womzilla | RIP Honey the rat, 2005-2007

Our current senior rat, Honey, has died after a long illness. I mostly went through the worst of the grieving two weeks ago when her tumor was officially declared inoperable, but I'm still shaken.

nellorat has written a wonderful memorial, full of pictures, for

ratties. I recommend it to one and all.

I will add one last anecdote. As her infirmity progressed, Honey's mobility decreased, and we were all worried about her getting sticky food in her fur or, worse, in her wounds. nellorat chided me--gently--for putting birdseed paste directly in the plastic cube Honey was using as a shelter, because she could roll over into it. So, after we cleaned her last night, I put Honey into the cube on clean paper towels and clean padding, and put a hunk of naan slathered in birdseed paste outside the cube, opposite the water bottle, so that she could reach it from within the cube but wouldn't step into it on the way to the bottle.

Honey cleaned herself briefly, and then pulled herself out of the cube--directly into the birdseed. While nellorat and I watched, she sat in it for about a minute, shook herself, and crawled back into the cube. Honey just wanted to make sure that nellorat knew that Ratdaddy wasn't to be blamed for the food in her fur. What a thoughtful girl, right to the end.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

negativeq.livejournal.com

=(
What a considerate rat! I'm sorry for your loss.

Do you have a rat vet in NYC you could recommend? A pair of friends of mine are looking for a reliable rat vet. The one they were using mistreated and killed their rat.

nellorat.livejournal.com

We feel very lucky, because some of the best rat vets in the world are in Manhattan. Dr. Pilny at Lenox Hill Veterinarians (http://brooklyn.citysearch.com/review/7149567) only does exotics; I think he prefers birds, but does like rats, and he's a great rat vet and surgeon, very nice and skillful. He has microsurgery tools and spays rats, which many vets won't even attempt.

And Animal Medical Center (http://www.amcny.org/default.aspx) is, I think, as good as vet care gets, for animals in general but certainly including rats. Don't let the "not for profit" fool you--they're expensive. But apparently it all goes to better equipment, training new doctors, etc. They have a board-certified rat surgeon who did almost a miracle with our Sophie, and two days of their 24-hour hospital care saved our rat Isabella when she was almost dead from pneumonia. But expensive and long waits (even with an appointment).

For more ordinary problems and even routine surgeries, we go to our local exotics vet, Central Animal Hospital (http://www.bestvets.net/) in Ardsley, just past Scarsdale. Many people never see rat vets this good!

There are a lot of quacks out there who think they can treat rats just because they know a lot about dogs and cats. It's a shame. Good luck to your friends!