In November 2018, we said goodbye to Ivy. She lived to the very respectable age of two years and seven months. She slowed down, lost a bit of her mobility and gradually turned into an old rat. She did have a slow-growing lump, but that never really caused her any problems. Eventually, life was just getting too hard and we let her go before it became painful.
The loss of Rommie left us with just one rat for the first time ever, so we had to find some friends for Quorra; she was only alone for a few days, but she obviously wasn’t happy. Having said that, I’m not convinced she was always particularly impressed by the presence of two lively youngsters either. The two newcomers are Molly and Ivy, named after characters in the Dresden Files books.
And once again I managed to forget exactly how energetic young ratties are; a situation that was made worse by having to look after them by myself for the first week as my other half was away visiting family. Molly was particularly trying as she would attempt to use me as a jumping off point to absolutely anywhere else she thought she might be able to reach. Ivy just didn’t want to be picked up and was quick enough to avoid it much of the time.
Molly is a wonderfully sleek mismarked black Berkshire. She has the cutest little white feet and belly and a tiny dot of white on the top of her head. Luckily she has grown out of her initial habit of trying to leap off in random directions; now she is happy to just run around at full speed, including in the wheel at five in the morning…
Ivy doesn’t really fit into any of the markings categories; she has black from her nose to her shoulders and the rest of her, including her chin and throat, is white with a couple of stray spots of black. She is decidedly skittish, twitching at most noises (especially crinkly plastic) and is not keen on being held. That’s not to say she’s scared of people — she will happily come up for food and will let you stroke her — she just doesn’t want the interaction to go on for too long; she would much rather find a comfy spot to hide in. She loves her food and is destined to be another “fat rat”.
Mischief & Me 