in memory of Leo...

[ratcreature]

Leo
28.9.2009 - 15.12.2011

Leo was euthanized this morning. The antibiotic-resistant myco pneumonia he fought tenaciously for so many months finally worsened so much that he couldn't eat or breathe right anymore. The death of his brother Noah just over three weeks ago had not helped either, and maybe he just didn't have the strength anymore to hold on longer. But two years and almost three months is not a bad age for a rat. He was clingy this morning like last night, preferring to sit on my arm or huddle against my neck, even in the vet's waiting room with all the dogs, instead of staying in his transport box and be petted there. So I held him there and then until the end as he got the injection. He's now buried next to his brother.

Leo had lived with me since he was five weeks old, and he lived up to his name. He was the first of the three little ones I had gotten to venture out of hiding and to explore, the first one to dare to go on all levels of the cage and then outside, and as a young rat he was the one who always tried and succeeded to escape the room they were allowed in and to try to explore elsewhere. So several times I had to fish him out from under shelves in the not rat-safe room, covered in dust bunnies, because I had missed how he had managed to get across the doorway barrier again. He was bold, but never aggressive, and the liveliest of my last three. Even as he got older and was already sick with myco, he loved to climb everywhere and to run around and check all his favorite spots. He would jump on my bed in the evenings, though his patience to just cuddle was often limited. He was still a sweet rat, and liked to be petted and to groom you back if you scritched him. He had a strong will to live, and so he survived with the pneumonia far longer than I had dared to hope when the last antibiotics failed way back in April. Since then he got twice weekly injections for most of the time to help symptomatically, but he didn't let this keep him down.

Because Leo was the boldest one, I have a lot of photos of him from the first days, a tiny agouti dumbo, who was unafraid while the others still hid in the middle of a tube, though of course he liked secure spots too:







Soon they all felt more secure. This is Leo with Noah:


Leo venturing outside the cage:


With Linus and Noah:














Despite his adventurous streak he was very docile, so you could just grab him if you liked to get him to hold still for a moment:


He liked snuggling with his brother (also with Linus but not quite as much), and of course his yawn was ridiculously cute






Leo snuggling with Linus in the hammock of their climbing tree:


Of course he liked rice waffle:






Some pictures from this June: