"LIFE'S TOO SHORT TO EAT BAD NUTS"

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Perching here and gathering my thoughts ...

Autumn problem and rat story

03 July 2006 ~ 15:44

On Saturday night Mark was lying on the floor watching TV with Autumn on his chest. When he lifted her up I noticed blood on him. We realised that Autumn seemed to be bleeding quite heavily from the vagina. I rang the emergency vets and they were supposed to call us back.

Well she eventually stopped bleeding. We think it may have happened before because there is blood on her bedding but we thought it was from scratching at some scabs she has on her back (we had taken her to the vets on Saturday morning to have an injection in case of mites).

The vets eventually phoned back after two more calls but weren't very helpful, in fact quite stroppy. She could have bled to death for all they cared. I wish vets would take rat owners as seriously as they do cat and dog owners. Grrrr!

On Sunday I rang 'The Rat Lady' who is probably the single most knowedgeable person on this planet about rats. Now all rats have an infection called mycoplasma but not all show symptoms. Usually if they do it is sneezing/wheezing/laboured breathing. We have been so lucky with Autumn because she has not shown any signs (some of our rats have died quite young from this even after being on antibiotics for a long time). Debbie 'the Rat Lady' says the myco can cause vaginal bleeding and she thinks it's what Autumn has. She needs to be on a common antibiotic, Baytril, for life, and actually the vet did give us some for the mite scabs, so she is on that now. So she may bleed again but Debbie says it should stop eventually, like it did last night. We have to take her back to the vet on Friday for another mite injection so will ask for some more Baytril then.

What a scary episode. It is very frightening to have your little baby bleeding like that.

Anyway on the subject of rats, this story about a man who had too many of them:

PETALUMA, Calif. - It all started four years ago when Roger Dier bought a baby rat to feed his pet Indian python. But when he saw the furry little critter squeaking for its life, the lifelong animal lover said he didn't have the heart to let it become just another snake snack.

"I couldn't stand it," he told The Press Democrat of Santa Rosa. "I took the rat out of the cage and got to know it."

After that, Dier was hooked on the rodents, which he described as gentle, lovable and an endless source of entertainment. He later bought four more at the pet store but didn't think to spay or neuter them.

Last week, animal control officers discovered more than 1,300 rats in Dier's small one-bedroom Petaluma home, after a neighbor complained about the foul smell. He was cited for misdemeanor animal cruelty.

Dier, 67, said depression, loneliness, denial and a recent bout of flu and bronchitis kept him from maintaining control of the fast-breeding population.

"I did not set out to do this," he told The Press Democrat. "I do acknowledge irresponsibility and there's a case for laziness, denial, incompetence and just plain foolishness."

But "it was not all my fault," he added. "It was this force of nature that overwhelmed me."

Another Rat Pack connection
The infestation at his home wasn't Dier's first encounter with a rat pack.

In 1963, his Culver City apartment was used as a hideout by two of three men who were later convicted of kidnapping Frank Sinatra Jr., son of the legendary Rat Pack crooner. Dier said he later served two prison terms for an unrelated weapons charge and armed robbery.

"I was just a young kid. I was mixed up," he said.

Dier moved to Petaluma in 1978, working at an assembly plant and as a stained glass maker. He now lives off a small inheritance from his mother.

By all appearances, Dier looks like an everyday retiree, donning jeans and an Hawaiian shirt on a warm afternoon and driving a new Toyota Tacoma.

But his house, located in a quiet middle-class neighborhood, reeks of urine. The floor is covered with the chaff of feed mixed with rat droppings, and everything is gnawed on, including the sheetrock walls, according to The Press Democrat.

When animal control officers arrived, they found some rats stacked six deep in cages so overcrowded that many had missing eyes and limbs.

Up to 250 pounds of food a week
Dier admitted that he felt some relief when they were confiscated, noting the "crushing burden" of trying to care for them. He was up to buying 250 pounds of rat food a week.

Most of the rats have been euthanized, some because they were too sick or injured and others because they weren't socialized well enough to be adopted, said Nancee Tavares, manager of Petaluma Animal Services.

"We believe quality of life is important, and there was no quality of life for these rats," she said.

Rat lovers have expressed outrage at the euthanizations, but Tavares said the pace of adoptions has gone too slowly to expect all the rats to find homes. As of Thursday, only 12 of the rodents had gotten new owners, while different shelters and animal rescue groups promised to take about 30 off the agency's hands.

"We've gotten a lot of people criticizing us, but not offering to take one or two," Tavares said.

Meanwhile, Dier, who was allowed to keep his seven cats, said he was grieving the loss and deaths of his furry friends.

"That's a darn pity," Dier said. "It's unfair to the animals. I'm not saying I wasn't unfair letting them be born into existence, but they didn't deserve to die."

Poor ratties! Fancy keeping males and females together.




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