The wonders of Snow

The sad times are continuing here unfortunately. No updates on the poorly people here but there's been a flurry of sad updates from past residents of late. Rest in peace Charm, Oliver, Naboo, Snippet, Sprite, Ana, Svetlana, Squiggles & Shadow who have all left us for the bridge this month. Even when they're not here any more I still feel each and every loss. I'm just grateful to their lovely new owners who gave them all such nice lives and who kept in touch to let me know when their time came.

So anyway with snow bringing Wallington to a halt, no trains, no buses and roads covered in 8 inches of snow, a couple of days off work have been a godsend. I've been able to catch up with the cleaning out, get a few bits and pieces done and I even took a bit of time to enjoy the snow! With the sprog dogs of course!!















































It has also meant I've had time to spend with our new arrival! This is Foxy. Born in a rodent farm where rats are intensively and indiscriminately bred just as dogs are in the more well known puppy farms, he ended up in the Reading branch of a well known national chain of pet shops. Whilst on sale he developed an abcess and was separated from his siblings while he underwent treatment. Being away from other rats at such a young age and a critical stage in his development has left him unsure of other rats. Consequently he was put into their adoption centre and advertised as needing a home where he would live alone. A rat that cannot live with others is incredibly rare (I've know two in almost 500) and I was sure all he needed was a home willing to try. He was collected from there by one of our adopters and handed in to us for rehoming. Buuutttt, as it happened I had just, a few days before, come up with a possible solution to a problem which had been troubling me. Quest and Tim are now 14 months old and living as a pair. The plan had been to neuter them to live with the girls but, to be honest, after losing their brother Skip I lost my nerve and I couldn't bring myself to do it. And now all of a sudden they're a bit old for an elective neuter but i have to face facts that one day one of them will go and leave the other alone. I realised the solution could be to mix another younger male with them and have him neutered so that he can stay with them until they leave us and then move in with the girls. And then I heard about Foxy and then I saw his picture and it was like it was fate. So we are now on day three of introductions and we're making slow progress. I'm incredibly proud of Quest and Tim who have been good as gold with their rather mixed up new friend and aproached intros with their usual vigour and enthusiasm (as you can see!). At the moment Foxy is quite scared of them but I'm sure we'll get there before very long.

In other happy news, Fred the neutered boy rat went to his new home on Sunday with Becky who adopted another grumpy neutered boy Barney from us last year. Note the matching names! They were also very similar looking so perhaps another example of fate intervening there? Either way Fred is very much enjoying his new home already (even if he is a little confused as to why that biting thing doesn't work with Becky).