Happy Ratty

On the way home from work on Friday, I stopped at Petco and bought a much larger cage for my Ratty Watty boy. We also needed things for the other pets, so when it got late I called Eric to tell him I was on the way home from Petco because I picked up a bag of cat food, fish food and... a new rat cage. He asked me, "A new rat cage for a rat we're giving away?"

I replied, "We're keeping him. Get used to it." He laughed. He knew I was in love with Ratty and was just waiting for me to admit it. I knew he knew. That's why I put it that way. To make him laugh.

I got him the Ritz model cage with a little wooden house to hide in and a paper based litter instead of the corn cob base. I liked it a lot more than the cage that was between his old cage and this one in size because it had food dishes at the top level (no more poop/trash/litter in the food) and a large wheel just in case he would like to run in it. I got it all fixed up and took it into the computer room. I cleared space on my desk top for the cage so it could be next to his old cage. He was watching my every move. Then I opened the door to the new cage so it leaned against his old one and opened his old cage.

He was very curious, but very cautious. I think he was expecting the new cage to belong to another rat, because he sniffed a long while before he set foot on the door/ramp. Then he backed up quickly and sniffed some more. He got his courage up and went a little farther toward the new cage. It took him about 15 minutes to finally get to the opening of the new cage, but during that time he got more and more excited. I could see it in the increased twitching of his whiskers and the increasing quickness of his movements. He kept looking at me for encouragement. Once he got inside and understood it was HIS cage, he ran up and down the ramps, climbed the walls, and inspected everything inside with a thorough sniffing.

Then he ran back to his old cage and started digging up food he'd stored and carrying it to the new cage. That's when I moved his water, bed and toys over, too. I thought the crinkly paper litter would be all he'd need for nesting but he thought he needed his shredded napkins, too. After he dragged one over from the old cage, I tore up a bunch of fresh clean ones for him. He kept running out to grab them as I tore them and tucked them into the middle of the cage. He spent most of the first evening looking out the window because he had a different view than before. Then he started tunnelling under the paper litter.

Saturday morning the whole bottom of the cage was fluffed and rearranged. If I called "watty watty watty" I could hear paper rustle a little bit but no rat came out. He must have been exhausted. He only came out for a few minutes to brux with pleasure that afternoon when I put a frozen bottle of water in with him cool his cage. He buried it in paper and disappeared.

Sunday he came out and played a bit. He explored the outside of his cage. Then he went back in and disappeared into his tunnel.

He's a happy happy boy.

x-posted in my journal and ratties

Have a toddler?

I belong to community_promo so I get to see all the announcements about communities. Here's one I think will be useful for those with toddlers and funny for everyone! toddlertime

I may join to share the experiences I had with my nephews and the things I learned from their parents that worked.

I can breathe at work again!

After my experiences with bad air in the past, I was ready for a long battle over the smoke only I seemed to be aware of.

In California, it's illegal to smoke in anyone's workplace or any buildings the public comes into. Even so, I had major difficulties in the building we were in before this one. For some reason, a few smokers take my asthma as a personal attack even when the law is backing me up. I maintain that in places were smoke is outlawed, I have a right to breathe without it.

Thursday and Friday of last week, it was especially bad. Now, I'm one of those people who becomes friends with everyone, including the housekeeping staff. So I decided to ask the guy who empties my trash if he knew of anyone smoking in the building. I could tell he didn't want to get anyone in trouble when I asked, but when I held up my inhaler and said it was making me ill, he told me that the people in the office directly below us were smoking in their offices.

So I called to leave a message on the building manager's voice mail. The evening guy answered the phone, so I told him. He started hedging right away saying he didn't know what the manager could do about it. When I pointed out it was illegal which he apparently didn't know, he suggested someone should call the police! I asked him if we couldn't start with a building memo pointing out the shared air systems and reminding people of the law, you know, start gently without pointing fingers??

The building manager did handle it. He went into their office and they claimed it was a new guy who worked evenings. One of their "girls" had problems with smoke too. I found it interesting that the night guy started working at 9 or 10 in the morning and worked all day, but I didn't say anything. After all, the air was clean and has been clean ever since!

That poor "girl" was probably in misery with her boss smoking. My protest helped her too.

Yay!