Lucy

After having Jake for a while, I decided I would like another rat, so I went down to the pet shop for a look. There I met Lucy. She was a 3 month old agouti hooded, and the product of an accidental mating between a very young female who had not been separated from the males in time. I should have known this was a recipie for disaster, but still did not know much about rats at this stage.

So Lucy came home to live with us. She had her own cage, and I could tell she was lonely. I noticed after a few months that she had a weepy eye. The vet had no idea that this was a warning sign of myco. Instead of antibiotics we were given eye drops.

When Lucy was one year old we got Holly as a friend for her. They fought for about a week, but then bonded and lived happily together for three months. One evening I noticed that Lucy was not interested in the food I was offering them, and that she was lethargic and could not breathe properly. I rushed her to the night-vet, thinking she just had a cold. He diagnosed pneumonia and kept her overnight. The next morning she was a little better, and I took her to another vet to spend the day under observation while I worked. She came home and went into quarantine.

Lucy never really recovered from her first bout of illness, and by the time I found a vet that knew what they were doing, she was too sick to recover. After a four-month battle I knew she was miserable - gasping and shaking and cold... so I had her put to sleep. She passed away in my arms while I stroked her head, and I laid her to rest in a sea of flowers at the Pets Garden Of Remembrance.