rat update, also more Tumblr exploration and a fanart rec

[ratcreature]

I've been giving Noah the antibiotics since Saturday now, and even though the dose was so much larger than the last time I gave this, he seems to be okay with it. Unfortunately his breathing is still quite labored, so no fabulous improvement so far, but he doesn't look quite so wretched. It's nothing definite, but for a few days he just looked worse than now. Maybe I'm imagining things, but sometimes, even with no clear sickness signs (like like insufficient grooming, apathy, loose of appetite), a rat I know will just look "unwell" to me.

Anyway, Noah seems more lively, so I hope that the antibiotic is helping him. BTW, getting 1 ml of medication into a rat's mouth is not easy. I can't do it in one squeeze from the syringe because it's more than his mouth will hold, and will just spill, even if I manage to force the syringe into his mouth, and he gets more uncooperative with the proceedings for the second half. At least this antibiotics doesn't taste as bad as Baytril, so if some spills on his fur around the mouth he licks it up instead of frantically wiping and trying to spit it out. So I figure enough of it gets swallowed.

I still haven't managed to make Tumblr work properly with my Firefox, and some of the navigation is just cryptic. Like it took me a while to find out that the weird corner animation effect on the posts in my dashboard is the permalink I can get that way. Seriously, why didn't they mark the permalink as saying permalink or something more visible than a tiny animation effect that you can activate by hovering? I moused all over posts to find a link area, it was like one of those point-and-click room escape games, where you have to find an active pixel to get an action.

But I am starting to see the appeal of just getting a bunch of pictures. I'm seeing some neat stuff I would have otherwise missed, like this picture of Michael Fassbender wearing an Uncanny X-Men t-shirt that says "Magneto Triumphant!" (eta: though on a second look I think this may be photoshopped; still fun though). Also, if I followed more Sherlock comms or used twitter I probably would have seen it elsewhere, but I saw a link to that tweet from Mark Gatiss from the Sherlock filming that they had to abort a scene early because of approaching looters. o.O!

To finish on a better note, this is very pretty XMFC fanart with Charles and Erik pin-up posters (they are not naked, the art is SFW) by loobeeinthesky which I also first saw on Tumblr, but I'm linking to the LJ post, because I still like that better.

Comments

[laughingrat]

Hey, here via Network...sorry to butt in, but you mentioned Baytril tasting awful to rats. I've noticed that too, with the liquid stuff, but our vet now gives me the liver-flavored Baytril pills. They're made for dogs, so you cut them into eighths for a dose, but then you can powder them and mix them with something delicious, like Nutri-Cal. My rats have always been pretty enthusiastic about it. Just FYI, in case you absolutely have to use Baytril in the future.

Good luck with Noah!

[ratcreature]

Thanks, I hope he'll hang in there for a while longer. He's a year and ten months so not the youngest, and the x-ray of his lungs didn't look too good. OTOH my vet has been making dire predictions for Leo since April, and he sounds horrible with myco that's resistant against everything, yet he's still holding on, so maybe Noah will be tough too with his non-myco problems (the vet wasn't sure whether it's a localized infection causing the brighter area in his lung or tumor).

That liver flavor would be useful, though I'm not sure whether those are available here. I'd never heard of them. Though Leo might not have eaten even liver-flavored Baytril. He disdains even Nutri-Cal. Some rats have really odd personal preferences, for example Noah likes mild cheese quite a lot as a treat, but Leo doesn't like that either.

I sometimes used to mix the bitter Baytril with tasty stuff with previous rats (like baby food, mashed potatoes, or nutri-cal) but often then the rat would start delighted but after some bites, become aware that something was fishy with the food, and I was unsure about the dose taken in. Also later on when the rat was in a bad way and I tried to help maintain weight, they then were suspicious of the tastiest supplement food I tried to ply them with, because I had tricked them with it so often. I've gotten fairly good over the years at forcing rats to take oral meds (at least good natured, sweet rats like mine tend to be), though I still fail completely at injections, because I live alone and have nobody else to help me hold the rat still.

[laughingrat]

Injections are really tough. I had injection mojo for a while, and now seem not to. IDEK. You're way more creative than I am, when it comes to hiding medicine! *admires* Isn't it uncanny how they will reject doctored stuff? Must be a great boon in the wild, but of course when it's vet approved meds at home, not so much. *sigh*

[ratcreature]

I once had to give a rat an antibiotic that was a sweet syrupy thing intended for children, which my vet assured me was liked by rats as well, yet the rat in question refused its artificial taste even mixed into jam, which I thought must be similar and delude the artificial flavor. He fought that one more than the bitter Baytril, absolutely hated it. Just for kicks I tried how minute the taste could be, and even a drop in a teaspoon of tasty strawberry jam was grounds for refusal. No way I could have diluted it enough to trick him through food in any efficient way.

[tyger]

....lskdjfh;sj THAT'S how you get a permalink? OH WOW THANK YOU SO MUCH I have been wanting one FOREVER and just assumed you couldn't GET one al;gsdgj \o/!!!!!!

[ratcreature]

Glad I could help. I'm relieved that I'm not the only one failing their interface, but that it is rather their interface failing users. I knew posts had permalinks because some styles make them more clear, and I had visited links to individual posts too, but I just didn't know how to get them from the dashboard. Yet I just couldn't believe that you couldn't have a permalink from the dashboard, so I tried and tried and basically hovered and clicked everywhere. It really isn't an obvious design choice, Tumblr, to hide them like that!

[tyger]

No, pretty much every report I've heard has been along the lines of 'the site itself sucks ass, but there's enough shiny it's worth it'. ^^;;

Yeah, I just figured you couldn't get to the permalink from the dash, because of tumblr's fundamental broken. ^^;;;; Glad to be proven wrong! (Yeah, I tried... pretty much everywhere but there? Because I figured it was just a 'you are hovering on this post' sign.)