Welcome to my story about one of my loves. I love animals, especially rats, and want to share one of them with you.

From mice to canaries, pigeons to rats, cats to horses, dogs to tortoises, I've loved everyone of them. Of all my animal I have had, rats are my favorite. A lot of people don't realize how smart rats really are.

RATS--Lazarus was my absolute favorite. He was previously neutered and a beautiful gray, which I think the proper word for that is Blue. I got him from the Humane society, along with a female named Daiquiri. She wasn't very friendly and would bite but he was a lover boy. I only had him for about 7 months before he died from tumors. He died at the end of August 1998, and I still miss him. My husband thought I was crazy to mourn over a rat like that, but it isn't every day you come across a rat like him.

When I took Lazarus to the vet to see if they could remove his tumor, I was pretty sure they would be able to, after all, who had ever heard of a vet operating on a rat? When they called to say it involved too many internal organs that had adhered to it, I was at work and immediately broke down. They wanted to put him down right then, but I said no, he wasn't in any pain or discomfort when I had taken him in. He lived months after that, toward the end he was a little slower at walking but other than a few other minor problems like strong urine odor and leaking, he was my same old Laz.

The day before he died, he just wanted me to hold him. He would stand on his back legs and put his front legs on my pants. All he wanted was to be held at my breast, where he always liked to lay. I could tell he was breathing different and I knew the end was near, yet I couldn't help but hope.

Since Daiquiri had escaped through an open door, I had gotten another brown rat that was 5 weeks old while Laz was still alive. We named her Maggie, Maggie Mae. She was a good rat and a definite lesson for everyone about rocker recliners. One of the older kids accidentally caught her in the mechanism underneath. We didn't know this for several weeks and the weather hadn't gotten warm enough for us to notice her otherwise. But it was 2 weeks of calling her name outside, morning and night. I will never forget the day my son saw her tail and that was how we found her. Laz was still alive then, so we (or should I say I) got another to keep him company.

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