A Day in the Lives of Ferrets

See what mischief Rudyard and Jack are up to Mornin', Noon, and Night!
With a guest appearance from Bowie Ransom

Last pictures of Liam and Vincent's New House

While I was taking pictures of Vincent's new situated house, I found these photos of Liam. They are probably around a week or so before he passed away. He looks pretty rough; you can tell he's on his way.

There are quite a few butt pictures. I only put the ones I liked the most up here. :)

Eventually I got a face picture of him.

Today, Sam and I switched Vincent into a smaller cage. Since Vincent never uses the upstairs area, its a little pointless to have him live in such a large house. I took out this old white one, one that I'm borrowing still from the Preston's, and cleaned it up for him.

In the picture below, Vincent is chewing some happy holes and creating rat lace while he makes himself a sleeping nest.

He looks pretty good. :)

And off he goes to slumberland, once he's happy and cozy. Goodnight Vincent!

The Sleeperz are coming

The HAIR! and other interesting things

My hair is black! Okay, not BLACK. More like blue. The box said "Bright Black" and the picture on the cover looked black blue. I mean, the box didn't lie at all. I was going by the hot chick on the front cover.

 Taa daa!

Look what was at the library!

Some preciously clever teenage created a monstrosity! I love it!

Nat said that Marty had found it sitting on a bookshelf. We are suspicious that it is one of our regulars. :D

Liam Wiam, a good old soul

Liam passed away overnight. I loved him very much.

Although he was a shy sort, and as timid as a mouse, one still knew that he trusted you.

When I first got Liam, he was terrified of everything. He did not want to be touched or held. He opted to stay in the cage all the time, and when I took him out to socialize with me, he would hide under the dresser. Taking him out became such a hassle, for it would almost take an hour or so to catch him. He was very tiny and very quick. On top of that, he was terrified of everything. He didn't want anything to do with us.

This was very difficult on me, what with being spoiled with Mark and Vincent's incredible social-ness. I even debated for a while that Liam was better off as an only rat, and should I give him away? But I stuck with him.

I created a rule: he was only allowed on the bed or on my person. He could not leave the bed when he was out of the cage. He could not leave my person when he was out of the cage. I forced him to stay with me.

At first, he was not willing. I would feed him while I had Mark and Vincent on my shoulders too, trying to show him that I could be trusted. You see Liam, they take the food. You take it too.

It was a long road, but finally one day he took an edamame from me; and then a cracker; a yogurt raisin. He did not always eat it on my shoulder, but he would hold it and play keep away from Mark and Vincent. This always resulted in terrible scratches across my shoulders, clavicle, and chest. There was a long period of time where I would always come to work with the injuries on me. I remember Natalie pointing them out, and we just laughed about it. She said I looked like I got in a fight. Truth is, I was just in the middle of one.

Every-so-slowly, I would entrust Liam to leave my shoulder and bed area. He always ran to the dresser. It was his safe spot. But eventually, I could call his name and he would come out. There was a solid week, actually, where he would only respond to Sam calling his name.

Then he eventually learned that he would get treats when he came out. I would crinkle the cracker-plastic, a sound all well-trained rats know, and he would come out from under the dresser and wait by my foot until I either picked him up or gave him the cracker. If I did the latter, he would of course retreat beneath the dresser to eat the treat in his safe haven.

It was such a pleasure, seeing him flourish socially. I felt that I was doing well. I was pleased that he was able to trust me.

Soon, Mark passed away and Liam and Vincent became roomies. At first there was a lot of fighting, but in the end they grew very close. This made me happy.

When we moved into the apartment we're in now, Liam's routine of going under the dresser never stuttered. But I noticed that if I kept them out for a long while, Liam would eventually come out. He would go under my bed and investigate that. He would climb on my book shelves, sniff my books, and eventually come to sit on the bed with me and Vincent.

Whenever he did, I was very happy. I knew that he was extremely comfortable with me.

When company visited, he was always still shy. When I let company handle the boys, I usually let them play with Vincent. Vincent was the social sort, raised properly by Mark Bark. However, if given a cracker, Liam would still take it. He had learned the cracker was good treat.

Liam has always been sick. He was probably wheezing the day he was born. It's very common for rats to develop this lung disease; its a respiratory disease called Mycoplasma. It's basically a virus, a nasty little bacteria. There are a lot of ways ratties can get them, including being passed on from the womb. You can always tell who has the virus. There are several symptoms: sneezing, wheezing, crusty eyes, crusty nose.

Mark had the sneezes, so it is probably a safe assumption he had very minor Mycoplasma. Vincent too. But Liam had the worst. I knew that when I got him, his life would be shorter than Vincent's. As Liam aged, the virus took better hold of him.

A lot sneezing, intense wheezing; his eyes and nose were always a little red. It got worse and worse in the past few months. His body began to deteriorate as his skin stuck to his bones and his body lost all fat. The past few weeks, I knew it would be any day now.

So I gave him and Vincent anything they wanted. They wanted crackers? How many? They wanted yogurt raisins? Choose your favorite.

Liam was a good old soul. Shy and timid, but good. He was the most rattiest of rats, being as close to a wild rat as is possible without being wild.
I will always remember him and think of him fondly. I am glad now that his wheezing and distress has stopped. He will move on; his soul will meet up with Edgar and Mark, and Victoria, and even Alice and Sadie. I take comfort in that.

Cthulhu, Cthulhu

These are personalized, but I don't mind putting it out there for anyone else interested. :)

Ritter a.k.a Hermes

Ritter has a new name, one that I approve of greatly: Hermes! I will have to get used to this, of course. It will be strange not calling him Ritter next time I get to hang out with him.

So here I am posting some pictures of the little guy.

These two outside are at the dog park area at Intermural (?) Fields. I got Sam to take the picture while I kept the pup-dog at bay with a fancy Milkbone.

I discovered quite by accident that if you let Ritter aka Hermes have a stuffed toy (and yes, he actually does know the difference between something that is his and something that is yours), he will gladly rip it to shreds. After he has checked, of course, that it is okay with you that he keep it.

 

These pictures are of Mr. Hermes playing and whomping his new toy.

 I love this shot of him! He looks so damn happy! Like he's in doggy heaven. :)

One of our first nights with Ritter (I noticed he was a dancer):

And then there was this video I took where he was just an excited pooch with his rippity-bunny toy (don't worry folks, I took the stuffing out of the body. I know how to deal with fluff):

Puzzle Pieces

Here is Rudyard, sleeping like a cute button-butt. Squee!!!

Last night Sam and I took Ritter to his parents house to stay indefinitely. It was pretty hard leaving him there. We stayed for a few hours, and Ritter did a lot of lap sitting with me. He was excited about the new place and wanted to run around everywhere. I knew, and still know, that he was going to be very happy.

It was just the whole leaving part. I didn't realize how much I enjoyed Ritter's company. He was always hanging out with me, always wanting to be with me. But I knew I couldn't afford another pet. Not financially and not attention-wise.

So everything is better this way; the house is back to normal. Jack and Rudyard are so happy to have everything back to themselves. Jack has gotten so upset lately due to his lack of running about that he has flipped over the ledge in his part of the cage. It is maddening, I tell you.


Since my sewing machine has been up-and-running and working smoothly (my problems in the past were with my tensions... the bobbin, I had it threaded incorrectly; and the top wasn't tight enough either). Since yesterday, I've started creating an awesome "monster" bag that I'm really excited about. I don't want to talk about what it is right now, but I will take amazing pictures of the amazing creation. We'll just say that it amps up my monster-bag making skills and challenges my creative brain to the MAX.

So I feel like everything is going smoothly right now. I don't have any immediate belly dance shows, which is great. It means I have a break.

I do have to continue looking for a second job, though, which sucks. Having a permanent part-time job and oddball jobs just doesn't seem to cut it. And I really like my part-time job, as well as all my oddball jobs. Maybe one day it will all suffice.

George Tekai: man of the hour

Collaborative Effort

The super fun crazy kid I baby-sat yesterday drew a picture of the kind of purse she wanted. (Oh poo, I wish I had the picture to show it to you). She wanted a dog with a tongue and floppity ears, and the strap had to be able to go across her shoulders, not just on one.

Well, we worked all the live-long night (until bed-time anyway) on this awesome-possom dog purse, during which the entire time she sang me this song about Reindeer Games because that's what they were doing at school. Except the song sounded creepy because the words were something like "Come to the reindeer games, you'll never be the same."

Anywho, LO AND BEHOLD!
Camryn's astounding work of art!

I would like to note that Camryn did a lot of the work. I showed her how the sewing machine worked and how to do the basic stitch (which we discovered that she loathed) and the whip stitch. Bravo Cam!!

Updates on the dog

We've had Ritter since Tuesday. He's very sweet and mellow for a Jack Russel. I made the decision yesterday that it was time to start calling folks and see who would be interested in adopting a stray.

It's really rough right now; the boys have hardly been out this past week and Jack has been throwing one hissy fit right after another. Whenever they come out, they pretty much just stay in my room, which I know they hate being confined to the one space. But I don't really feel comfortable letting them interact with the terrier.

Not that Ritter has given any signs to being a bother; he's very sweet with the cats and gave Church a smack on the face yesterday. I'm on 85% sure that he wouldn't do anything to my babies, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.

Is this dog yours?

He was found on South Milledge in the Jamestown apartment complex. He was wandering there a couple days ago (11/01/10) and came back the next day to hang out and be social.

He's currently in my care until we find his owner's or we find someone who can take care of him permanently.

I'm calling him Ritter (from the book Plague Dogs by Richard Adams) but he has no name and no collar. He's very sweet (a big kisser). He responds to whistling and pats. enjoys people company, has no problem with cats (haven't tried the ferrets yet, but I'm starting to think the same), and is extremely well house-trained. For the most part he knows how to walk on a leash and understands the word 'no.' He knows how to fetch also. He's neutered and his tail has been docked.

Very clearly, he belonged to someone. I'm hoping to reunite him with that someone.
Here are some pictures: