Farewell Karni

Yesterday we said goodbye to our rat friend Karni. He had developed cancer in his stomach and we had to euthanize him. He was two years old, the lifespan of a rat being only 3-5 it was not entirely unexpected. Sophie was very upset, but with her brothers help, she gave him a lovely burial and tried hard to understand death. At age 5 it is a hard concept but she seems to be doing well, knowing that Karni has now gone back to Mother Earth. We gave him a stone with the words, "Karni-a good rat" on it and Sophie put flowers on his grave. We will miss the little guy. He was indeed a good rat.

Animals~All Our Relations

We love our animals. We have three cats and one dog and a rat! David has had Goober since before I met him, in fact when we were only friends, I came to his house and fed Goober while David was on a trip.

Sabrina was a shelter rescue. She was barely six weeks old when we got her, just a month after moving in together.

Cleopatra (Cleo) was another rescue who had bee abandoned at the vet that I worked at because her owner's didn't want to deal with a continuing eye infection. (It was all cleared up by the time we got her at 12 weeks.)

And of course, you all know Katy's story.

We have also fostered a couple of dogs temporarily and raised a raccoon kit until he was old enough to be rehabilitated into the wild. One of the things that we have always enjoyed together was helping animals.

Karni was a pet store purchase when my son wanted a rat.

April is National Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Month. In light of that, I want to share some tips.

What You Can Do to Help Animals in your community

*Be their voice! Speak for the animals who can't speak for themselves.

*Know who to call to report animal cruelty. Call the humane society to find out in your area.

*Provide as much information as possible when reporting animal cruelty (the type of cruelty you witnessed, who was involved, the date & place of the incident)

*Set a good example for others. If you have pets, be sure to always show them the love and good care that they deserve.

*Talk to your kids about how to treat animals with kindness and respect.

Signs Of Animal Cruelty or Neglect

-Wounds on the body

-Large patches of missing hair

-Extremely thin, starving animals

-Limping

-Someone striking or physically abusing an animal

-Animals repeatedly left alone without food and water

Rat Uh-Oh

Well, it turns out that our Karni, is in fact a boy. The pet store employee told us it was a female, and I mistakenly, thought he would know better than I. Even though I am a trained veterinary technician, and well-versed in what a pair of testicles look like. So we had planned to get 'her' a companion, but now, 'he' will have to be alone because male rats will fight, they say. And we certainly can't afford to spay a rat. ":> Either way, he is still a little sweetie and gets more and more used to us and is very friendly.

New Family Member

Meet our newest addition the family. This is Karni. A rat, not a mouse. (Named for the Karni Mata, Temple of the Rats in India.) She is about 4 weeks old. She is very nervous, but really sweet. We are taking it slow and letting her get used to being away from her rather large family at the pet store. The kids have always wanted to get a pet rat and we finally decided to do it.