Live Long and Prosper Little Mice

I'm in a Star Trek mood, what can I say?

Unfortunately I have some sad news to report.  For the first time in three years we are mouse-less.  Our last little mecer (a Siamese girl named Nick) took her final trip to the vet this morning.  Nick was a great mouse.  We got her and her sister Bean from the NSPCA so they could be friends for a lonely mouse named Squeaks who we adopted from Henderson Animal Care and Control's Shelter.

That's squeaks ^

We don't know how old Squeaks was when we got her, but she lived for 8 happy months at our house.  Nick's sister bean unfortunately got cancer a few months ago and had to be put down.  Since our mice live FOREVER for some reason (normal life span for mice is 1.5 years reportedly) little Nick kept trucking for a long time.  Finally today at the age of almost two and a half she had a large tumor that was effecting her life, so we put her down.

 Nick ^

Bean ^ (She looks like a coffee bean, get it?)

I like our little rodents.  They are in the living room- and while not the most interactive pets they were always up to something.  I would pick them up big bird toys they used as jungle gyms and pulled all apart.  Between that and the constant efforts of two mice to run on the wheel at the same time I got hours of enjoyment from them.  Sadly right now we have a lot going on, plus our two boy rats to keep my rodent fix going so it may be a while before we have such tiny critters running around the house again.  The mouse stuff is getting cleaned up and packed away for now.

I am not all sad though.  As far as mice go ours have lived long and prosperous lives with us, and I am happy to help the homeless mice of Las Vegas in any way I can.

Justin Bieber + Exotic Pets = Bad Idea

Left to right- Sandy, Tia, Tamara, Tubbs, Wicket (and Moose's nose peeking out in the back hammock).  Sandy was returned to Petsmart by someone who shouldn't have bough her in the first place, Tia and Tamara came from a hoarder, Wicket out of a feeder bin.  Tubbs and Moose were not rescues.  Over their lives these six rats cost me over $2,000 in vet care.

 You may know I have more animals than just my dogs.  In fact before I got Copley and became involved in dog rescue I volunteered with a rat and mouse rescue.  Currently I own two cuddly, lovable boy rats named Eggplant and TO and a girl mouse named Nick.  We also have 13 hermit crabs that are being taken care of properly (and properly is not in that plastic container you buy in the mall, they have very specific requirements and if given those can live 20+ years).

A big pet peeve of mine is people seeing these "pocket" or "exotic" pets as throw away, or as toys, or as accessories to be tossed off once they are not cool anymore.  They deserve better than that and if you don't plan to at the very least properly house, feed, and clean that animal for it's whole life then DON'T get it.

Squeaks the mouse was adopted from an Animal Control Shelter and lived out her golden years happily at our house.

That brings me to Justin Bieber.  My problem with him is that he is idolized by a lot of people, and has a lot of influence wither he wants it or not.  At the very least he should try to show some respect to other living things.  Or hire someone to do that for him, I mean I am sure he can afford it.  Over the last little while he has been buying exotic pets and dumping them in what seems like grossly irresponsible ways that I am sure were extremely traumatic for those animals.  The one that bothers me the most is his hamster PAC, who he gave away to a screaming fan in the middle of a concert.  Maybe it is because I love hamsters so much, or I have seen my mice who get scared when I put the vacuum too close to their cage, or maybe it is that I have half a brain and know not to bring a prey animal the size of a ping pong ball to concerts- but this just rubs me the wrong way!  It just makes me go EEERRRRRR.  I mean I don't really think he is a horrible animal hating person, just irresponsible and a little out of touch with life right now.  Still I am erked.

Observe hermit crab beach- one part of our 135 gallon hermit crab habitat.  You can see Big Red (my only crab identifiable on sight) and another one going for a swim.

The entirely irresponsible behavior does not stop there.  There is also a monkey named Mally who was seized after Bieber flew him out of the country without the proper paperwork and now Bieber seems to be just leaving her there even though he could produce the proper paperwork and get her back.  Oh, and the snake he auctioned off for charity.

I am so frustrated I just don't know what to say.  Other than this- Please Justin, if you are listening, don't buy any more pets for a while.  They are animals who have feelings and get attached to you.  At the very least do it for the betterment of the rest of society.  These species have enough trouble gaining respect and finding permanent responsible homes without celebrities treating them this way.  Use your influence for good- or just stay out of the pet world for a while.

This whole thing just makes me cringe. I'm going to go to bed and try not to think about Justin Bieber anymore.

Happy Holidays!

 Happy Non-Denominational Holiday Gift Giving Season!  Whatever you celebrate this time of year I hope you are doing great.  Things have been very busy around here- you know new dog and all- so this will be quick.  I wanted to share our holiday decorations and how we get the dogs in on the action.  I am sure I will be posting a picture of all of our dogs gifts, they are looking to be plentiful this year and I didn't even buy many of them.

 Stockings- right to left- Ben, Annie, Copley, Kerrigan, Nova

 Holiday biscuit holders!

 Kerrigan's paw print and the "Family Rodents 2011, Nick, Bean, Tubbs and Sandy"

 Copley's Paw Print

And our holiday BarkBox!

Thank you all for reading this blog and encouraging me to continue blogging through this year.  I have plans to share with you Nova's progress day by day and I have been writing it down but time to edit and publish it is not here right now.  In the meanwhile enjoy Christmas!  We sure are.

When To Adopt?

Copley 2.5 years ago on day 1 with us

I have a lot of posts in the works (one guest post even- how fancy of us) but I just wanted to throw this out there.  Is there EVER a good time to adopt a dog.  Even if you were on a breeders waiting list forever isn't a puppy just always going to be a giant pain in your side for a while?  You either have lots of work, or you need to clean, or you wish you had an extra 20 grand to put that "dog room" addition on the house or whatever.  What about rescues?  Do dogs ever fall into your life when it is just the best time ever to get one?  I don't think so. Sometimes I think you just have to take the plunge because you can always think of an excuse not to do it.

On very special occasions I think an animal ends up in your life because you were the only person meant to have them.  I don't believe in a singular higher power- but I do think that things happen for reasons that are beyond us sometimes.  Oddly enough I only have ever felt this way about one of our animals, her name was Patches. 

Baby Patches

Patches is a story for another day.  What do you guys think?  When a dog comes along that just calls your name do you take the plunge (sorta like we did with Kerri)?  Or is that all made up gobbly gook and things should be better planned out.  Did your dogs all come at good times?  Or were you a little bit overwhelmed and second guessed you decision all the way home from the pound?

Update on Bean

Remember this little lady?  She recently went to the vet for a bit of a tumor on her leg/side.  Well I am happy to say things seem to be going well for her.  The vet said it feels like a benign mammary tumor like the rats get all the time.  With Bean being 2 years old, and her not seeming bothered by the little lump, we decided to just leave it in place.  Over the last week it does not seem to have grown at all and we are crossing our fingers that it stays that way.  If it does grow we will have it taken off but the surgery is risky for a small elderly mouse like her.  In the meanwhile Bean is still happily running on the wheel, eating and chasing her sister around the cage.  Lets hope it stays that way.

In happier news- we got an agility jump for the house.

Kerri is so excited.

Sick Mouse :(

This is Bean the mouse.  We named her Bean because we think she looks a little bit like a coffee bean (please use your imagination with that one.)

 This lump on her thigh above her foot seems to be a tumor.  Here at the DogInTheDesert household we have way too much experience with rat tumors.  I think one month I had four rats in surgery to remove tumors.  Our mice growing these things- totally new to us.  Poor little Bean is a very sweet mouse although she is approaching 2 years old.  Sadly for a mouse 2 is quite elderly.  I am also very worried about what the vet will say because mouse surgery just seems like such a fragile ordeal.  Rat surgery is bad enough but at least they weigh a little more.  By a little more I mean probably 10x more.  We will do whatever we can to make little bean's elderly years as comfortable as possible- if that means tumor removal then that's what we will do.  The vet appointment is Thursday so I will let you guys know how it turns out.

Oh, hi Nick.  This is Nick, Bean's slightly crazy sister.  She would like to know why Bean is getting all the attention.

 Nick is a really cool mouse too.  My favorite thing about her is her beautiful Siamese coloring.  In these pictures she really looks like a PEW but I promise those eyes are ruby and she has the most adorable dark points on her nose, ears and tail.  I just LOVE it!  Mice are some of my favorite pets, maybe not as interactive as the dogs but they sure are adorable.  Plus they always seem to be busy doing something interesting like pulling apart this bird toy or running on the wheel.  Never a dull moment when you are a tiny prey animal I guess.  I just wish they lived a little longer- and didn't grow tumors on their legs.

Tubbs The Rat- 2009-2012

 Our rat Tubbs passed away a few days a go.  He will be sorely missed around these parts.  Tubbs had an exciting life- having lived to the ripe old age of 3.  We got Tubbs and his brother Moose when they were just little ratties and we had just moved to Vegas.  They survived a burglary right after they were neutered- honestly I think they were too drugged up from the surgery to remember it but hopefully they were not scarred for life.  Then they moved in with our girl rats and had a really great time in the big cage while they were still young enough to enjoy it!  Tubbs was employee pet of the year at my husband's company in the "most unusual" category (in case you didn't notice he is hairless and evidently it was the perfect amount of unusual without being so gross as to freak out the ladies looking at the pictures in HR). He got a professional photo shoot for winning- we got some great pictures including the one above.  Moose passed away from heart failure almost a whole year ago.  Medicine had kept his heart disease under control for a few months but then we finally had to put him down the day before our wedding last year.  Tubbs had a good year without his brother- the two were so bonded that I worried he would pass soon after Moose.  Fortunately he made unlikely friends with a girl rat named Sandy.  Sandy is much younger than Tubbs and always was a busy body so we worried alone she would be too much for the old man.  Sandy really stepped up to the plate and cuddled with Tubbs, groomed him and brought him food on occasion.  As Tubbs became old and frail he began to loose the use of his back legs but happy trudged along despite his difficulties.  We found him curled up on the bottom of the cage after he had passed, we are not sure what got him in the end but it looked peaceful.

Here is a good shot of Tubbs.  He is sticking his head out looking for food and soon would retreat once he knew we didn't have any.

And this is Sandy

 

She now is a single rat living in the largest rat cage money can buy.

I would say Sandy is lucky, but actually rats tend to do very poorly when they are alone.  Until we decide what our next move in rat ownership will be we are just spending lots of time with her and making sure she has lots of toys to play with.  She certainly has a home most rats only dream of!  5 floors all to herself and a regular cleaning service.

I promise the next post will be dog related!
~Annie

Blogging

Much to my surprise people seem to actually be reading this blog.  When I started I figured that no one would read it so this is an interesting surprise.

I also find myself worrying about being judged by those readers or driving them away.  Then I remembered why I started this blog in the first place.  I wanted a place to get my opinions out.  When people tell me I am going to turn my dog viscous by feeding them fresh meat I want a place where I can tell those people that they are nuts, wrong and to stop judging me.  Cause saying those sorts of things in real life doesn't get you anywhere, after all if their logic is that flawed to begin with I am not going to be able to win that argument with reason and fact.  So here is a list of what this blog is or is not- accompanied by slightly irrelevant pictures of my cute puppies.

• This blog IS going to be funny.  It will be funny because my writing is sarcastic and I try to find the humor in life.  It is NOT going to be funny pictures of my dogs doing mischievous things.  That is because dogs being destructive and getting into things they shouldn't means that my dogs are under-stimulated, under exercised or not properly supervised.  Sure they misbehave, but I try to use it as opportunities to re direct them to a more appropriate behavior, not get out the camera.  Hilarious misbehaved hyper dogs are sad, unstable and need help.  In my opinion things like tiny dog hamburgers are much more hilarious.
• This blog is NOT and advise column.  Do your own research.  I learned everything I know from reading books (mostly) and google (be careful with that).  Anyone else could learn the same thing.
• I will try to keep my posts mostly dog related but when I also have these cute faces looking up at me I might be forced to stray into the rodent world from time to time.

 

•  Yes that's a mouse.
• I will not use this blog to judge you for your informed actions- I only judge people for uninformed stupidity.  It just drives me nuts when people judge others for how they train their dogs, what they feed them or where they got them.  There is nothing wrong with adopting a dog from the pound or getting it from a good breeder whose ethics you know and agree with.  You are not a horrible person for feeding your dog pre-made food.  On that note there is nothing wrong with me feeding a home made diet either!

•  Lastly this in NOT the blog of a professional blogger.  I have come to realize most bloggers are one of the following three things- a writer, a stay at home mom or an evangelical christian.  I am not a writer or a stay at home mom (in fact I am not a mom at all).  I have a job that does not involve any writing at all beyond the occasional e-mail.  It is more of an image and vector based thing than a word thing.  While my religious views are totally irrelevant to this blog lets just say I am never going to be using it to bring people closer to Jesus.
• In regards to the last item- I have no problem with stay at home mothers, writers or people who attend church.  I am just puzzled why they rule the world of personal blogs (not the writers- that actually makes a lot of sense).