Crafty Little Rat

  I didn’t want to write this post. I’d hoped we’d have longer. I hoped she’d live forever. I hoped that it would be peaceful. At least I got my final hope. All day Sunday all Esme wanted to do was cuddle. You’d put her down to go to the loo, and she’d be at the front of the cage waiting for you to come back. I feared it was the start of the end so indulged her constant demand for cuddles. I don’t think she left my lap much from 8.30am to 11pm when I went to bed. When I went to bed Rhys because the defacto cushion and stayed up with her for longer.   Coming down on Monday morning I was honestly shocked to find her still alive, and stroking her head thought she could do with some warming up and cuddles in bed. So we went up. I placed a pillow under my arm, and her on a towel on top of that. Pulled the duvet over us and we stayed like that for a while. Telling her I loved her, telling her that it was okay and we’d miss her and that we loved loved loved her. I called Rhy...

  On Sunday we returned home from a wonderful weekend away in Chester. When we got home and the girls saw us Gytha slinked out of their bed and came to the bars – which was incredibly strange for her. Never one for cuddles, she was always a bright spark and on the move. Petting her she felt cold, so I scooped her up and cuddled her in to my jumper to try and warm her up. We sat like that for a while, me stroking her head until she just slipped away. By the time we realised what was happening she was gone. Incredibly peacefully, almost like she waited for me to come back.   Shortly after returning from the vets (we have our animals cremated, with ashes back) Maggie started to wheese horribly. Gasping for air, crackling lungs. Fine before we left on the weekend, fine when we returned – an easy assumption is stress and grief for her sister. A return trip to the vets, where she was placed in an oxygen kennel but struggled every time she was brought out in the normal air. ...