Giant Rat Invasion!

I posted a while ago about giant pouched rats and their use in revealing landmines (bentorats.blogspot.com/2011/09/herorats.html). They are rats that can serve a real need, in part because of their size.

But I was surprised to see an article in Time about how they are currently invading the Florida Keys. Invasive species are a concern regardless of if we're talking about pythons, earthworms, or fish, so I understand the concern and need to stop their spread in Florida. But still, I wouldn't mind seeing one.

Lazy Medicating

When your rat is on three separate medications, it can take a while to get through them all. It helps though if she is particularly cooperative.

Sisters Reunited

After two days apart, we were finally able to put the girls back together on Saturday night.

Which was good, because while Sushi was resting and looked like this:

a very bored Saké looked like this:

Saké destroyed the contents of her cage, jumped out at every person or cat who happened by, and even bit me during her time alone.

I'm not sure who was happier once the sisters were reunited - Saké or I.

The Hunchback of East Lansing

After Sushi came home from the vet last Thursday, we had to inject her with 10 ccs of sodium chloride under her skin every 12 hours. This was pretty horrific - it isn't technically hard but it hurt her, and since she is so tiny, there wasn't a lot of room for error. Not to mention how hard it is to focus and not screw up when you also have to pin down a frightened and loudly squeaking rat.

After the fluids were injected, Sushi would have a hunchback for a couple of hours, until they were absorbed.

The raised area above her head/behind her ears is actually the balloon of fluid. She was a trooper to put up with us doing that to her. Originally the vet said every 12 hours for 7 days but he also said that if we got past 48 hours and she was eating her normal food (which has a heavy water content), then we could stop. I was grateful that at 48 hours she was eating and happily put the needles and syringes away.

An Update on Sushi

After 48 hours of fluid injections, liquid food, and laxatives, Sushi began looking better this weekend. She is now eating her regular mush of lab blocks and baby cereal and has shown interest in soaked monkey chow again. Her eyes are brighter, she is more stable, and her energy is back as well.

However, I think the brightest moment in all of this was Thursday after work, when I ran down the hall to check on her. I wasn't sure what we'd find after her visit to the vet that morning.

Amazingly, I found this:

Although wobbly, Sushi was at her food dish, eating. She didn't eat a lot but the fact that she showed any interest in food at all was heartening. It's obvious in the picture how sick she was - her eyes were rimmed with mucus and her ears have almost no color. But she was eating - and shortly after I took this picture she eagerly ate her special liquid diet from the vet.

She might be tiny, but she is a trooper.

Sushi

At the vet...again

We've had a rough day with Sushi. Yesterday afternoon we got home at 6 and she was playing and acting completely normal. But at 8:30 I found her laying in an odd position in their cage, looking like someone had just tossed her there. I picked her up, she took a single step and fell over. Her body and tail were cold, her eyes were glazed over and covered in mucus, and she was completely limp. Her breathing was clear but she was motionless - even her whiskers were still.

Dave made up a mixture of water, sugar, and salt and she was willing to eat a bit of that through a syringe. She spent the evening mostly laying quietly, eyes open and staring. Periodically she would get up, take a few steps, and then fall over. I wasn't sure she would survive the night, but when I got up around 3 a.m. she staggered to the front of the cage to see me and willingly took about .8cc of the water/sugar/salt mixture.

We took her to the vet first thing this morning. She's down to 270 grams (she was 298 grams last week). The vet initially thought she had some sort of blockage, but xrays revealed that everything in her abdomen looked okay, except for a very full cecum.  The vet couldn't find any other obvious signs of what is going on - her downturn was so sudden and serious that he thinks something must have caused it. This isn't just a slow decline from not eating. He didn't think this was related to the upper respiratory infection we've been dealing with, although the prednisone could cause her stomach to be upset and thus make her eat/drink less. 

Right now though, the issue is her dehydration. She is very weak and we need to get fluids and food into her. The vet gave her fluids under her skin while we were there, and sent us home with instructions to continue doing this twice a day for the next 7 days. She also gets a laxative twice a day, along with special liquid food. Hopefully once her cecum is cleaned out she'll feel better and the fluids should help with the lethargy and weakness. I'm not sure if the real issue will become evident at some point, or if the only issue is her dehydration.

The next 24 hours are critical, and the vet wouldn't say what he thought her prognosis was.  She was willing to eat some of the liquid food a couple of hours after her fluids this morning and she was walking around slowly, so I am hopeful. I am not looking forward to injecting the fluids twice a day - she put up quite a fight for the vet when he did it this morning, which was amazing considering how weak she is. They could hospitalize her for a few days and take care of it there, but if we're able to handle it at home, she'll probably do better in her own environment with Saké to keep her company.

So, think positive thoughts for a very tiny, beloved rat.

Sushi Update

A much healthier Sushi

Sushi has improved drastically since going to the vet last week for an upper respiratory infection. Her breathing is mostly clear, other than a little bit of sneezing and sniffles. Her nose and eyes also look better. Her appetite (which never really waned) is 100% and she also is back to being her normal energetic self.

PostSecret Rat

If you don't follow PostSecret, you should. It is one of my favorite parts of beginning a new week.

This week the following secret was posted and it made me laugh (despite having three dogs).

Sushi Takes Her Medicine

I cannot imagine how Sushi could be better about taking her medicine (Ciprofloxacin and Prednisone).

It helps that she seems to like the taste of both medicines. After her surgery in the fall she was also on Ciprofoxacin but also Meloxicam, which she hated the taste of. As a result, it took an enormous amount of skill and luck to get any of the meds in her mouth. This time around it only takes one person to treat her, which is a bit of a relief, since she has about fifteen more days of Prednisone ahead of her. 

Sushi's Feeling Better

Sushi demonstrates how to take medicine.

Sushi is doing better today. Her eyes and nose are much cleaner and her breathing, while not yet clear, is greatly improved.

Holding onto the syringe, not pushing it away...

Her appetite also seems good. She ate her monkey chow this morning and immediately dove into her dinner tonight.

I'm not sure she could cooperate more than this.

Sushi's Emergency Vet Visit

Sushi waits for the vet.

We woke up yesterday to Parker incessantly whining while staring at the rat cage. I like to imagine he's Lassie, which is absurd, but the fact is that Sushi was having a really hard time breathing and her gasping noises weren't loud enough to wake us up. Parker's whining was though and we quickly realized what was going on with poor Sushi.

We ended up sticking her in the bathroom with the shower running and the steam helped to improve her breathing temporarily. We then set up a humidifier in the bedroom to make things less dry and called the vet.

I was obviously pretty freaked out but the verdict from the vet wasn't too scary. She has an upper respiratory infection and is now on an antihistamine and antibiotics. The vet thinks we should see improvement pretty quickly but if we don't, she has to go back and have a chest xray. I'm not sure how the logistics of that work.

In good news, she's gained 40 grams since her surgery in October and is now at 298 grams. It looks like her remaining incisors never grew back after they broke off during surgery, which is a relief. Despite the infection, the vet thought her overall health was good.

Hopefully she will be back to being her usual bouncy self soon.

Still Worrying About Sushi

So Sushi is definitely eating like a champ but she just doesn't look at good as she normally does. I've seen her cleaning her face but the rest of her looks pretty rough. She seems more alert today though and her breathing seems clearer. Hopefully she's through the tough spot but if not I think she's going to the vet pretty quickly.

We did make a great discovery though. I've posted a lot before about how limited we are with her food options. Fruit is easy to handle since it is soft but we have really struggled with getting her a regular supply of fresh yet soft vegetables. However this weekend we were at the store buying baby cereal for her (which we use to make a mush mixed with crushed lab blocks) and suddenly it occurred to us - baby food!

I've not had kids, so baby food is a strange land to me. So many varieties - and most of them are simply 100% of whatever fruit or vegetable. We bought a tiny container of food made out of peas and suffered through the disgusting smell and gave Sushi a taste of it.

She loved it! I'm not sure that I have ever seen Sushi eat something as quickly as she did the baby food peas. I'm kind of astounded we didn't think of this before. Saké seems to have no interest at all in it, which I think points to how much variety she already has in her diet versus Sushi.

I never thought I'd be a regular visitor to the baby food aisle in the grocery store, but that is going to change.

Worrying About Sushi

Sushi has had a slight head cold for the last day or so and last night I was worried she had taken a turn for the worse. She was laying in the hammock in an unusual (for her) position and it took me more work than normal to wake her up. She also felt lighter in weight to me, despite the fact that I have seen her eating quite a bit over the last couple of days.

Dave grabbed her some fruit while I woke her up and then we got her out of the cage. She happily licked at the watermelon Dave held in one hand while he held her with the other, so obviously she wasn't feeling too terrible. She definitely has some sort of cold though, and doesn't seem as peppy as normal. Dave is convinced she hasn't lost any weight, despite me thinking that she has.

She does seem prone to head colds. Saké never seems to have them, so I think it must be related to her dental issues (and might also be why she has such constantly crusty eyes). She seems to be okay though, so we're just keeping an eye on her. I hate how short rat life spans are - at 18 months, I feel like she should just be at the beginning of her life, not on the path to being the senior rat as she is.

So since I'm worried and bummed, here's a pic of the much younger and energetic Sushi a year ago:

More Melons

Since it's Friday, footage of a fat rat eating cantaloupe.

Watermelon

I'm not sure why it didn't occur to us before to give the girls watermelon. We finally did the other night and they seemed to enjoy it. Saké ate one piece quickly but then resumed doing her normal busy rat things. On the other hand, Sushi ate every piece as quickly as possible and before too long the dish was empty. And then she licked the dish.

Looking Back

Just over a year ago, I posted the following adorable picture of Sushi and I am reposting because it makes me happy. She's an adorable tiny rat.

Sushi

Sleepy Sushi

I woke Sushi up the other day to give her a bit of banana. It was one of those things where if  I didn't wake her up, she wasn't going to get any at all because of the timing. Because she is limited in what she can eat, whenever I have something soft enough that she might enjoy, I try to make sure she gets some.

Despite being sleepy, she definitely was interested in the banana. The resulting photos show her with pretty crusty eyes, which is a sure sign that she just woke up.

Friday!

Because it's Friday, a picture of Saké with banana hanging out of her mouth.

More Cats and Rats

Continuing yesterday's theme of cats and rats, this video bothers me far less than the one from yesterday. I think I would worry more about the safety of the cat than the rat - Saké has taught me that if all things are equal, rats can take care of themselves.