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| Auggie and Sable |
| Monday 4th June 2001 marks the passing of Auggie, one of my female rats at age 22 months. Auggie is the brunette, Sable is the blonde. It has been almost 3 months since Icky passed away and in that time Auggie's health deteriorated rapidly. Of the 2 remaining rats I own, Auggie was usually a lot more healthy and active than Sable [her sister]. Which is why it was a real shock when she fell ill soon after Icky's death. |
| It soon became clear that she was having problems with her breathing and her sense of balance was also out of whack. Taking her to the vet was a bit of an experience - its was good and bad. The bad, was that she probably had a neurological disease that couldn't be treated [not that they did any tests at all] and that she most likely had mycoplasmosis as well [a respiratory disease - not uncommon among rats, so this was not a shock]. The good was that Auggie urinated on the floor [while they were watching her walk and checking her balance] and the student vets that were huddled in the room watching were told to clean it up by the vet in charge. Of course this was much to their dismay and they all looked at each other with "no, you do it" looks ^_^ I like to think that this was her way of getting them back for prodding her all over. |
| After the trip to the vet, a course of antibiotics and lots of tlc, she seemed to be on the mend. But watching her made me sad. Her energy levels were at an all time low, she wouldn't drink and we had to resort to feeding her baby food with her medicine mixed in it - and fed to her by hand thru a syringe without the needle. She was helpless. Six weeks ago she was actually running around and causing mischief again, which I thought signalled her recovery. I took her out onto the balcony for some sun with Sable, and took the photo you see. Unfortunately she relapsed into illness a few weeks ago and never recovered. |
| Like Icky, she had a thing for licking faces, but she didn't really do much licking in the last few months. When we first got them [22 months ago] Auggie was the mischief maker and Sable was the weak and feeble one. We kept them in an old aquarium we had lying around the house [untiil we bought them a real cage] and during the first few weeks, Auggie was a real treat to watch 'cause you could see her trying to devise various plots to escape. She'd mostly jump over and over and over from the highest point she could find [which was probably a little box] and attept to cling to the roof of the tank! We had a plastic grill over the tank, so yes, there was something to cling onto, but I would be so astounded at just how strong she was for a little rat. She would have been less than 2 months old and she was jumping more than 30-40 cms up into the air and then clinging to the ceiling of her enclosure! How did she get down? She just let go, flipped over and landed safely. Not sure how she managed though. |
| ^above^ These photos were taken a few weeks before Auggie passed. Unfortunately, after Auggie died, Sable also fell ill with similar sypmtoms and died a few weeks later. |
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