| LARA |
| I'd had Bart and Chester for one week, and it was two weeks after Holly died. I went to the vet to pick something up, and happened to glance in the rat cage at the pet shop next door. There was a little black girl there, all alone (sound like a familiar story?). I'd seen her the previous weekend, and was sad to see she was still there. I asked the assistant why she was alone, to be told that her sister had been sold, leaving her behind. Then she informed me that one of their volunteer staff was going to buy her if she wasn't sold soon, and keep her alone in a tiny canary cage!! That did it for me. I came home with rat #10. At first I wanted to call her Trinity, after the character in The Matrix, but she didn't like that, so we settled on Lara (as in Tomb Raider), as she liked to explore. She's a sort-of black sort-of berkshire. The black is actually a very dark brown, and she has a white, jagged stripe down her tummy, white front feet, and half her back feet are white, like someone dipped the toes in whitewash! Her tail, however, is black to the very tip. She's a funny little rat. As she is alone in quarantine, she has been getting lots of cuddles lately. He favourite passtime is curling up behind my butt on the computer chair while I read my e-mails. She became bonded to me in just a few days, and now begs to come out whenever she sees me. I will introduce her to the other girls within a week. I hope they like her!!! 25/11/2001 Lara has gone into the big girl's cage. They pretty much took to her straight away, after one 45-minute introduction! She spent one evening with them, then went back to her own house for the night so they could recover from "Hurricane Lara". Today she went back in, and everything seems fine. Wilma seems to want to mother her, which is lovely. Normally Wilma does the beating up, being the oldest and Alpha rat, so it's cute to see she's taken Lara under her wing! January 2003 Around New Year, I noticed that Lara had become very quiet and withdrawn, and was having trouble picking up food in her front paws, and jumping down off of the shelves in the cage. The vet diagnosed a brain tumour. Anti-inflammatories gave her about a week's relief from the worst of the sypmtoms, but soon she degenerated again, and could not eat or drink properly. It was obvious she was confused and miserable, so I had her put to sleep. The vet gave her some anaesthetic first, so she didn't feel the jab. I buried her with the others at the Garden of Rembrance. Home |
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| September 2001 - January 2003 |