#shadow the rat
This might look familiar to you, because its an agility course I already posted Donut doing - in the posted version she was fetching a ball through it, but I also wanted to post this one to show you how excited she gets to do the weaving courses alone!
Trick tutorial on how to train a rat to weave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bz4EXnFa78
Trick tutorial on training a rat agility: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5Q-vAIpNME
Egg combining her weave skills with her basketball skills - she did a great job!
Trick tutorial on training rats to play basketball: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMf3wUl89nE
Trick tutorial on training rats to weave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bz4EXnFa78
Olive practicing the fetch the mail trick using the smaller mailbox prop - she’s doing a great job!
Trick tutorial for the “fetch the mail” trick: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgpMg56ENJM
Trick tutorial on training a rat to fetch (prerequisite trick): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNsALU4xbzo
Egg practicing some longer weaves - she’s really gaining confidence with weaves and soon we’ll be using these longer ones in her agility courses!
Trick tutorial on how to train a rat to weave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bz4EXnFa78
Donut working on a fun short agility course - agility courses are her favorite and so we practice various setups quite often!
Trick tutorial on training rats to fetch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNsALU4xbzo
Trick tutorial on training a rat agility: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5Q-vAIpNME
Egg fetching a tissue from a tissue box - she’s gotten amazing at generalizing her fetch skills and picked this up so quickly!
How to train a rat to fetch a tissue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKfruD20_xA
Trick tutorial on training rats to fetch (prerequisite trick): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNsALU4xbzo
Olive practicing her double barrel roll - I use targets with yogurt smeared on them to encourage her to walk without any luring or targeting!
Trick tutorial on training a rat to walk on a barrel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KVjImgn0-c
Olive practicing the bowling trick - she’s pretty forceful with her pushes, so she often gets strikes!
Trick tutorial on training a rat to bowl: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uINkalAPa9I
Omelet is working on scent work - she’s slowly gaining confidence with the new scent work props, and is doing an amazing job!
Trick tutorial on training rats scent work (which this trick is a generalized form of): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Os7rOc7EOWI
Olive working on a new agility course that combines regular agility obstacles with walking on a barrel and spinning on cue!
Trick tutorial on training a rat to walk on a barrel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KVjImgn0-c
Trick tutorial on training rats to spin on cue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOefgE79rjM
Trick tutorial on training a rat agility: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5Q-vAIpNME
Olive learning another fun agility course, this time including her walk on a barrel and spin tricks! Olive is a HUGE fan of spinning in particular so she was very excited to race towards the spin at the end of this course!
Trick tutorial on training a rat to walk on a barrel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KVjImgn0-c
Trick tutorial on training rats to spin on cue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOefgE79rjM
Trick tutorial on training a rat agility: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5Q-vAIpNME
Donut working a fun new agility course with weaves and fetch. This course is particularly special because I’ve never had a rat do weaves at 2 separate points in an agility course - for some reason I thought it would trip Donut up, but she had no issues and found her entry both times! Very proud of this sweet girl and I’m also proud that she then was able to transfer her fetch trick to the course as well!
Trick tutorial on how to train a rat to weave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bz4EXnFa78
Trick tutorial on training rats to fetch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNsALU4xbzo
Trick tutorial on training a rat agility: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5Q-vAIpNME
Pickle has officially passed - I was there the entire time, and she was fully knocked out before they injected her heart. I got to hold her steady and once injected it only took a few seconds for her to pass away - it was truly a peaceful experience, and I’m so glad Pickle got to go this way without any extra pain or suffering.
Its so easy to look at how early she passed and feel discouraged by it - but I want to choose to remember her life as it was, happy, energetic, hyper, and and living life to the fullest. It always hurts to see a rat pass, especially as young as Pickle, but I know she lived a good life and I’m glad I was able to do her one last kindness by helping her pass peacefully.
Goodbye Pickle - you were an amazing rat, and I was so lucky to have you <3
(Music credit: “Imagine Dragons - On Top Of The World”)
Here’s a compilation of some of my favorite tricks that Pickle learned - she’s only been with me for a little over 13 months, but she’s always been so confident and sweet and she’s picked up so many tricks so quickly!
On Monday morning I will be taking Pickle in to be humanely euthanized - I’ve decided its not fair on her to keep putting her through procedures like tooth trimming when she has no hope of recovery. I want her to go when she still has a good quality of life, and that’s clearly starting to dip now. This is the part I hate about having such short lived pets like rats - nonetheless I don’t regret getting her or any of my rats, and I’m happy that she got to have a good and happy life, even if it is being cut way too short.
(Music credits: “Mischief Maker” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Hey guys, so I wanted to give you an update on Pickle.
So Pickle had her 3rd vet visit today (3 in 2 weeks, poor girl ), and the news isn’t great. I haven’t updated since her first vet visit, but after her second visit the vet was optimistic that we had been wrong, and that she simply had an abscess instead of an abscess + zymbal’s gland tumor. The first time he had diagnosed her off symptoms alone, as a biopsy here wouldn’t do much other than tell us if its a tumor + abscess, or just an abscess, and since the tumor is not removable and the abscess placement makes removing it surgically very risky, the biopsy wouldn’t change out treatment plan at all regardless of results.
So after the 2nd visit when the abscess opened up on its own, he was able to remove a lot of cheesy pus and then the facial lump seemed a lot smaller. This is why he changed his diagnosis, because she seemed to be healing nicely and not developing other symptoms.
I wasn’t 100% convinced though, which is why I’ve held off updating. Pickle had lost almost 10% of her body weight in the 9 days between vet visits 1 and 2, plus her jaw misalignment had worsened. So I felt something was off despite her acting normal, and sadly my feeling was right. In the next few days post vet visit 2, Pickles incisors continued to become more misaligned, and she was no longer able to keep them properly trimmed. She also wasn’t gaining weight despite me putting her on a high calorie diet with mainly soft food - it’s slowed the weight loss, but she’s still gradually losing weight
Fast forward to this Tuesday (2 days back), and suddenly things took a turn for the worse. I went to give Pickle her meds, and when I called the rats out for treats, she came out super wobbly and with a clear head tilt. She was very off balance, freaking out if held on her back, trembling as she walked, and I even noticed her eyes moving rapidly, as if she had vertigo. She also couldn’t look down - every time she tried, her head would reflexively jerk up, and she clearly couldn’t control it.
I immediately made another vet appointment, and the soonest they could get me in was Thursday morning (this morning). In the meantime I kept giving Pickle her meds, kept flushing the abscess, and started hand feeding her. I noticed Pickles left ear canal had become completely blocked with pus - this is likely what caused the neurological symptoms. As my vet explained today, the vestibular nerve that controls balance is located there, so being blocked up like this is what caused these symptoms.
Now Pickle actually has improved some since Tuesday - she has pretty much stopped trembling as she walks, can climb up and down without issue, and her head tilt seems to be a bit less prominent. She also regained her appetite, something she lost most of Tuesday. She is still a bit off balance, but her ability to manage it (other than when looking down) seemed to be vastly improved.
Unfortunately it’s these symptoms that made the vet suspect that his first diagnosis of a zymbal’s gland tumor + abscess is actually true. Abscesses tend to stay encapsulated and while they will exert pressure and can grow as they fill with puss, they shouldn’t invade other areas as we are seeing now. So it seems like Pickle has both a deep rooted tumor and an abscess, neither which can be dealt with surgically. So all I can do is keep opening her abscess site (poor girl hates this, but the top skin heals too quickly and I need to remove the scab to flush the inside), flushing it, giving her antibiotics in both oral and drop form, and giving her metacam.
So that brings up the question of quality of life, because now we are seeing some diminishes in it for Pickle. Being off-balance, even if you can deal with it, isn’t fun, and with no end in sight it’s hard know if its worth continuing to treat, especially since we don’t know if the symptoms will resolve even if we manage to get rid of the abscess (if there is a tumor, which is looking extremely likely, then it’ll continue to grow and continue to create more neurological issues). On top of that she has the whole malocclusion thing, and while I’m getting her teeth burred (filed) by the vet on Monday, we don’t know how she’ll tolerate the sedation.
But this is still a stressful procedure, and Pickle is hating all the trips to the vet (they are great with her, but she’s always been more sensitive to new things than her sisters, plus she doesn’t feel great). So now the question is on me - how long is it ethical for me to prolong Pickle’s life, given that she likely will continue to get worse. I’m of 2 minds here - on one hand Pickle is getting around well for now, has a good appetite, and still enjoys free-range and cuddling with her cagemates, so I don’t feel she’s doing too bad currently. But on the other hand her symptoms have progressed rapidly, and she is at least somewhat uncomfortable due to being off-balance and having all that puss in her ear (I’ve seen her shaking her head more recently, which is a sign of discomfort in that area).
It’s such a hard decision, but now that Pickle is starting to go downhill I think I’ll be having her pts sooner than not. I hate it, I was so pleased with last week’s news and was hopeful despite my suspicions, but it looks like we didn’t get that lucky. I will continue to do the best I can for Pickle, but I feel like the end is near.
(Video shows Pickle trying to eat by lowering her head - she only does this when lowering her head (not when walking or lying down), but you can see how difficult this make eating for her)
Olive working a new obstacle combo - we need to revisit walking on the barrel away from me, but she did pretty good for her first attempt at doing that with an item!
Trick tutorial on training a rat to walk on a barrel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KVjImgn0-c
Trick tutorial on training a rat basketball (which is part of the BBQ trick): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMf3wUl89nE
Trick tutorial on training a rat agility: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5Q-vAIpNME
Well this week has been…pretty crazy rat wise! I know its been a few days since I updated on my current rats, but that’s partially because so much has been happening with them.
First up, poor Olive had to go to the vet because she had some vaginal bleeding. I was worried it was a pyometra or another Bean situation (Bean had uterine cancer and it hemorrhaged, causing her to pass shortly after emergency surgery), but thankfully its just a bladder infection and the vet put her on baytril for the next few weeks to clear it up. Its only been a few days since that visit but already Olive has responded to the treatment, and is no longer bleeding or acting off at all
Now as for the more exciting news, I got 4 more rats to add to my group! Two come from Second Chance Hero Rat Adoptions in Richmond VA - an amazing volunteer helped drive them all the way to me (I’m over 3 hours away for context!), and both girls have settled in great! Those two rats are the standard sized russian blues - the russian blue berkshire is called Banana (and she reminds me so much of Bean that I keep calling her the wrong name - she really is like a little Bean reincarnated, right down to her sleeping habits!), and her sister (the russian blue variagated) is called Blueberry (her markings remind me of my late girl Blackberry, although unlike Blackberry she isn’t agressive and is much better with handling lol). Both girls are about 7 months old, and both are quite confident and love to explore (especially Banana, she just walks right into open space like she owns it and is SO enthusiastic about training time!)
And as for the other 2 girls, those girls are 10 week old dwarf rats! They won’t be growing much more, so their tininess will be here to stay lol. These girls come from Boggle Brothers Rattery NC. Both are super sweet and friendly, and the Harley black variegated is called Butter, while her sister (the black variegated with standard fur) is called Toast! Toast unfortunately will need surgery to correct an umbilical hernia - I was warned of this by their breeder, but I opted to bring her home regardless since the surgery is quick and easy and won’t impact her later life. She has already been to the vet once to be evaluated for surgery and to have the umbilical hernia confirmed, and we have a surgery date set for June 16th.
All and all its been a pretty eventful week rat-wise, but I’m very happy with all the new editions and soon I’ll be introducing them to my other 4 rats to form a group of 8! I’m a bit nervous for intros with the dwarfs because of their small size (both are well under 100 grams and all my standard rats are over 300 grams, with some being over 400 grams), but I think intros will go well and I’m just going to take it one step at a time to ensure everyone gets along safely…
(Please forgive my terrible pictures lol - we will be taking some better pictures soon, but just haven’t had the time yet!)
Post link
Omelets turn to try out spins and weaves in the same agility course - she’s really improved her weaving skills, and as for spin she needs a bit more practice doing it in a course, but overall she did great!
Trick tutorial on how to train a rat to weave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1#ratagility
Trick tutorial on training rats to spin on cue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOefgE79rjM
Trick tutorial on training a rat agility: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5Q-vAIpNME
Egg’s turn to learn to fetch the mail - Egg tends to be more wary around new props than her cagemates, so I’m always super proud when she masters a new prop-based trick!
Trick tutorial for the “fetch the mail” trick: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgpMg56ENJM
Donut weaving in a semi-circle while carrying a ball! One trick comes naturally to her (weaves, aka her favorite trick!), the other is the result of lots of practice (carrying an item, aka the hardest trick for Donut but one she’s learned amazingly well with practice!)
I like combining tricks that the rats both love from the start with tricks they need to work more on, because then they start to enjoy the tricks they need to put more effort into due to associating them with their favorite tricks!
Trick tutorial on how to train a rat to weave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bz4EXnFa78
Trick tutorial on training rats to fetch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNsALU4xbzo
This weeks ratty paw paintings! Everyone was super excited to paint & take photos again - we took a bit of a break last week, but we are now starting up again!
Pickle had her last photoshoot the day after her 1st vet visit, and she is no longer painting or training. She painted these 3 paintings seen here about 2 weeks back, but we hadn’t gotten pictures yet, and I was holding off until I knew she wasn’t in pain. She’s doing well so we snapped the last few photos of her with her final paintings, and she really enjoyed the yummy yogurt and photo session!
If you would like to commission a painting from Omelet, Olive, Egg, or Donut, you can do so on our Etsy shop (called “RatPaintings”) here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/RatPaintings
Olive’s turn to work fetch while walking backwards on two rolling barrels in a row - and yes she is walking backwards on them, watch her feet closely and you’ll see she has to backup on each barrel in order to move it forwards!
Trick tutorial on training a rat to walk on a barrel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KVjImgn0-c
Trick tutorial on training rats to fetch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNsALU4xbzo
Sweet Donut doing some fun scent work with the mini chests - she has to sniff out and tip chest 4!
Trick tutorial on training a rat scent work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Os7rOc7EOWI
Here was Pickle weaving with a ball from about a month back - present day Pickle is continuing to do well, although her facial abscess (which is on top of the tumor) did open up yesterday. It doesn’t smell bad, which is interesting because it smelled pretty nasty when it first leaked on Thursday - so hopefully that means the AB’s are doing their job. I’m kinda afraid to flush it due to the location, so we will see what my vet says when we meet up Wednesday for another checkup.
I’ll post some update pictures later showing the progression - thankfully Pickle herself seems to be unbothered and has no issue with me poking around the area either.
Trick tutorial on how to train a rat to weave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bz4EXnFa78
Trick tutorial on training rats to fetch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNsALU4xbzo
Pickle continues to do well, and she’s enjoying all the extra banana chips she could ask for! As for this clip, this is the last trick clip I recorded with Pickle from last Thursday - here she and Omelet were playing vs basketball, which is pretty much their signature trick because of how much they’ve practiced it (and yet Omelet still missed once lol - hey, she tries her best!)
Trick tutorial on training rats to play basketball: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMf3wUl89nE
Trick tutorial on training rats vs basketball: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHBaOt2K1hg
Pickle continues to do well, and she is not liking her training retirement much yet lol - she sees me training the other rats and she stares daggers at me for not giving her a turn! I’m giving her yummy treats to compensate though, and she’s enjoying several hours of free-range & foraging daily ❤
As for this clip, I took this back in February when I was teaching Pickle and Egg to wave - this was a clip from Pickles very first time training the wave trick, and she got it so quickly!
How to train a rat to wave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQFSrjemIug
So I’ve stopped training new tricks with Pickle because I don’t want to add any stress to her life right now, however I have some trick clips of her that I have yet to post from before, so I’m going to post those alongside updates.
As far as today’s update, its mainly good news - Pickle has responded really well to the metacam (although she HATES the taste lol), and is back to being 100% active and playful! Very happy to see her act this way, she really seems to be comfortable and doesn’t seem bugged by the tumor.
Another good thing is that Pickles ear infection has cleared up - the ear drops + antibiotics have done an amazing job, and while she’ll continue to be on them, I’m glad to see one issue resolved.
Then unfortunately we have some bad news, which is that the tumor is continuing to grow pretty quickly. In addition to that, it seems that she has an abscess on top of the tumor (common with these types of tumors :/ ), and I can see a scab forming on the lump. Once it opens up, we can flush it and treat it like a usual abscess, but in all likelihood it will never heal back up, because the growing tumor behind it will make that impossible.
Right now I’m just happy that Pickle is comfortable and active, and while I hate seeing this progress I’m glad to know that at least Pickle is continuing to do well and enjoy life <3
Hey guys, so unfortunately I have some bad news - Pickle was diagnosed with a zymbal’s gland tumor today. I suspected she had one when I saw the left side of her face swell up this weekend - I went ahead and gave her infant motrin to reduce swelling/any pain, and while the swelling went down, that just made it apparent that she had a small bump between her ear and jaw (see picture 2 & 3 - the lump is on her left side (right in the picture)).
This is a classic location for zymbal’s gland tumors (ZGT’s), and these tumors often present with an abscess or cyst alongside them, making it easy to misdiagnose them if you’re not looking for them. Unfortunately, while this is my first time dealing with ZGT in my own rats, I’ve seen plenty of images and videos of them in other people’s rats, so I immediately had to suspect one :(
So I made an appointment to take Pickle to the vet today, and the vet quickly confirmed my guess. She does indeed have an infection on top of the ZGT, so we are treating that aggressively with antibiotics, ear drops, and metacam.
The tumor itself is always untreatable, as the location makes removing or even debulking it impossible (it’s right next to the jaw, and if removed it would take the jaw and part of the ear - so impossible to do on a living rat. The tumor also tends to grow more aggressively if messed with, making surgery even more risky). These tumors are almost always malignant, meaning they grow quickly and often spread to other parts of the body - but they are so aggressive in growth that often the rat has to be PTS before this. Prognosis is usually 2-4 weeks before needing to euthanize after initial symptoms, and treatment is all about palliative care to make the rat comfortable and reduce any inflammation, pain, and any accompanying infection.
Once the tumor grows too large, it will also begin to shift things around, causing malocclusion and pain. I already see some very slight malocclusion in Pickle, and the lump has grown some even in just the 3 days since it popped up, so we will be watching her quality of life closely from now on. She has another appointment in 9 days to see her progress, and we will determine our continued treatment from there.
Regardless of what we do, Pickle will be put to sleep before the end of May (right before she turns 1.5 yrs…that was going to happen June 8th) - I can’t believe I’m typing this while looking at her now, because she’s still acting so normal and happy. I hate that this tumor is taking away an otherwise healthy and happy 17 month old rat - she’s not even in the old age bracket for tumors yet, and it just feels like she’s being robbed of so much life. I can’t even describe how I’m feeling - I know illness is never fair, but it really feels like Pickle is too young for this shit.
I’m so so sorry Pickle - I will give you the best last few weeks possible, and I promise I won’t let you suffer at the end </3
This weeks adorable rat paw paintings by my sweet ratty girls - they all did such a great job!
If you would like to commission your own rat paw painting, you can do so by going to our Etsy “RatPaintings” here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/RatPaintings
Omelet has taken on a new fun trick, that being bowling! Desktop bowling sets are the perfect size for rats, and I think mini bowling is just the cutest trick!
Trick tutorial on training a rat to bowl: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uINkalAPa9I
Olive (black self) and Egg (pink eyed white) practicing their vs basketball trick! Its been a bit since they worked this, but both girls did great!
Trick tutorial on training rats to play basketball: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMf3wUl89nE
Trick tutorial on training rats vs basketball: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHBaOt2K1hg
A bit late, but here are some of my adorable ratties posing for easter pictures!
Doing some agility with Omelet and I wanted to try and include her ring toss trick…Omelet did pretty well considering its been a bit since we practiced this, and also considering she’s never done agility while carrying an item (other than flyball)! She’s such a awesome little rat! ❤️
Trick tutorial on training rats ring toss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwTicilZNuE
Trick tutorial on training rats basketball (prerequisite trick): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMf3wUl89nE
Trick tutorial on training rats agility: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5Q-vAIpNME
