…I accidentally killed one of my pet rats today. I put both Jasmine and Belle in the car to drive to my boyfriend’s. It’s an hour’s ride. It’s very hot and my car AC is broken. By the time I got to my boyfriend’s house, both rats were overheated. We tried to cool them down with water and Belle, who is younger, made a quick recovery, but Jasmine died only a few minutes later.
I feel so bad. My boyfriend says it was an accident and he doesn’t blame me, but if I hadn’t put them in the car then Jazzy would still be alive. I’ve transported them on hot days before without a problem. My boyfriend reckons Jazzy’s system was delicate because she was getting kind of old.
She was such a sweetheart.
What a sucky day.
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I’m sorry about your pet.
Oh, how awful! What a shame.
But your boyfriend’s right, it was an accident and it won’t do to dwell on it or beat yourself up about it. Just one of things that make you sadder but wiser, I guess.
Curiously, or perhaps not curiously at all, the deaths of pets have been harder to bear than the deaths of certain relatives, in my experience.
I agree. Don’t know why that is, but it’s true. And we always know that we will outlive our pets, but that doesn’t ever stop us from having pets. I guess we know the joy they give us while they’re here is worth the pain when they die.
Heaven will be a place with all of our animals, or there can’t be a “heaven” at all.
Ever see the ‘Twilight Zone’ where the old guy and his dog drown, and find themselves contemplating the entrance to the Afterlife?
Two poems to consider: James Dickey’s ‘The Heaven of Animals’ and Charles Causley’s ‘Eden Rock.’ Two favorites about the subject—google the latter and the Poetry Archive site has Causley reading his.
I read your site daily. Just wanted to let you know you are not alone. I once gave my 2 pet rats (Aroura and Belle) cucumber and then left. I came home and both were dead. Turns out they cant eat cucumbers. I thought I was giving them a nice treat because they loved carrots and lettuce. I felt horrible. You do an amazing thing for the world, and while that may not make you feel better about this, It certianly makes you a wonderful person who cares deeply about others.
I am so sorry to hear about your rats. Thanks for the tip about cucumbers; I did not know that.
Both of you have Disney-princess-named rats! Isn’t that a funny coincidence? 🙂
I did not know that about rats not being able to eat cucumber. I guess I assumed they’re like wild rats, in that they would eat pretty much anything that presented itself. That’s definitely something to add to my “fact bank.”
Rats DO eat anything that presents itself. I guess they just happen to be allergic to cucumber. Like dogs and chocolate — it’s deadly, but they don’t know that.
Well, we choose our pets (and our friends), but we wouldn’t choose some of our relatives, would we? 😉
lol, so true! And if I believed in Heaven, I would believe it had much more animals than people populating it.
Well, in MY heaven there’ll be a gate, of course, and, when I get there, a parting of the fog through which will slip a black and white cat who has waited impatiently for years for me to arrive; and then Osbert will lead me, forward into Eternity.
And when I get there, there’s a big soft gray and white kitty who’s overjoyed to see I’ve made it there, and Bertie will wind around my legs and lead me in, and as soon as I sit down, she’ll climb up in my lap and go to sleep, just like she always did.
Osbert will give me a perturbed look, then want to be let back out of the gate in twenty minutes so he can go fight other heavenly but feral felines.
Funny how we both had cats we loved with Bert in their names.
Much beloved, the Berts.
So much for the self-preservation instinct, huh?
Is it also true, as I’ve read many places, that rats can’t vomit? I know horses can’t (thanks, James Herriot!) but is it true of rats as well?
Yes, rats cannot vomit. Neither can they fart.
Kind of amusing story: a fancy Park Avenue business in NYC hired an exterminator to get rid of a rat that had infiltrated their building. They didn’t want him to use traps or poison like usual, though, cause it was Park Avenue after all and they didn’t want their clients to know there was a rat there. So the exterminator, knowing that rats can’t vomit, and knowing they love the taste of beer, put out a big coffee can full of beer on the floor overnight. They found the rat lying next to the can the next day, stone cold dead of alcohol poisoning.
At least it died happy.
Being Park Avenue, they should’ve used Dom Perignon or some kind of fien cognac instead of beer. At the very least, a fancy imported beer.
I once read in one of those “handy household tips” book, that you can get rid of roaches by puttinga bowl full of cheapo wine under the sink. The roaches would supposedly drink it, become drunk and drown in the bowl.
Now, two problems I find with that:
1. Roaches can survive radiation levels that would vaporize humans and everything else instantly. Could they really be done in with an overdose of Boone’s Farm?
2. call me persnickety, but a bowl full of cheapo wine and dead roaches under the sink is not my idea of hygienic. Yeccccckkkkkkhhhhhh.
[2. call me persnickety, but a bowl full of cheapo wine and dead roaches under the sink is not my idea of hygienic. Yeccccckkkkkkhhhhhh.]
It’s not my idea of hygienic, either, but it well describes my college apartment.
I’m afraid to ask, but being fascinated with all aspects of human behavior, even the disgusting ones (especially those) I’ll ask:
Would your “bowl of cheapo wine and roaches” have been “recycled” cheapo wine? As in, already been through your own personal still and then expelled back out the way it came in?
What? Sorry, I was face down in a bowl full of Boone’s Farm in a chug-a-lug contest with 75 roaches when you asked. What was the question?
The roaches under the sink were separate from the bowl of wine, and for “bowl of wine,” read, “soup cup.”
Those were THE DAYS.
I only got seriously trashed once in college, toward the end of freshman year. The culprits were half a bottle of champagne, a bottle of Fuzzy Navel and a bottle of Strawberry Daiquiri. It was a going-away party for two gals on the hall who were spending the last semester in Australia. I learned my lesson the next morning when I was so sick I thought I was going to die. Everybody else had bad headaches. My head didn’t hurt at all, but I would hardly have noticed it if it did hurt.
So sorry to hear about your pet! I had rats in college and one died during a moving trip in my car, but from old age rather than heat. Rats get a bad rap but are very smart, sociable creatures. RIP Jasmine.
Keep up the excellent work on the site. I visit daily and can’t get enough of your updates.
http://www.goodreads.com/story/show/5736.To_Buy_a_Mouse