GIP, and some rat stuff

[ratcreature]

I made a TMI!RatCreature icon, for when I'm oversharing.



Also, I got an email that the rat litter from which I will get my new rats has been born. I don't have photos yet, because they're still too tiny for the mother to be comfortable with getting pictures taken, but I'll share photos as soon as I get sent some. I'm happy that now the end of Ben's sad state as a single rat is finally in sight. Well, obviously it will be still about five weeks before my future rats can move in with me and Ben, but soon he'll have other rats again for company with whom he hopefully will get along, and he won't need to make do with me for grooming and cuddling.

Not that dislike his affections, but well, besides rats being social animals, there are drawbacks to having your rat decide that your bed is the best place for dozing because you're the only cuddling option available (he never used to want to sleep on or next to me when his brother was still alive). For example Saturday evening he decided to sleep draped over my foot while I was reading, and then suddenly snapped at one of my toes. I think I must have accidentally poked him and it took him by surprise or something, because normally he's very docile and sweet natured. I mean, he won't bite you just because you shove him accidentally or grab him when he doesn't want to be picked up, and it's not even a problem to pry stuff away from his teeth, like once he picked up a piece of soft sticky eraser that had fallen to the floor and he tried to eat it, and he didn't do more than protest vocally when I took it away from between his teeth. While he didn't bite that hard, that is I suspect if I had fur like a rat or had been just wearing socks it wouldn't have broken the skin, and he let go immediately, it still hurt and for some reason it bled a lot for such a tiny wound. Anyway, for the rest of the evening my toe throbbed. Thankfully the usual drawbacks of him sharing my bed are just that I can't move freely and that I have to admonish him sometimes not to chew on my bed cover to arrange it to his liking like he does with the scraps of cloth for nesting in his cage. But still.

I'm afraid that unlike many of you in the recent "prove your existence" meme that made the round on my f-list after that SV LJ-drama, I can't procure much irrefutable proof of my reality/non-sockpuppet state for you.¹

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¹ However, *melodramatic voice* I obviously might be dying of an infected rat bite as I type, so you could send ipods. ;-) Those are urgently needed here, since I still don't have any kind of portable MP3-player, admittedly not least because instead of buying gadgets I just spend about two ipods worth on a luxury rat cage for the ungrateful, biting menace and his future companions. (Um, I guess I'm still a bit disgruntled with Ben, even though the bite actually doesn't even hurt anymore.)

Comments

[catmoran.livejournal.com]

Do you think he might have been dreaming when he bit you? I had a cat do that to me once.

[thornsilver]

Rodent bites tend to hurt a lot, because they are deep pokes. *remembers her hamster injuries*

[marinarusalka.livejournal.com]

I like the new icon, very cute. I particulary like the way its ears are blushing.

[ratcreature]

He definitely didn't bite as hard as he could have. I once had a rat bite me for real, that was when I got two females from a pet store, and that store apparently didn't separate them early enough by sexes, so both were pregnant (I was still much more clueless then and less careful where I got my pets from), and I ended up with two rats who had young before they were even tame, and one thought I was threatening her babies. She bit me really hard and wouldn't let go either but hung on like a pitbull, so I had an angry rat dangling from my hand until I shook her loose in a panic. That bite hurt a lot and I had to wear sturdy leather gloves to feed them and clean the cage for a couple of weeks.

But normally rats that have been well socialized really aren't aggressive with humans. I mean, I can still count the number of times I've been bitten on one hand (not counting the times the young mothers got my leather gloves before they became tame). Sometimes my rats kind of use their teeth for some kind of playful pinching bite, but they are careful with that one, and that never breaks the skin, and sometimes they like to nibble at my skin and hair, but that's grooming, but they don't usually don't bite to hurt, not even in stressful situations like when you hold them while they struggle to get away so the vet can give them an injection. So for Ben to bite me out of the blue was rather shocking.

[ratcreature]

Thanks! I'm glad you like it. :)

[ratcreature]

Huh. I hadn't thought of that possibility. I have sometimes seen my rats twitch a little with their feet while they're sleeping as if they dream, but they don't seem that active while asleep. Not like you sometimes see with cats or dogs who are dreaming.

[brownbetty]

I can't really prove my existence either. I think I'm someone's sock.

[ratcreature]

Well, I keep thinking that if I was someone's sock my life ought to be more interesting and also ought to have some direction or purpose or something. I mean unlike regular people socks are made for a reason, right? And they get toenact drama?

[brownbetty]

Well, maybe we're all being lured into a false sense of security, and you're about to unveil the subplot where you're involved in a polyamorous society of assasins or something.

[ratcreature]

Now that would be very cool. Then I could finally use my Ninja!RatCreature icon more often!