Rat Trauma

Had a bit of a scare last week. The Serene One found Oreo scrunched in the cage, ears flat and frothing at the mouth. At first, we thought she was choking. Dr. Google found us this article, which seemed to fit her to a T:

He will look 'like he's dying.' Again, resist all desires to mess with him, console him, poke him, hug him, pet him. You must be strong! The only thing you do want to do is to raise his chin and check the coloration of his lower lip if the contorting and gasping behavior slows down.

Usually, a choking rat will work things out if you don't touch them. They coat the item with saliva and scrunch it down. We also found this interesting maneuver, that is only to be used if your rat is not breathing:

The "rat fling" [is] where you hold the rat around the neck with one hand and the base of the tail with the other, lift the rat overhead and bring the rat down in a rapid arc with the rat's head downward. It's supposed to work after about 3 or 4 times (according to Debbie Ducommun's Rat Health Care), at which point you should check the rat's mouth for the dislodged object/food.

After a very anxious night, we found Oreo much the worse for wear the next morning. She was exhausted and still scrunched.

I took her to the rodent urgent care at Adobe Animal Hospital. They are great there! 20 vets on staff. An open practice policy (meaning you can be present for any procedure). They have specialized rodent equipment like tiny scales and tiny anesthetizing chambers before surgery.

Turns out Oreo's teeth are growing in crooked and so are not grinding down properly. The result: her bottom teeth were overgrown and cut the top of her mouth creating an abscess. Dr. M whisked her away to trim her teeth. He tried to do it without putting her under, but she struggled too much.

After that was a week of pain killers and antibiotics. Let me tell you, medicating a rat is extremely difficult. The rat body and skeleton are built for maximum squirmability. It took both of us to restrain Oreo the first few days. Then we figured out she really liked eating the antibiotic and would daintily lick it off the feeding syringe.

Since we were out of town last weekend, we entrusted Oreo to EarlyM. At the last minute, I stuffed Cupcake in the cage too, so Oreo wouldn't be alone. He was kind enough to send this status photo of Oreo:


She is back to her chipper self now. Has lost some weight, so we'll have to work on making her a little squishy again.