Har Mow Nee

I'm counting my blessings, because as poopy as I feel, it's not so bad! Look at my pretty friends! People may suck, but animals will always be the bomb.

Carma is my cat now. As evil as she is, she is the most cutest. 
She sleeps with me every night, snoring and drooling.
For brief moments, she and Eddie share my lap. 
Baby is getting a bit sick, wonkier than usual. But sweeter than usual, too. Love da rattie!
Ella is all ready for winter, with a toque hammock and a thick insulating layer of ratfat! So chunky and lovely!
An indoor cat now, Carma is pleased to observe the cold weather.
Wonkyrat is very very cuddly.

And Eddie loves the hay. He so purty and shiney! Look at his glorious gold flecks!

Eddie Piggie - Who needs girls?

Again, we grow.

So...We started with a hamster, along with three pre-existing cats and a dog. Then the hamster had babies. Then three down. Then we bought two guinea pigs. Then we lost one more hamster. Then we bought another. Then we bought two rats. Then we moved, leaving a dog and two cats behind at the house. Then two more rats. Then two less rats. Then a cat rejoined us. Then one less hamster. Now the dog has rejoined us. And other things have happened as well. So now, here's the story:

Minou cat is here, happy and, despite our best efforts, still relatively fat.

Daisy dog is happiest with her momma, even if it means up and down four flights of stairs three times a day. As she gets older and her remaining friends at the house move out and on, leaving her alone was a concern. So now here she is, and we're happy to have her.

Above and below are the two newest additions to L's menagerie - Above is Pancake, a big fluffy fat female Syrian. Below is Wall-E, a spun-out little Dalmatian Teddy Bear Syrian. Yes. They have Dalmatian. And they cost more than not-Dalmatian hamsters.


And here's Puffy, still the first and foremost of what is now a series of puffies.
And Marvin remains the Marvelous.
And Eddie remains philosophically inclined and enlightened. Hehehe.
And the girls remain my favourite girls. This is an older picture, as are some of the above, but they do this every night anyway, so meh.
So that's the story, morning glories. Lots of beasts and all in only a two bedroom flat. Just how I like it. hehehe.

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Now playing: Siouxsie and The Banshees - Twice Upon a Time - The Passenger
via FoxyTunes

Conquering A New Land

We are here in Scarberia The Second now, in a glorious, spacious apartment.
With us are the most important of our animals. Unfortunately, the below-mentioned ratties were too much for us to handle, and found a new home.
So here they are, the residents of 404!

Marvin the Magnificent dares to venture onto the new parquet.
The girls enjoy their expanded cage, but still nag us to roam our vast bedroom in the evenings.
Eddie remains Eddie, though he enjoys being in a more frequently visited room - more chance to squeal for foodies.
Puffy remains puffy, and we've just discovered the secret to fattening him up! Below is a cat, content to be in her kitchen, where food could at any moment appear. We're still working on the secret to slimming her down.
Unfortunately, we recently lost a valued member of our animal family. Tommy, the hamster that started it all, has passed away, peacefully, in her sleep. We aren't sure why, because we didn't think she was that old, and there's some concern that a rather traumatic escape experience a couple of nights prior might have led to her demise. In the middle of the night, we awoke to hear a great deal of scuffling coming from Eddie's cage. The Minou-cat was looking far more active than her usual sleepy self, pacing the cage and batting at the bars. Upon investigation, Tommy was found in Eddie's cage! Mysteriously, her cage door was found closed. The mystery remains one of the many crowning achievements of her life. Along with that, we remember her as the mother of Bandit, Creamy and Ratchet, and a great lover of the male hamster form. Surviving her is her daughter, Creamy, and her would-be boyfriend, Puffy. We appreciate all she has given us, and miss her dearly. R.I.P. Tommy.
And that's the news for now.

Welcome Alfie And Dexter

As you can probably tell, we are still all very much in love with our animals and their intense cuteness. What can we say? Below are the most recent and most cutest (no, i can't really say that, but they're damned cute) additions to our menagerie. The top picture is Dexter, then Alfie. Alfie's a huge pig. He's been known to completely empty a full food bowl in one sitting. Probably because I picked'm. I always get the food-motivated animal. Ella and Eddie are the same way. And, just like Baby, Dexter is a little spun, but very cuddly, not scared of much, and motivated more by the opportunity to explore than anything.

These boys are known as Russian Blue Dumbo Rats, and it's really amazing the difference in their personality from the girls. The girls are your average Fancy Rat, but it's their gender here that I think really makes a world of difference in their personalities. Girl rats are the actors, the doers, the movers and shakers, and they rarely hold still. If you have food in your hand and they know it, it won't be in your hand for long. With two healthy girl rats, one is constantly searching for new things to amuse them in their cage environment, and change in the cage design is necessary for their survival. They are also much happier to be free range, and really very much enjoy a good sprint along the back of the couch on a regular basis. But these boys, as well as boy rats I have known previously, are the exact inverse of all the above. While they are also smart and interested, and therefore need new toys relatively regularly, and decent free range time, they are also very much slower moving animals, with a sort of dopey calm about them that would never even remotely cross the eyes of the girl ratties, even when they are being cuddly (which Baby does relatively often now). They seem to enjoy comfort in all its guises, including soft things, little nooks and good food. While they do bop around the cage, it is not with nearly the same ferocity that the girls practice, in which everything gets relocated and shavings fly everywhere.
These boys were bought at a pet store that kept them on pine shavings in a very tiny little aquarium. When we first brought them home, they were sneezing with every breath, and we were worried they were victims of the dreaded Mycoplasma that rats are very susceptible to. However, after almost a month now on carefresh, with a little bit of aspen sprinkled in, in a well-ventilated, warm environment, they seem much happier, and we're hoping it was only sensitivity to the pine that made them so sneezy.
In any case, our next pet mission is to teach Ella and Baby, who are more used to us and quicker moving, to play rat basketball. First, we'll have to move, which will be interesting, and then we'll have to build a court, and then take the steps listed in the link above. I'll just be working and coming home all summer, with no school to drag my mental direction in a certain direction, so I'm quite looking forward to this plan. Bahaha. Look it up on youtube, too, this whole rat basketball thing. It's a sweet deal.

Run Rattie Run!

Eddie

isn't he perty!? working so haaard!? so CUTE!

Puffy's New Abode

okay, so if you haven't met Puffy yet, here he is in all his splendour. he was getting bored of his cage arrangements, so once again, it was time to reorient his tubes for his enjoyment. here's the completed arrangement, which seems to be keeping him quite amused.the books have always been the most useful things, really, in terms of these arrangements. honestly, hamster psychology is really important with these things. the same number of tubes can seem like much more territory if rearranged with diversity and confusion in mind.
anyway. so there you have it.

Our Beasts, specifically

My favourite cute YOutube animals, including some familiar faces

Just me and my beasts

So now, another school year starts and I'm back in Peterborough, with a quarter of the present animal life I had with my love in Scarborough. Ah well.
Travelling with me on this particular educational adventure is Eddie the guinea pig and Tommy the hamster. For a recap, here are their images.



Eddie's getting bigger every day, and sweeter by the minute. In the picture above, he is smaller still than a book he is now bigger than. I need more pictures of him. Sadly, he peed on my bed last night during a cuddle+carrot session. Tommy has stopped chewing so voraciously on her bars because there's no man-smell around, and because I've hung annoying toys with bells in all the corners, which is where she liked to chew. Outsmarting a hamster is not easily done.
Actually, when I think about it, something about animal intelligence is offputting to a lot of people. I think that's the root of a lot of people's strange animal phobias and disrespect. Because the kind of intelligent many animals are is not something we can comprehend.
Anyway, with that, I just got an idea of what would make me feel good - I really must go off to the pet store and look at treats for the aminals.

Intense Piggie

Check This Out

And then....

So now, we are here in Scarberia with a great large troupe of very happy, very loved animals. There's Minou, who's on a diet, and looking svelter by the day. After a terrifying mid-camping trip disappearance act, she's now restricted to backyard outings. There's Carma, who's becoming quite the lapcat thanks to our proximity to a large conservation in which she hunts from dawn 'til dusk. Daisy is as obnoxiously dumb and loving as ever, and we're building her a dog run with minimal exposure to other passing dogs so that she can stop her silly barking. And Cuddles is finally on a food that has stopped her diarrhea, and all the cats and dog have pretty pretty collars to carry their Toronto pet licenses.

And then there are the rodents. Seven now in total, and all happy as clams. We did a bit of a spending spree at the new PetSmart on Kennedy, and bought all new cages for all the rodents. Up until then, we'd had a sort of motley crew of mismatching and homemade houses that were taking up too much space and were just visually disturbing and hard to work with. So now Eddie and Marvin are in matching guinea pig condos with nametags and functional spaces. It marks the end of their litter-trained life, which I think is a relief for both the piggies and their diligent cleaners. Tommy and Puffy The WonderHamster (the latter of which is pictured below) also have matching blue hamster cages, side-by-each, which really illustrates WHY Tommy was pregnant when we picked her up at the store; frankly, she's a bit of a whore. But a cute little orange one, so what can you do? Puffy is very bemused and confused by the smell of girl, and has just got a bloody nose from chewing on the bars so much to try and see her. And then, there's our latest additions; Two beautiful black/grey rattie girls - Ella is the larger of the two, with a white point on her chest up to her white chin. Pippie, short for Pipsqueak, is the smaller, with a little white line on her chest, dipping into her equally cute white belly. Pippie is very slow-moving when handled, and she likes to hide in L's shirt. Ella is the investigator and the escapee-in-training - she moves fast all the time, but has moments of great calm, especially on my shoulder, or in the crook of my elbow.

PIGGIES

Yes. This is why I kept a clause in there about this covering any other pets, because I am a voracious lover of aminals. (that was intentional. it's what i called animals when i was a wee bebe - just as pretty boy now says plaskit instead of plastic. classic, really) Anyway, here they are in all their glory. And then I really must get to work. Honestly. Seriously. Marvin is the sweet guy with the big white stripe and Edgar is the munchkin with the black fur with little gold flecks.

Ratchet's New Home...

...is with a friend o' mine who i still live with, kinda, or with whom my things reside, anyway. She fell in love with wee Ratchet-poo while playing with him in my room, and decided to take him on. So there you go.
I have adopted Tommy, the mommy hammy, and she is the new subject of this blog - though its focus shall extend itself to include any other pets I am exposed to/may acquire.

Here are the animals of my current existence:
Daisy - a dalmatian of ten years, who looks five and acts like a wee suck. My love always says she would climb inside her pocket if she could. If you knew Daisy, this would go without saying. Biggest lovingest dog around. I bought her a pretty collar with daisy flowers on it. When you feel her, you have to scare the cats away, because otherwise they'll push her out of her own food. I don't think I've ever seen her teeth, and she only ever growls in her sleep, when she's having very intense dreams.
Karma - a small grey inbred barn cat with attitude for days. She's my little buddy. We play together in the evenings. She's a bit of an ass, tho, always after the rodents and the dog and the other cats, and knocking things off counters and attacking you at odd moments.
Minou - a large round black and white cat with a very distinctly lady-like manner about her. Sleeps most of the time, eating and playing with Karma the rest of the time. She has the most perfect purr, she never knocks anything over or scratches where she shouldn't. She's a pig with food, but she's not near as pushy as Karma is. Basically, she's the perfect cat.
Cuddles - Cuddles is the daddy cat, despite being female. She's talkative, and bonded primarily with her mama, but she guards the house fearlessly. She's often misguided though. Any tension that she senses usually results in the dog getting attacked, because I guess she figures that dogs are inherently suspect. She's hilarious and very pretty.
Tommy - MY hamster, now, as decided by myself and the boyo. She's a caramelly colour with eyes that seem more beady than most hamster's eyes for some reason. She runs incessantly, and chews all the right things, instead of going for her cage bars. Her favourite thing is running in her large pink hamster ball.
Creamy - the boyo's hamster, what he named himself. Loves her ferociously, and honestly, I don't think I've ever known a four-year old to be more conscientious and caring over the long term than this little dude has been for his little Creamy. She's a sweetie, having been hand-raised patiently. She's a bar-chewer and a ball-runner.
Bandit - my love's hamster. the sweetest little dude. he's just not normal. he seems downright insulted when you put him in a ball, and he likes to wrestle and play with cat toys. he's more comfortable in his owner's hands than anywhere. he seems smart, almost, which is strange in a hamster, really. anyway, he's definitely special for a hamster.
The Ducks In The Pool - Yeah. Apparently they're here every year. I have dubbed them Erold and Edith, because of the way they walk. Don't ask. Anyway, they're there doing their thing, so I figured I'd record that.

So that's the word. Talk to y'all later.