A family bought a female at a pet store in Abbotsford. They were told she was a male but of course she turned out to be a pregnant female. This is what you get when you buy a female rat at pet stores! They do not guarantee the sex you are buying and they don't keep them separated from the males! Rats can get pregnant from the time they are 5 weeks old so even if you buy a baby rat and think that you are "safe" you really aren't! We ended up taking 4 cute little boys in from that litter, two beige selfs and two beige hooded boys. They are very sweet and outgoing!

The day after we took the 4 boys in, the Vancouver Animal Shelter called us... Somebody dumped 18 baby rats in a Tupperware container outside a local pet store and they were now with VAS. VAS is a great shelter but they just aren't equipped or experienced to handle small animals besides the fact that it's very stressful for small animals to be surrounded by barking dogs.

The 18 rats are most likely from two different litters, there are 9 boys and 9 girls. The older litter unfortunately is old enough to breed so we currently have 5 girls on pregnancy watch (They are old enough to breed but not old/big enough for our vet to feel comfortable to spay them). The other 4 girls should be ok but as always we are holding them for 3 weeks anyway to make sure that they are healthy.

I guess the good news is that the 18 are very highly adoptable too! Not only are they very beautiful, they are also really sweet! It just makes us mad though that they had to go through so much stress in their short little lives already. Why couldn't the person at least have contacted us instead of being a total coward and dump them like trash!?!?!

Lucy

Octavius

All the 22 babies plus the 5 remaining babies and all the other animals we currently have up for adoption can be found on our Petfinder page. If you are interested in adopting any of them, please read through our adoption information page and follow the steps on there.

Help Little Mischief Rescue win a $20,000 grant!

Vote for us (Little Mischief Rescue in Vancouver, BC Canada) at www.theanimalrescuesite.com and we could win $20,000 to help pets in need.

The Animal Rescue Site is hosting a special challenge for eligible Petfinder.com member shelter and rescue groups. The grand prize is a $20,000 grant, and they will be awarding many other grants to rescue groups with the most votes — a total of $100,000 in grants for animal welfare organizations.

Think how many animals we could help for $20,000!

Help us win! All you have to do is click to help rescued animals, and then vote in The Animal Rescue Site $100,000 Shelter+ Challenge. Both of these actions are absolutely free! You can vote once a day, every day, from April 13 through July 26,2009. Every time you vote, or tell a friend to vote, you are making a huge difference for us.

Vote today!
Visit: www.theanimalrescuesite.com

Thank you for your support!

We managed to raise just over US$500 and 11 ratties went to their forever homes. The lucky ones that got adopted today are Marshmallow, Amora, Edelweiss, Silver Star, Erebus, Nelly Dean, Emily Bronte, Catherine, Francis, Linton and Pearl!

We are especially thrilled with Pearl's adoption as she is such a sad, sad story. She was just absolutely terrified and we knew she needed an extra special forever home where we know she'll be safe and loved for the rest of her life. Debbie in Portland once again opened her heart and home for a special one in need and by the pictures Debbie posted, it is obvious it is THE PERFECT home for little Pearl. Pearl will soon move in with some of Debbie's other ratties. She will never have to worry again.

Welcome home, Pearl!

A big thank you also to John H. who donated 9 bags of rat blocks and to Ann K. who donated 3 bags of rat blocks! Enough to provide all of our rats in foster care with the best quality rat blocks for the next 6 months!

When you are involved in rescue you come across a lot of sick and injured animals, more than the average person. Most of it is pretty basic stuff that you see all the time but every once in a while you come across something really weird and this is one of those things.

Sarah was an owner surrender. We received a few mixed stories as to why she was given up. We think she originally came from a local breeder who is luckily retired now.

On Sunday night as the foster checked all of her ferrets over, Sarah presented with an extremely bilaterally enlarged vulva, no other issues. We knew it's a sign of a ferret in heat but we couldn't explain it as she was supposed to be spayed like all ferrets generally are before they are sold anywhere. When a ferret goes into heat and isn't bred (as a rescue, breeding is obviously NOT an option), it can lead to serious complications. A ferret would stay in heat for up to 160 days and sustained sexual heat is dangerous and life-threatening because it usually results in bone marrow suppression. This results in severe anemia and decreases in the number of circulating white blood cells. Because of this likelihood, any female ferret not intended for breeding should be spayed.

Christy and Teresa drove Sarah down to Kirkland, WA to see a very experienced ferret vet (Dr. Elizabeth Kamaka, DVM at the Eastside Avian & Exotic Animal Medical Center).

The vet recognized the symptoms and agreed that she was in heat and immediately took her into the ER to get her spayed.

When Christy and Teresa returned to pick her up the vet mentioned that she had some good and bad news. The bad news were that she couldn't find any ovaries in Sarah so was indeed already spayed. But once she started digging around she found 2 large cysts on her uterine stump!

The theory is that there was a piece of ovarian tissue that was left behind, and somehow attached it self to the horn! This in turn caused the heat!

She is doing wonderfully since her surgery, and fingers crossed that this will help with her behavior issues also (she's a bit cranky and bitey and hence we don't have her up for adoption yet... but wouldn't you be if you had two large ovarian cysts!?!)

She is now in a recovery cage with Malteaser, and Pickles... They are doing quite well together, and Sarah was trying to clean everyone's ears last night.

What can you learn from the story? Don't forgot to regularly check your ferrets (and other pets) for any signs of possible health problems... even for things you might not expect! The diligence of Christy the foster mom probably saved Sarah's life!