Jeff Ciego Rat

10/98 - 7/28/00

There is a certain time in everyone's life when they stop thinking of their pet as an animal, and start thinking of it as a family member, another person even. That time is usually when a person lays eyes on their pet. Atleast, that's how it happened with Jeff and me.

I saw him in Petco, curled up with his sister; dirty and afraid. This is not going to be one of those "I rescued him from certain death" stories, although I like to think of it as that sometimes. My mom, sister and I were rat and hamster shopping, actually. I had my heart set on a blue rat, but that changed when I held Jeff. I told my mom I would rather get this "old, creaky rat" (atleast that's how she thought of him) than the younger blue rat I had been pining for.

We all thought he was pretty old, atleast a year and a half, and to this day I am still not so sure how old he was. He lived much longer than anyone thought he would. When we brought him home, I was playing with him outside of his cage when I first noticed his "manliness." It was then that I also noticed he seemed to be blind. He couldn't find walls and edges of surfaces that easily. "Ciego," his middle name, means "blind" in Spanish. On his first trip to the vet, I asked about his supposed blindness, but the vet told me that it could be from him spending his life in a flourescently lit cage, not needing to see anything past the glass walls. I agreed with her when, a few weeks later, he seemed to be getting better.

Another thing I noticed when I took him home was his fleas. He had what appeared to be pink ridges along his shoulders, and I believe that was dried blood or skin flakes from his scratching. I have never had a very good opinion of petstores, and now that I'm working at one, I have an even lower opinion of them. But I had never expected fleas! He and I spent many hours together after that- either with him in a bath, or curled up in my arms as I picked the fleas off him.

Through his escapade with fleas, as well as the ones to follow, Jeff was upgrading through cages. He wasn't getting bigger cages just because he had seniority over my other rats, however- I grew with the times and so did my cages. Jeff didn't really care though; he would have been content to live in a ten-gallon aquarium.

After he was rid of his fleas, he seemed to be a regular at the vet for different reasons. First it was for his oily skin, and for that we got medicated shampoo (with a bit of a bleaching agent, the vet added, for his almost rusty-colored fur.) It worked perfectly, and just a few months ago I noticed it was finally expired. I had been keeping it, however, for one more use. Jeff didn't need it though, he was keeping himself decently clean.

After that I noticed he was developing bumblefoot, which my previous rat Hamlet had. I hadn't even heard of bumblefoot at the time, and it wasn't for many months until I heard about Blu-Kote which would up saving his foot, if not his life. We used that for a few weeks, and slowly but surely, his foot healed. He always had a small case of bumblefoot, though. Throughout the rest of his life he had small red bumps on the bottom of each foot, but it never developed into sores, and they weren't hurting him. It took months for Jeff's purple-stained skin and fur to go away.

Following that escapade came a sore on his tail. It too started out as a small bump, and developed into a huge purple sore. I took him to the vet and we got medicine for it, but the sore (and the few that followed) never completely went away. They healed up pretty well though, and weren't bothering him. That was his last major health problem; after that we were only in to see the vet for some sniffling of his.

Jeff led a pretty calm life after that. He had the top half of the monster to himself, and I had been keeping him "beefy" because I'd rather have him too fat than too skinny. When I came home from a friend's house one day, I found him cold and stiff in his cage. I'm guessing he went in his sleep, because he had no cuts or blood on him, and he was curled into a little ball. Jeff lived longer than anyone had ever guessed he would.

In my opinion the two hardest things a person will ever have to do regarding their pet is 1) burying him/her, and 2) cleaning out his/her cage, kennel, stall or litter box for the last time. It never gets easier, but the time we spend with our pets makes it all worthwhile.

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	We all thought he was pretty old, atleast a year and a half, and to this day I am still not so sure how old he was. He lived much longer than anyone thought he would. When we brought him home, I was playing with him outside of his cage when I first noticed his "manliness." It was then that I also noticed he seemed to be blind. He couldn't find walls and edges of surfaces that easily. "Ciego," his middle name, means "blind" in Spanish. On his first trip to the vet, I asked about his supposed blindness, but the vet told me that it could be from him spending his life in a flourescently lit cage, not needing to see anything past the glass walls. I agreed with her when, a few weeks later, he seemed to be getting better.
Another thing I noticed when I took him home was his fleas. He had what appeared to be pink ridges along his shoulders, and I believe that was dried blood or skin flakes from his scratching. I have never had a very good opinion of petstores, and now that I'm working at one, I have an even lower opinion of them. But I had never expected fleas! He and I spent many hours together after that- either with him in a bath, or curled up in my arms as I picked the fleas off him.
	Through his escapade with fleas, as well as the ones to follow, Jeff was upgrading through cages. He wasn't getting bigger cages just because he had seniority over my other rats, however- I grew with the times and so did my cages. Jeff didn't really care though; he would have been content to live in a ten-gallon aquarium.
After he was rid of his fleas, he seemed to be a regular at the vet for different reasons. First it was for his oily skin, and for that we got medicated shampoo (with a bit of a bleaching agent, the vet added, for his almost rusty-colored fur.) It worked perfectly, and just a few months ago I noticed it was finally expired. I had been keeping it, however, for one more use. Jeff didn't need it though, he was keeping himself decently clean.
	After that I noticed he was developing bumblefoot, which my previous rat Hamlet had. I hadn't even heard of bumblefoot at the time, and it wasn't for many months until I heard about Blu-Kote which would up saving his foot, if not his life. We used that for a few weeks, and slowly but surely, his foot healed. He always had a small case of bumblefoot, though. Throughout the rest of his life he had small red bumps on the bottom of each foot, but it never developed into sores, and they weren't hurting him. It took months for Jeff's purple-stained skin and fur to go away.
Following that escapade came a sore on his tail. It too started out as a small bump, and developed into a huge purple sore. I took him to the vet and we got medicine for it, but the sore (and the few that followed) never completely went away. They healed up pretty well though, and weren't bothering him. That was his last major health problem; after that we were only in to see the vet for some sniffling of his.