RatCreature (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ratcreature) wrote2008-11-21 10:15 pm
ratcreature) wrote2008-11-21 10:15 pm
Entry tags:
Krümel is the worst patient ever
Well, maybe not the absolute worst, but definitely not an easy one. Gah.
So as you remember from my last entry, he's supposed to be resting so his broken foot can heal, and to facilitate that I put him in a small hamster cage that I put inside the cage proper. And yesterday that mostly worked, he stayed in his house for the most part. And sleeping during the daytime-- also no trouble. But tonight, when I opened the cage for the others, he decided that he was bored in that tiny cage, that he wanted company, and wanted to be outside too.
And while I can ignore his wishes what with him being small and also locked up, and me not, he decided to show his displeasure by biting the cage bars and trying to get out, and half the time he hopped around upright on his hind legs to reach up to test whether he could escape that way. Which has to be as bad for his broken foot as hopping up stairs.
So I took out the cage (I can't really lift him out of the small cage easily because it has a small, completely impractical wire door on top that makes it impossible to grab him carefully and get him out without jarring his foot or worse possibly getting it tangled in the bars), then took him out, and let him hop around a little bit on my flat bed until he had calmed enough for me to convince him to settle down on my lap so he wouldn't feel isolated, and be outside at least, but not move too much. And he likes to be petted so he dozed for something like ten minutes quietly, but then got restless again. Obviously I couldn't just let him run around like he wanted, so I put him back in the tiny cage, but let that be outside, which made him more content to be inside his house there for a bit, without the desperate, crazy jailbreak gymnastics from earlier, only then he wanted back to me again (and made a racket), so I tried to settle him back on my lap and typed the first half of this entry one handed with a sleeping rat on my lap, which again that lasted only ten-fifteen minutes before he got back in the small cage (still outside the large cage) and seemingly okay to rest, and I did that in/out routine one more time while the others played outside. Which okay,didn't keep his foot still completely, but he didn't climb anything, or really run around, and considering that otherwise he'd likely have protested his incarceration while upright on his broken foot, it probably wasn't worse movement. And I hope having been out for a bit and getting cuddled on my lap helped him to feel better at least.
But if he's like this today, I am not looking forward to weeks of this. His foot still has to be hurting a lot, though thankfully so far there's no sign of him trying to gnaw it open at least, so I don't understand why he wants to run around on it so badly already. I understand that he must be bored, but really. And I feel like I should be doing better at keeping him resting, but I have no idea how. I mean, rats sleep a lot, but the few hours they are awake they want to do stuff besides eating for at least some of the time (unless they are very old or sick): destroying new things by chewing on them, playing and scuffling, running around crazily, climbing and digging in stuff, and finding paper to shred for their bedding all seem to be favorites of mine. Right now he only has food and water, newspaper to shred and a chew toy, and he doesn't like this at all. He's used to a lot more room and variety. I mean, he never gnawed on their regular cage trying to find a way out.
*sigh*
So as you remember from my last entry, he's supposed to be resting so his broken foot can heal, and to facilitate that I put him in a small hamster cage that I put inside the cage proper. And yesterday that mostly worked, he stayed in his house for the most part. And sleeping during the daytime-- also no trouble. But tonight, when I opened the cage for the others, he decided that he was bored in that tiny cage, that he wanted company, and wanted to be outside too.
And while I can ignore his wishes what with him being small and also locked up, and me not, he decided to show his displeasure by biting the cage bars and trying to get out, and half the time he hopped around upright on his hind legs to reach up to test whether he could escape that way. Which has to be as bad for his broken foot as hopping up stairs.
So I took out the cage (I can't really lift him out of the small cage easily because it has a small, completely impractical wire door on top that makes it impossible to grab him carefully and get him out without jarring his foot or worse possibly getting it tangled in the bars), then took him out, and let him hop around a little bit on my flat bed until he had calmed enough for me to convince him to settle down on my lap so he wouldn't feel isolated, and be outside at least, but not move too much. And he likes to be petted so he dozed for something like ten minutes quietly, but then got restless again. Obviously I couldn't just let him run around like he wanted, so I put him back in the tiny cage, but let that be outside, which made him more content to be inside his house there for a bit, without the desperate, crazy jailbreak gymnastics from earlier, only then he wanted back to me again (and made a racket), so I tried to settle him back on my lap and typed the first half of this entry one handed with a sleeping rat on my lap, which again that lasted only ten-fifteen minutes before he got back in the small cage (still outside the large cage) and seemingly okay to rest, and I did that in/out routine one more time while the others played outside. Which okay,didn't keep his foot still completely, but he didn't climb anything, or really run around, and considering that otherwise he'd likely have protested his incarceration while upright on his broken foot, it probably wasn't worse movement. And I hope having been out for a bit and getting cuddled on my lap helped him to feel better at least.
But if he's like this today, I am not looking forward to weeks of this. His foot still has to be hurting a lot, though thankfully so far there's no sign of him trying to gnaw it open at least, so I don't understand why he wants to run around on it so badly already. I understand that he must be bored, but really. And I feel like I should be doing better at keeping him resting, but I have no idea how. I mean, rats sleep a lot, but the few hours they are awake they want to do stuff besides eating for at least some of the time (unless they are very old or sick): destroying new things by chewing on them, playing and scuffling, running around crazily, climbing and digging in stuff, and finding paper to shred for their bedding all seem to be favorites of mine. Right now he only has food and water, newspaper to shred and a chew toy, and he doesn't like this at all. He's used to a lot more room and variety. I mean, he never gnawed on their regular cage trying to find a way out.
*sigh*
no subject
no subject
no subject
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerian_(herb)
no subject
ETA: I mean for example that wikipedia article gives "anecdotes" that it might work like catnip on rats, which isn't really a calming effect I think.