Gone but not forgotten: Snort and Teeth - AKA Tumor Twins

It's appropriate that Snort (the light one) and Teeth (the dark one) be blogged together. They came to us from the SPCA. I convinced Husband that it would be nice to get rats as I had them many years ago and they were interesting and smart creatures. Telling my husband that they were low maintenance (HAHAHAHAHA) and cute (which they are) and the sweet man he is, we went and took Snort and Teeth home.

Snort was a gentle, sweet soul. We believe that both were abused in some form before we got them. Snort would get frightened quite easily and pee. When she eventually realized that we would not hurt her and only good things came with the "big hand", like cool treats, she turned out to be a sweet soul that liked to just sit on your lap. Snort had some kind of respiratory issue - perhaps the equivalent of allergies/hayfever. The vet said she sounded fine - no problem with her lungs or heart. She also had to have a mammary tumor taken out. One evening we went to the cage and saw her lying in a funny position. It seems that she had a stroke. Thinking she was dying, we held her for a number of hours. Her condition didn't change during that time so we decided to watch her overnight. She didn't improve and was very lethargic and had the polyphorin around her eyes and nose. We took her to the vet where it was decided that she be put to sleep.

Teeth, on the other hand, was quite a fighter. Instead of being a timid scared she was a mean scared. She was a hard biter and didn't like to let go when she did. After seeing web articles about forced socialization, we went and bought a pair of canvas gardening gloves and gave it a go. Slowly but surely she relented and, like Snort, realized that the "big hand" was her friend. She turned out to be the biggest baby and would lay on my shouder/chest area for hours and be petted. Teeth didn't have the respiratory issues that Snort did, but she was quite prone to tumors. We had two taken out and after the second one we determined that we would not put her through a third surgery. It seemed to have aged her and she took quite a bit to recover. Of course, she ended up growing two more tumors and we decided that we would let her go until it was affecting her quality of life. She started growing these tumors before Snort got sick so for Snort's short illness and death we were unprepared and it seemed a little harder to accept at first. Teeth, the fighter as always, lasted quite awhile until we were feeding the tumors more than her. We believe that she was at least 3 years old when she passed, which is quite good for a rat - especially one that had a hard beginning.

Even after all the cost and work, neither of us would have passed on the opportunity to have Snort and Teeth with us. They were great ambassadors to the joy of ratkeeping.