Curry: 2010 - Sept 2012

When I woke up this morning, I found Curry had passed away in his favorite spot in the cage. It must have been sometime in the middle of the night. I feel bad, because I had a bad day yesterday so I went to bed right away after coming home from work, instead of greeting all the rats like I normally do... so I didn't get to even say goodbye to him. We adopted him from Star's Rat Rescue of South Dakota in April 2011, along with his brother Aspen. Curry was around 2 1/2 years old. He passed away from old age, though he was starting to get degenerative osteoarthritis, and his back legs were not working like they used too. :-( Curry was featured in an article in my work's newsletter along with his brother back in April.


On top of finding Curry this morning... Templeton had a sprain and the swelling had gotten worse, his little back foot looked like a rubber glove it was so swollen. My vet wasn't in so the nurse gave me a number for a 24 hour emergency vet- only the rat doctor wasn't there today & they referred me back to my own vet! So I called our vet again and the nurse tried contacting another vet (which their doctor that treats rats wasn't in either- weekends are so bad!), so eventually she just told me to come over and the doctor that was there would see Templeton, even though she doesn't normally treat rats, (though she did mention she has had them as pets before).

She gave Templeton a anti-inflammatory steroid injection and some Baytril antibiotics to take home. So hopefully the swelling will go down now. That's the same treatment- Lily had before for an extremely swollen sprained foot and it worked. If it doesn't get better he will have to go back to the vet Mon or Tues.

ETA (9/14/12): Templeton is doing just fine! The swelling in his foot was down by the next day and he moved back into the big cage with his brother's on Thursday. :-) 

My Templeton