Fancy Rat Rescue
... yes we said "fancy"!
Just before Christmas 2004, SARS BC was contacted
by a woman that works for a couple of Lower Mainland shelters. She had
received a call from a friend about a squat in East Vancouver that
housed a group of street kids.
She told us that two of the kids recently moved out but
before they did, they released all of their rats into a single room and
left them there to fend for themselves. When we went to help out, we
were given a total of 28 adult rats in numerous cages.
The rats are the pet store variety better known as fancy
rats... they are not the giant street rats that most people fear. All
of these guys are a smaller version of their wild cousins and come in a
variety of colors and hair types.
After carefully loading them into the car, on the way
home we heard some squeaking and pulled over thinking that they had
begun to fight. To our shock and surprise, there were babies... yup
that's right! We had two litters of babies even before we had gotten
them back to our place. Within a matter of weeks we had another 5
litters of rats. We ended up with over 60 rats in rescue!
All but Ben and Jerry, two gorgeous agouti boys, found
wonderful homes. Ben and Jerry were in a loving foster home until they
passed away in 2006.
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