Rufus

Rufus - February 2011 to October 25, 2012

From this…


To this



Life changed very quickly for a former feeder baby. A girl was getting rid of all her feeder rats and decided to toss her 2 PET girls into the mix as well since she didn’t want them anymore either…all of them with much effort made it to me.
The babies and especially Rufus were very timid, and Rufus and the sisters that ended up here are still quite shy of humans.


Rufus was supposed to be adopted by RKEM from Ottawa, but he had a mild URI so she took his other beige hooded brother home instead. This sadly was the beginning of Rufus’ trials.

Rufus grows up





Rufus becomes hormonal *snip snip* time LOL




He is now a big shy sweet guy who is sure the world wants to hurt him




Then he meets one of the loves of his life…spooky Loki the girl.



And the other love, old sweet Galileo



And it was now that Rufus found his balance in life. He watched sweet friendly Gali interact with me, and relaxed and finally let me hold him without being terrified. A huge moment in this boy’s life.




Galileo and Rufus last month…happy as can be.



Rufus was so bonded to old Gali (14 months older than him!) that one night after poor Gali had sprained his foot, I kept him on the bed with me to make sure the swelling went down and he had access to food and water. I found Rufus sitting by the cage door, anxiously waiting for his friend. He stayed there all night and the next day until I returned his friend. I was very worried what Rufus would do once 34 month old (albeit healthy) Gali passed before he did. But my worries were groundless. The terrible genetics that plague this little family took my Rufus away before this could happen. Two of the 3 sisters have had tumours removed, Adella had a terrible malignant neck tumour removed when she was young, the 3 brothers that were adopted locally are all gone…terrible unexpected ends, tumours, bleeding out, and respiratory. I know of at least 2 of the remaining 3 that are also gone. Remember this family is 20 months old. Rufus had pulmonary abscesses and yesterday had x-rays done, and I saw them and let him go…beyond the lung abscesses it looked like there was a large tumour as well, and my timid boy was in distress. Galileo comforted him until it was time for his sedative. Goodbye sweet shy boy.