omgwtf!

Meet the new boys I just got a couple of days ago from a massive rescue operation out in Ojai, California:

Yarrow Rat - masked (imperfect masked colouration because of the patches over his ears, which I think make him a million times more awesome); black-eyed white variety. He’s the boss of the new boys (except when Bayberry is around) but tends to forget this and acts very silly as often as possible.

Laurel Rat - American blue berkshire (He could be a Russian blue variety, but I’m not sure). Rats who have a gray colouration are known as “blue rats.” I LOVE BLUE RATS. When he’s not being timid and staring at me from a corner (he subscribes to the “if I freeze she won’t be able to see me, even if I’m totally out in the open” school of thought), he’s practically shoving himself up my nose in order to get me to pet him for 17 hours in a row. A rattie dichotomy!

Liquorice - the youngest boy. Closest I come to describing his markings are as a variegated black berkshire. This is a little brat and full of energy and mischief. His eyes sparkle like little chips of black diamonds.

Berkshire rats have white bellies and colour on top with a clear line delineating; masked rats have colour only over their eyes. So since Laurel’s white belly comes up just a little more than it should, Liquorice is variegated, and Yarrow has black ear patches, all three of them are just plain mutts! And thems me favourite breed of all. Mutts FTW! Being a mutt myself, I’m probably a little biased.

Three awesome, beautiful new boys who are totally cool with being handled. Yarrow was apparently picked up right off the sidewalk outside this woman’s home. There are several hundred of these rats who have already been rescued, and every one of them I’ve seen so far have easily the most beautiful markings of any rescue rats I’ve ever seen. In fact, everyone involved in this rescue (the rescuers, the fosters, and the forever homes) are all saying the same thing, as well. Almost all the rats are extremely friendly, and thankfully a good number of them have either found homes, are in foster care, or are bound for a rat train to a forever home as soon as quarantine is up.

I owe Debbie from Secondhand Rats a huge debt of gratitude for rescuing these boys, her friends Ken and Connie for fostering them, and Ken for providing the rat train ride to get them to my house (citing my ongoing transportation problems, which seem diabolical in their intent to prevent me from having a decent car out here). Now my beautiful Bayberry has companions again, which has made him very happy after spending some lonely, sad weeks all alone and grieving for Ginger, Holly, and especially Lotus.

My little Lotus…

Thanks most especially to my rat guru, Diane, for all the help she has given me in the past, for her unending patience and overflowing spring of good advice and encouragement, and for telling me about this rescue. She is the kind of human being every furkid in the world should have as their mom, and I am lucky and honoured and grateful that she is my friend.

All three of these little monsters are settling in fine, eating me out of house and home, and rapidly becoming hideously spoiled. I love them all madly.

Say hello, everybody!

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Well, right after Lotus died, a friend of mine who is my Rat Guru told me about another huge rat rescue - there’s always a huge rat rescue somewhere - out in Ojai, California. A handicapped woman apparently took in some rats that had been dumped on her property and the situation quickly got well out of control, resulting in hundreds of rats running around everywhere.

One of my roommates recently bought a new car, and decided in a surprising and very generous gesture to loan me his old one, a Ford Aerostar van, until I was able to put together enough money to buy another used car of my own. The van needed a little work, but I agreed that a couple hundred dollars of work was worth it if it meant that I would have transportation in the meantime.

Well, my mechanic, whom I’ve known for a number of years now and has heretofore always been absolutely great, is having some kind of weird episode where shit he fixes keeps breaking. I had the van in twice for a total of 7 days out of 14 and the original major problem which I brought in to be fixed was never repaired. But he did put in a new starter, which cost me $300 and which my roommate could have done himself for under $100.

The problem is that the heater core is bad. I observed this from the get go after looking up the symptoms of the issue on the Intertron - but all that resulted when I put forth my own findings was that I was called a couple of names and routinely ignored. Turns out I was right, though - funny how that happens, isnt it? - and what’s more, my roommate also discovered, after poking around under the hood, that after the repair that was made to the van nobody bothered to reattach any of the hoses or parts they had to remove to replace the starter. So this whole thing has been a $400 cock-up and now I’m not only out the money, I still dont have a fucking ride.

We went to take the van back on Friday, and met my mechanic’s wife at the station. She looked fucking horrible and we were informed that my mechanic is out of the country until next Monday. We told her we’d be back. And so there was no ride out to Ojai for me - I had been planning on getting the van repaired, you see, and then driving out to the Ojai Humane Society where for some reason, though they describe themselves as a no-kill shelter, they have been killing the rats from this large rescue operation. As a result, all the foster homes in the area are urging people to pick from the Ojai HS group if they possibly can, in order to save those guys first.

No such luck for me. Best intentions, and all that.

So I went back to the forum where the rescue is being tracked and described my plight. Almost immediately, Debbie from Secondhand Rats contacted me and told me she’d have three boys from the Ojai rescue for me “tonight” (this was yesterday; Saturday). I waited on tenterhooks ALL DAY to hear from her and finally, late last night, I got an email from her, with that pic above attached to it.

Today she emailed me very briefly this morning to let me know that five of the boys, including my three, were given to a foster who will be getting them out to me on the rat train as soon as they possibly can. I havent heard from Debbie at all for the rest of the day, and she’s pretty adept at not answering any questions at all or indeed seemingly even reading the mail I’ve sent her (asking repeatedly for my phone number, which I have given her twice), but I’m trying to curb my extreme impatience because I know it’s all the more intense for my being really, really, really excited about these new boys coming!

For one thing, it’s been a hell of a hard, stressful, sad past six months or so, with all the illnesses and death in my little mischief. But more importantly, my one remaining rat, Bayberry, is all alone now, and he’s really missing his companions. I want to get those boys here as soon as I possibly can. At the very least it would be nice if someone would answer my damn questions.

But there are my new boys: I’ll be taking the gray boy (known as a “blue rat” in fancy rat terminology), hopefully the little black guy with the white nose, and the white boy with the black mask on. I am freaking out like a five year old on Christmas Eve right now, and each moment that goes by without an email or a phone call from these folks telling me theyre heading out my way is like an eternity. I can’t wait!

Well, in the meantime, back to work with me. You may all look upon the picture and worship the lunacy-inducing adorability that are my new baby boys.

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