Hazel was the older adult female I took in with her four 5 month old daughters. She was already worn and cynical. They all came from a “rescue” that ended up being a hoarding situation (filthy small cages, minimal or bad food, no out time or handling). She was part of the Moncton Rat Train in June 2008 when a small group of individuals (including me) adopted out and transported 100 rats out of Moncton, New Brunswick to new loving homes in New York and Ontario. This particular group of girls no one seemed to want to adopt and they were leftovers. I took them in of course.
They started off with the nickname of the Party Girls, which quickly became the Moncton Monsters as these rats loved to be out, climbing things that they shouldn’t have been able to, dumping and crashing everything to the floor by pushing it or bodychecking the defenseless items (bulls in a china shop ring a bell?)
They hated other rats and would huff/screech at others outside of their cage, and then attack each other in their frenzy. They weren’t kind to each other but since they were all the same character they loved each other at the same time. Poor Hazel came to me as a serious nipper, and eventually the nipping became the occasional lick, and finally she decided I was “okay”. Once these rats discovered Out time they were in heaven, and I was just a passing thought in their lives…which is fine, they were happy :D I got to know her daughters pretty well over time, but Hazel was standoffish until just a short while ago. We recently lost one of her girls at 17 months, and last night I was saying the Monsters were aging fast, since there’d only been one crash in ½ an hour!
I woke up this morning and found Hazel just passed in the bottom of her cage. :/ I’m sorry sweetie, I wish I had gotten to know you a bit better. What a strong character she was…she knew what she wanted and took it.
Hazel on the right of her daughter Phlox
Bye bye sweetie, hope you enjoyed your stay.
No comments:
Post a Comment