dying rat...

[cracked]

my pet rat Cowboy is dying i think. it is so sad as it can barely breathe and can hardly move. vets cost way more $$ than i can afford, but i cant bring myself to put it out of its misery. the only quick, painless way i can think of or would be capable of would be to shoot it, but rats are small, and bullets are big, and rat+bullet=big mess. i really want it to be healthy again, but looks like it will not make it untill morning. i fell really bad for not taking it to the vet, but i really cant afford it. i guess i just needed to vent a little...thanks

[angelcat]

Hey, I have been there before. I have lost many beloved friends in the past...............

[cracked]

well, its official. cowboy died about 15 minutes after i started this thread.
oh well, she was a good rat...

[Warthog]

That's really horrible man

I always thought a rat would be a cool pet.....they are pretty smart right? But I didn't want to clean up the p00....

[cracked]

yeah they're smart, i had my rats potty trained LOL. i have another one named kernel, so she is all alone now.

[Warthog]

hahaha, how'd you do that? I'd really like to know how you potty train

[cracked]

what you do is,and it works best if they are young rats, is just put them in they're cage for the first time and let them crap everywhere. then when you clean they're cage, put some of the old bedding along with a few rat raisins in a small shallow dish of some kind and place it in the cage. also use two different types of bedding between the cage and litter tray. from then on they will go in the tray when nedded(most of the time anyway.
)

[Hawkeye]

Yeah, I had a few birds, my family and I went to church in the morning, we come back and find him on the bottom of the cage , he was a finch, the other finches were fine though.

-HawkEye-

[OuTpaTienT]

Rats are smart and clean.

I had a rat, Speck, and he lived in my nightstand drawer next to my bed. He had an open top aquarium with paper/wood shavings that he would go into and "do his business" in the corner. He lived in the drawer that was always half open. At night he curl up next to me to sleep. I was always afraid I was going to squish him but I figured he'd bite me if he had to.

He would come when called...for the most part. He obviously knew his name let's put it that way...but like a cat he could choose to ignore me if he wanted.

Other than the first few weeks he never needed to be caged. He was free to roam my room when I was gone. And he did. I would find t-shirts, towels, and once even a long and heavy terrycloth bath robe all wadded up and smushed into his drawer. He was quite a character. Kinda like a miniture dog.

Anyways, just thought I'd share some rat memories with ya in hopes of cheering you up a little cracked. I know how ya feel.

sounds like he got cancer. i had 4 rats and they all got it and died. really sad. we took the first two rats to the vet and they took the cancer out and it came back. the doctor explained to us that when all rats get older they all get cancer. does your rat have any weird bulges on it?

neverless i loved my rats. wish i taught them to be potty trained.