Rats to Riches Case #00001

Rat's name: Owner's name: Location: Adoption date: Web link:

Shrek Clivia Bern, Switzerland February 27th, 2002 www.mousini.com

On February 27, 2002, I got a call from a renovation company. They had found a rat in an empty apartment and did not want to kill it but were looking for someone who could save it. They had called the Animal Protection League and had thus obtained the phone number of the rat club which I happened to be in charge of at the time.

Armed with food and a transporter, I drove to Solothurn, about 30 minutes away from Bern, Switzerland, where I live. When I got to the apartment, a very friendly employee of the company doing the renovation explained the situation to me. The apartment had been rented by a junkie and he had OD-ed and died two months ago. The police had checked the apartment, found a rat and actually put it outside to roam free instead of bringing it to the shelter. Well, that was two months previous and now the apartment had found a new owner and should get cleaned and renovated. During the week, a worker had seen a rat in the bathroom. Once somebody spilled some water and the rat rushed forward from under the bathtub, drank a little and rushed back. That is how they found out about the rat living under the bathtub.

Now they wanted to fill in the gaps in the bathroom (the apartment was in a horrible state) and did not want to wall in the rat. Hence they called the rat club.

I did not feel very confident that such a shy rat would get into my transporter soon and so I prepared for a long wait on the cold bathroom floor. It also did not help that one worker continued to make a lot of noise right next to me. I put the little food dish with grain mix, a few apple pieces and cucumber slices in the open transporter.

One second later, two shiny black eyes looked at me from the hole under the bathtub. Then a little black nose with twitching whiskers followed. I talked to the rat and asked it to come forward. The face disappeared again only to show up a second later. This continued for about 10 minutes, while the rat got bolder and advanced to the transporter with every try. Then all of a sudden the rat rushed into the transporter and started eating right away.

It was such a small thing, very emaciated, shaggy coat etc. Having expressed my thanks to the employee of the company, I drove back home, the little black rat on the passenger seat next to me. I have never seen a rat eat so much. During the drive home, it ate the entire grain mix and all the veggies and fruit.

When I got home, I discovered that he was a male rat, despite his lithe build. He was very shy but did not bite. My husband and I decided to keep him and we named him Shrek. We had to treat Shrek with ivomec (an anti-parasite) and he had to gain some weight before we could think of having him neutered.

A few weeks later, Shrek was healthy enough to be successfully neutered. During his first few weeks with us, Shrek was the most active rat I've ever seen. He jumped very high and he raced thru the apartment. He was also very interested in Pandora, Ragnarok, and Fenrir in the big rat cage. Shrek was incredibly macho and puffed his fur up and shuffled his feet angrily whenever he came near the large cage my other rats lived in.

Three weeks after the neutering, we introduced Shrek to Pandora, Ragnarok and Fenrir. Everything went well, although Shrek was very insecure and did not seem to know how to react to other rats.

A few days later, I had to help my beloved Pandora to the Bridge and Shrek was left with Ragnarok and Fenrir. Ragnarok became his best pal and they ran thru the apartment for hours. A cute picture, by the way, was Ragnarok the albino being closely followed by the dark Shrek.

Unfortunately, their friendship took a turn for the worse when two months later Shrek suddenly started to behave very alpha-ish and hurt Ragnarok badly a few times. We had to separate the two. Ragnarok was left with Fenrir. The two had grown up together and I did not wish to separate them. Shrek had to stay on his own, since he clearly could not get along with Ragnarok anymore.

A few weeks after the separation, Shrek got really ill and almost died. It was then that I found out, Shrek had worms. We could treat him and after a few hours of horrible uncertainty, Shrek was back to his old self :)

Now I had to buy a second cage. I did not want to keep Shrek in the little interim cage so we bought a uni-dom cage in Germany. Shrek lived alone in his ubercage until Ragnarok's health got so bad we had to help our little Bubu to the Bridge on October 13th, 2002. Now I was stuck with two single rats in two huge cages. Shrek had been on his own for over three months now and it was a torture for me to see him all alone every single day. We tried to introduce Shrek to other rats but he would not accept anyone. Then I tried to reintroduce him with Fenrir and this seemed to be working. I spent hours monitoring the two during the introduction which lasted weeks. Little by little, they got comfortable with each other and after a few weeks in Fenrir's cage, Shrek was ready to accept the new pal in his own cage, the uni-dom. Now the two rats are friends. They often sleep in a mini-ratpile and they only quarrel over food. I am so glad I decided to try the intro despite Shrek being a notoriously difficult character. Shrek is very attached to me and loves me deeply. He has never bitten anyone but he does not trust strangers. Shrek only plays with my husband and me, all the other people, he avoids warily.

I can only imagine what a horrible two months Shrek must have spent in the empty apartment, and I guess it will remain a mystery how he managed to survive. Nowadays he is not skinny anymore. He even tends to be a bit squishy...!

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