Katrina Nykole Rat

1/98-3/6/00

Well, it finally happened. Kiki, my seemingly indestructable rat, has passed on. I'm glad it happened like it did, and not any other way. I'll start from the beginning.

I first saw Kiki in a cage marked "male albinos" in a pet store in Duluth, MN. She was so beautiful; pristine white with only a smudge of brown on her nose, very ladylike features and an incredibly sweet personality. To this day I have no idea why my mom let me get her, but I never regretted it.

At first I wanted to name her Coffee Bean because of her brown nose, but that name seemed too long and serious. I couldn't imagine her as a Snowflake or Rachel, or names I generally think would be good for rats. Time wore on, and exactly one week after I brought her home, she gave birth to 14 babies. She instantly became super-defensive mommy rat and I lost a lot of blood because of her in the following month or so.

I had never seen baby rats before, and my attempts to "get just a peek" at them resulted in scars I still have. Seeing that I had only had Kiki for a week before she had her babies, I can understand why she was so quick to suspect me of trying to eat her babies, but I think she could have given me a little slack!

Here are the babies after about a week. In order to keep all my fingers, I had to lure Kiki out of her cage with a yogurt drop and trap her in a different cage or box, then take that opportunity to clean her cage and handle the babies.

It's pretty hard to see, but this is one baby being held in my brother's hand. Kiki would go absolutely INSANE when we returned her to her babies and a nice clean cage. She couldn't stand the smell of humans on her babies and would be even MORE angry with me for several days afterwards.

For their two-week birthday, I made a single muffin for the babies, to congratulate them on having opened their eyes. At the time our mice Amazon and Dusty were still alive, and when I compared a full grown female mouse and a two week old rat, they were the same size! I later understood why Dusty was so afraid of rats (she had an unfortunate meeting with Kiki). My junior year, in painting class, I painted this picture. Click to see it!

Here is Kiki with all her babies "snapped on" giving me the evil look of death. When her children were growing "big kid" teeth and eating solid food, they still wanted milk from Kiki. Feeding 14 children was no easy task for her, and that's another reason I eventually separated them.

These are all the babies in a shoebox, and I think of it as a seething ocean of baby rats. As they started to grow bigger and their female/male parts became more...shall we say, pronounced, I decided it would soon be time to separate the kids from their mom, and then to separate the 10 females from the 4 males.

We eventually found homes for the babies and Kiki moved out of the cramped Rubbermaid container (complete with NO lid, to make for easy escaping) into her very own cage. I originally got this cage for Tempelton, but I accidentaly broke it last Spring.

Kiki soon graduated to her very own cage (that I bought just for her) which was much bigger. She considered herself the queen of everything, and thought of me as her lowly slave, but she had in fact turned into the sweetest rat I've ever had. I went away for a week that summer, and Kiki learned that she really did enjoy having me around (for food) and I noticed a big difference in her personality after that.

For my 16th birthday, one of the only gifts I got was this cage, which I appropriately named the Monster. In this picture Kiki is in the bottom half while Sweetie had the top, but I quickly switched the two when Sweetie made it a habit to shove every scrap of newspaper she could find out of the cage and onto the floor.

Later in her life, Kiki began bleeding from....certain orfices, and every two months or so we'd be off to the vet for some more medicine. She learned to like the tutti-fruitty flavored medicine, and would sulk if I happened to forget "treat time." Here Kiki is placidly accepting her new fashion, but inside she is thinking "Urge to kill...rising."

Okay, let me just say I'm sorry for this picture...I had some beanie baby clothes lying around (don't ask) and Kiki already seemed like such a princess...I personally think she looks great. Plus she wasn't feeling too well and didn't put up much of a fight. (Dodges punches thrown by rat lovers.)

Kiki's health deteriorated, and I tried to deny it by gave her lots of good food to fatten her up. Kiki loved it and didn't mind putting on a few extra grams, but unless broccoli can kill cancer (which, according to George Carlin, it can) it wasn't helping that much.

The vets and I decided the best bet for Kiki was exploratory surgery, which, pricey as it would be, was the only option. Unfortunately, by that time she had lost so much blood and was so weak that we couldn't risk it. The vet said we should just try to make her as comfortable as possible until the time came.

Well, that time came one Monday after school, and Kiki died in my arms while we were waiting for a vet appointment I had made that day to have her euthanized. We were just relaxing, waiting for time to pass, and I think Kiki picked that time because she knew I wasn't going anywhere, and I'd be there for her when she died. She lived a long and happy rattie life. We were both there for each other through some tough times, and I'll never regret the day I walked into that pet store in Duluth and saw her, with her bright eyes shining and white fur sparkling.

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I first saw Kiki in a cage marked "male albinos" in a pet store in Duluth, MN. She was so beautiful; pristine white with only a smudge of brown on her nose, very ladylike features and an incredibly sweet personality. To this day I have no idea why my mom let me get her, but I never regretted it.
	At first I wanted to name her Coffee Bean because of her brown nose, but that name seemed too long and serious. I couldn't imagine her as a Snowflake or Rachel, or names I generally think would be good for rats. Time wore on, and exactly one week after I brought her home, she gave birth to 14 babies. She instantly became super-defensive mommy rat and I lost a lot of blood because of her in the following month or so.
I had never seen baby rats before, and my attempts to "get just a peek" at them resulted in scars I still have. Seeing that I had only had Kiki for a week before she had her babies, I can understand why she was so quick to suspect me of trying to eat her babies, but I think she could have given me a little slack!
	Here are the babies after about a week. In order to keep all my fingers, I had to lure Kiki out of her cage with a yogurt drop and trap her in a different cage or box, then take that opportunity to clean her cage and handle the babies.
It's pretty hard to see, but this is one baby being held in my brother's hand. Kiki would go absolutely INSANE when we returned her to her babies and a nice clean cage. She couldn't stand the smell of humans on her babies and would be even MORE angry with me for several days afterwards.
	For their two-week birthday, I made a single muffin for the babies, to congratulate them on having opened their eyes. At the time our mice Amazon and Dusty were still alive, and when I compared a full grown female mouse and a two week old rat, they were the same size! I later understood why Dusty was so afraid of rats (she had an unfortunate meeting with Kiki). My junior year, in painting class, I painted this picture. Click to see it!
Here is Kiki with all her babies "snapped on" giving me the evil look of death. When her children were growing "big kid" teeth and eating solid food, they still wanted milk from Kiki. Feeding 14 children was no easy task for her, and that's another reason I eventually separated them.
	These are all the babies in a shoebox, and I think of it as a seething ocean of baby rats. As they started to grow bigger and their female/male parts became more...shall we say, pronounced, I decided it would soon be time to separate the kids from their mom, and then to separate the 10 females from the 4 males.
We eventually found homes for the babies and Kiki moved out of the cramped Rubbermaid container (complete with NO lid, to make for easy escaping) into her very own cage. I originally got this cage for Tempelton, but I accidentaly broke it last Spring.
	Kiki soon graduated to her very own cage (that I bought just for her) which was much bigger. She considered herself the queen of everything, and thought of me as her lowly slave, but she had in fact turned into the sweetest rat I've ever had. I went away for a week that summer, and Kiki learned that she really did enjoy having me around (for food) and I noticed a big difference in her personality after that.
For my 16th birthday, one of the only gifts I got was this cage, which I appropriately named the Monster. In this picture Kiki is in the bottom half while Sweetie had the top, but I quickly switched the two when Sweetie made it a habit to shove every scrap of newspaper she could find out of the cage and onto the floor.
	Later in her life, Kiki began bleeding from....certain orfices, and every two months or so we'd be off to the vet for some more medicine. She learned to like the tutti-fruitty flavored medicine, and would sulk if I happened to forget "treat time." Here Kiki is placidly accepting her new fashion, but inside she is thinking "Urge to kill...rising."
Okay, let me just say I'm sorry for this picture...I had some beanie baby clothes lying around (don't ask) and Kiki already seemed like such a princess...I personally think she looks great. Plus she wasn't feeling too well and didn't put up much of a fight. (Dodges punches thrown by rat lovers.)
	Kiki's health deteriorated, and I tried to deny it by gave her lots of good food to fatten her up. Kiki loved it and didn't mind putting on a few extra grams, but unless broccoli can kill cancer (which, according to George Carlin, it can) it wasn't helping that much.
The vets and I decided the best bet for Kiki was exploratory surgery, which, pricey as it would be, was the only option. Unfortunately, by that time she had lost so much blood and was so weak that we couldn't risk it. The vet said we should just try to make her as comfortable as possible until the time came.