We arrived home last night from dinner to find our little Snuffleupagus struggling on his side. We rushed him to the vet but knew he would have to get put down. The cause was a sudden stroke.

When we got little snuffy he was fathered by our oldest Munster. Together they flipped that house over and used it as their spooning house.




Snuffy loved his home and his digging box (purple in the back), always covering our house in dirt while burying everything he got his little paws on. He made cleaning that box a very stinky mess. He was always a much darker shade after we built that box. Such a dirty dirty boy, but always a ton of fun to watch dig.

I am sorry for your loss. He looks very comfy in the wood house.

Anita

Yea he sure was, they were so adorable cuddled up like that. Munster took to him immediately and provided a parent role. Always stuck together.

Back when it was just the two of them we used to let them roam. But they stuck to the top of their cage. Snuffy was such a little beggar at dinner. He would get as close as he could to the table (about a foot away) and lean off and look at you until you fed him. Then he would run it all through the tubes and back to his house, and run all the way back for more.

Yup, he was quite the little beggar, and we could never resist him.

The other boys have been kinda down... Pecan has been clinging to me more, and the others have just been laying around and won't come out of their cage

Awww I am very sorry for your loss. Did the vet suggest steroids at all? I have seen some "miracles" with stroke recovery with the addition of steroids. But if he was completely immobile it would've been unlikely. Its when they are still moving around a bit it can work.

The vet didn't really suggest any options. She said they still weren't entirely sure if it was a stroke or not, but that it was something with his brain. He also had fluid in his lungs, which she thinks was blood. He was moving a little bit when we found him, but only twitching, jerking motions. She said that he was in such bad shape, and that anything they tried most likely wouldn't work. But she is doing an autopsy to see if she can find out what it was. She offered to do it for no extra charge, since she was curious and we really wanted to know what had happened. We will be getting the results of that back tonight when we go to pick him up to give him a proper burial.

If you ever see a rat with a stroke again, try the steroids with abs. It can reduce the pressure on the brain and your rat will be walking and moving around by the next day...its almost eerie. Same with PT (pituitary tumor). Some don't respond but others will

so sorry about your loss, he was a beautiful rat. And such an awesome cage you have there. Wish I had room for one like that.

Sorry for your loss here, its hard loosing a pet . He must have been happy though in his life while living in such a huge house