Robbie - Was my very first rat ever. Well,
second. I'd kept other rodents... gerbils, hamsters, Guinea pigs...
and was looking for something new and exciting. I found a couple
books that favorably mentioned rats. I asked my mother. The
more she said no, the more I wanted a rat. Never being one to follow
authority (I'll respect it, I just won't follow it ;-P), I biked to the
pet store and brought home a PEW male. My mother, who has never been
a fan of rats (despite "rescueing" one while she was in high school...
they were going to feed it to a snake after she'd spent time training it
to pull a lever for food as a school project), in fact my mother always
professed she was slightly scared of them, and she promply took "Robbie
the 1st" back to the pet store (okay, not promptly... if I did what I was
supposed to do school-wise I could keep it. I didn't). I waited
a week or so, but after having even a couple days' experiance with a rat
I needed another one (or maybe I just wanted to defy my mother? My
memory gets hazy at this point....), so I took another trip to the pet
store and brought home another rat, this one a Champagne (tho the color
"champagne" will always be "tan" in my mind) hooded male, which I named
Robbie after a childhood (yes even *before* this story) friend. I
was soon incredibly impressed with the difference between him and my other
rodents; I never expected that he would actually *like* me. But he
most certainly did. It didn't take me long to figure out that he
wasn't licking me because he liked the "taste of the salt on my hands"!
One memory that stands out in my mind is when I went on vacation for a
weekend, during which he chewed through his cage; I was incredibly disappointed
when I got back, and sat down on my bed before planning to begin the often-fruitless
search that I was so used to with the other rodents; and as I was sitting
there, who should climb onto my lap, pratically scaring the living daylights
out of me?? Well, I think you know who ;-)
Adam - A while after Robbie met an early and heart-breaking
fate, I decided to get another rat. This turned out to be Adam, a
black (well, blackish) berkshire male. He survived a while longer
and was a very good friend for a long time. For some reason, the
image I have of him is laying on a friend's bed, curled up nose-to-tail
like a puppy, sound asleep with me watching him.
Eve - Not really my rat by any means; Jes was the
first person I "converted". Not having been allowed any pets before,
she knew, as well as an 12 yr old can know anything about her parents,
that she would not be allowed to keep a rat. So we walked to the
pet store; at this point we seriously didn't believe we were going to buy
anything. She walked home with the ever-infamous Eve, a PEW female
rat. I walked home with my first two mice. Eve grew into one
of the biggest, best-looking rats I'd ever seen (until I saw her sons,
daughters, grandsons and granddaughters, that is); she also had a wonderful,
intelligent personality. All-around one of the best rats I've ever
known.
Damian, Trevor, and Sullivan - After going a little
overboard with the rats (that was when I hit my all-time high of 37), my
mother banned them again. But, we moved back to Ann Arbor and back
to Jes, who had a just-weaned litter of rats from Eve. I biked to
the pet store, bought a cage, and took two of jes' rats; an Agouti hooded
named Damian, and a PEW named Trevor.
Nearly all the 36 rats I'd had previously had been taken to the pet
store by my mother; this caused me enormous grief and my mother was not
in good favor in my eyes for a very long time afterwords. However,
a few had managed to avoid the pet store; I'd given three young males to
Jes, to give to a friend of hers, Julia.
When we got back to Ann Arbor, it turned out two of those had met unfortunate
fates; the third, Sullivan, had been given to the pet store and was still
sitting in the pet store when I went to buy my cage. Sullivan being
the very last surviving member of my badly-fated community of much-loved
rats, there was certainly nothing I could do but take Sully in, as well.
All of these lived to ripe old ages; Trevor survived a horrible bout of
Myco (I knew more than many people know about that disease even before
I knew what it was called) to live to well over two years; Sullivan lived
to almost three; and Damian passed away only last year at well over three,
after siring more than a couple litters.
Stormy - Stormy was born October 13th, 1995; ironically
(or perhaps humorously) enough on my mother's birthday! His father
was Damian; his mother was Nikki, a small, rather shy, but exceptionally
beautiful little Black hooded female that Julia brought me (for reasons
I still havn't figured out). He "belonged" to my 8 yr old sister,
in that she chose him while he was still a pupling and decided he was hers,
although mom barely tolerated *me* with rats, much less Sophie. So
he stayed in my cage, I cared for him, and she rarely held him, but to
this day we both think of him as hers. He was a dirty black berkshire,
one of the two black berkshires in the litter; both of which were affectionate
to an annoying degree, constantly licking and cuddling. He soon reached
full size, and then some more; he was more than a bit overweight!
He only died last month, and it was a bit hard to see him go.
Sabrina - Oddly enough, Sabrina was never a rat that
I was horribly attracted to; nothing against her, but I loved the other
members of the litter just as much; she was Stormy's other black berkshire
sibling, *very* "licky", and *very* hyper. She turned out even more
beautiful than her mother, which is saying something; she had the same
long, soft coat; and unlike Stormy, she was a dark, even black. She
was small, but sleek and pretty. I had never planned to keep her
(I was more than a bit pressed for cage space), and eventually ended up
giving her away to someone or other. I later regretted it, as she
was a wonderful rat; for some reason, she'll always hold a special place
in my heart.
Lily - Lily was a PEW female. At first her parentage
was disputed. The story goes like this; Julia's rat, Sass (a daughter
of Eve's) had given birth to a total of one - count 'em, one - baby.
To this day I have not heard of another rat giving birth to only a single
baby. Julia hadn't even known she was pregnant! The baby was
a PEW female. Julia later bought another PEW female from a pet store;
the two were about the same age. "Lily" later ended up at my house.
At first Julia thought she had the parentage all figured out; Lily was
the rat from the pet store, Sauvel was Sass' baby. But Lily grew
up huge, with the very distinctive look of a rat that was descended from
Eve, while Sauvel - while not bad looking - looked more or less like a
basic pet shop rat. We still weren't sure until Lily later reabsorbed
(or possibly aborted and then ate) a litter; a trait that some of Eve's
female descendants carried (but no longer do, at least as far as I know).
That about cinched it!
Todd - At some point or other, Julia had a litter
that had a bunch of black hoods and PEWs in it. Always ones to help
out with finding homes for each other's rats (almost always by taking in
one or two), I requested a young, barely weaned black hooded male.
I took him everywhere with me. I made a little pouch out of an old
sock, and carried him around with me in it, tied around my neck.
He went to more than a few places that he no doubt wasn't allowed (I still
remember watching a movie in a movie theatre with him). After he
got older he was allowed to run loose in my room; he would snuggle up with
me at night (yes, I've slept with a rat. Do you have problem
with that?). He was very close to being my best friend for nearly
his entire life, and his loss was one of the harder I've ever experianced.
Yash - After Todd's loss, I eventually decided I need
another "special" rat. Julia, it just so happened, had another litter
that included black hoods. I again requested a young black hooded
male. This one was named "Loiash"; not a great fan of the name (I
only later found out it stemmed from a fantasy book and was the name of
a miniature dragon of sorts which was telepathically linked to it's owner...
don't ask me these things), I ended up shortening it to just "Yash".
Like Todd, he became a very good friend!
Tasha - Tasha was the progeny of Damian and Lily (you
may note that that's a niece x uncle pairing; just a bit inbred there!).
She was a large, beautiful PEW female typical of Eve's line. She
died recently, presumably of the tumors that were quite large. Her
surviving siblings include Jack, my big Agouti berk male that so resembles
Damian, and Tar and Green-Tail (who had a more appropriate name at some
point... I don't remember it), who belong to Jes.
Kimi - One of my more recent rats, Kimi was a little
"tan" (Champagne) hooded. I bought her pretty much on impulse after
a walk to a local pet store. She spent some time with me in some
interesting places! She died last winter, of unknown causes; she
wasn't even all that old.
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