grow so quickly.

Our brave little Chockie didn’t give up, she insisted on doing everything her sister did, sometimes with a little help from us. As with all the little rats we have been lucky enough to know, Chockie was very special and she will leave a big hole in our lives. As always, Pipsie is a naughty little girl and we hope our love and cuddles will help her through the loss of her sister.

Last night we went to get little Pipsie for her evening run, usually a very happy time. Pipsie loves to wait on her shelf for us to get her out and say, “Goodnight.” I picked her up and noticed something was wrong, she was not on her shelf but in one of her plastic tunnels. While holding her, waiting for Derek to finish feeding the gerbils, I noticed her tail was very floppy. Putting her on the floor it became apparent that she had lost the use of her back legs. We were both absolutely shocked and horrified, Pipsie had been a little wobbly at dinner time but nothing serious enough to concern us.

As Pipsie was in no pain we decided not to call out the vet, so I stayed up all night with her making sure she was comfortable and was drinking and eating. The next morning we took her to see the vet and we had already prepared ourselves for the worst. Our vets are very good with small animals, they explained that there was very little they could do and anything we tried would probably be very distressing for Pipsie. We all agreed it would be unfair to Pipsie to experiment with treatments that may not even work. Pipsie was two years and ten months old, the oldest little rat we have known. As with all our rats her character and zest for life was amazing and we are really going to miss her.