After just a few weeks in rescue, Molly developed mammary tumors. We had them removed and had her spayed at the same time. Her daughters Ginny and Hermione were spayed about a month later.

Despite them being beautiful girls and spayed, they never found a forever home. The animals have it very good here in rescue but we want nothing more for them than for them to find their perfect forever home and when that doesn't happen it breaks our hearts.

We removed the girls off the website a few weeks ago as Molly and one of her daughters have chronic respiratory issues and it just wouldn't be fair to move at their age and in their condition.

In the past few weeks Molly took a turn for the worse. We had her on several different meds both for respiratory issues and heart issues but she just didn't get any better. She wasn't having any fun anymore and so we made the hard decision to let her go. Molly was a good girl and will be missed.

For those of you who don't know about Mica, please do a search on this blog (top right and pick "this site" - Several previous blog posts will show up documenting her story)

Our hearts are broken.

Many thanks to Reese and Josh for giving her a forever home where we knew she was going to be safe, much loved and spoiled rotten til the end.

We had to put Thistle the little hedgehog girl down yesterday due to an aggressive, fast growing tumor in her mouth.

Thistle came to us a few months ago via a local shelter. She didn't do well in the shelter environment. Even our experienced foster mom couldn't really coax her out of her shell, she was very shy and preferred to just be left alone and be looked at.

RIP Thistle, you will be missed

There were absolutely no signs that something was wrong with her. She was very outgoing and playful while the other 3 girls are very shy and quiet. Emily seemed full of life and had so much character.

The foster family checked on baby Emily and the 3 adult girls earlier today and they all seemed perfectly fine. But when they checked on them tonight the found out that little Emily had passed away. It is just incredibly sad.

Rescue is always such a roller coaster ride full of high and lows, with the good and bad things coming in waves. Unfortunately the wave of bad news continues on... We lost two more ratties this week.

On Thursday we lost sweet little Bunki. Bunki was part of the DTES SRO group that came into rescue in May/June of 2009. The rats were inbred and weren't well socialized.

Because of that, Bunki and 3 of her sisters (as well as 4 males) were/are still waiting for forever homes. Their wonderful foster mom Susan decided to pay to get them all spayed so that we could hopefully increase the chances of them getting adopted. Spaying also helps to prevent tumors so it's always good to have them spayed as it benefits their health. We unfortunately also saw some abnormalities in rats from that group: Undescended testicles in several males and a female had a very weak uterus that practically fell apart when she got spayed - Yet another reason why we wanted to get them spayed. We thought it would be a win win situation for the girls.

Unfortunately we were reminded that even a routine procedure like a spay done by an experienced vet is still surgery and comes with risks...

When they started anesthesia, Bunki's heart just gave out. Our vet tried to revive her but unfortunately she never woke up again. Bunki didn't show any kind of health problems prior to going in so this was a huge shock and we are extremely saddened. Sleep well, baby girl.

(We had her sister Zoulfia spayed on Thursday as well and she did great. We had several other girls from that group spayed previously and they all did great as well so it was most likely just a fluke. It's still so so sad though).

Today we also had to say goodbye to sweet little Daphne. Daphne only just came into rescue last night. Daphne is a Rattus Rattus (also known as black rat or roof rat). She was found as an orphan and was raised by a person who then kept her as a pet but now she had to get rid of all of her rats. We agreed to take in her 3 wild rats. On Wednesday we were told that she was sick. We asked her previous owner to please hold on to her until she was better and that we could provide antibiotics. Unfortunately the previous owner showed no compassion and said that she had to get rid of her now. To make sure that Daphne wasn't going to end up on the street, we agreed to take her now and put her through a stressful ferry trip as we felt we were the only chance she had.

When she arrived and we checked her over, our fears became true - She was really really sick. We started her on antibiotics and booked her in to see one of our vets today.

Unfortunately with every hour that passed it became more and more apparent that she was suffering - Every breath was a struggle, she had no quality of life left. She was in end stage lung disease and from experience we know that she wasn't going to get over this even with antibiotics and so we ended her suffering in a humane way at the vet. RIP Daphne, we're sorry that our help came too late for you.

We're so grateful that our wonderful fosters Teri, Susan and Margaret & her family as well as our vet were there for Daphne in her last few hours and showed her that there are people who care.