An empty corner

I lost my last furbaby this week.

Anyone who has critters will tell you that losing them can be just as painful as losing a human friend or family member — even more so when you have to make the decision to let them go as opposed to them going on their own. These are little beings you have chosen, or in some instances who have chosen you, and you spend time and energy and love on and with them, and they never stay with you as long as you’d like. If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard someone lament the fact that our pets don’t live as long as we do, I’d be a very rich woman.

I suppose the obvious solution would be to have a notoriously long-lived pet, like a parrot or a tortoise. They can be just as delightful as any other sort of animal companion, and when cared for properly, you’ll probably need to make provisions for them in your will because it’s entirely possible that they’ll outlive you. Of course, tortoises aren’t exactly snuggly, so if that’s the kind of animal companionship you’re looking for (and let’s face it, most of us are), a reptilian friend might not quite fit your needs. Hand-raised birds can be very touch-friendly, but they’re not for everyone.

If neither of those options sound particularly exciting to you, you’re left with the furrier types, none of which are as long-lived. You can get 20-ish years with some dogs and cats, absolutely, but as I understand it, that’s not terribly common. Incidentally, you can get similar longevity with a horse, but I’m pretty sure your homeowners’ association won’t appreciate you stabling it on your balcony and grazing it on the communal lawn. If dogs, cats, and horses are out, you’ve still got plenty to choose from, but you’re going to have to reconcile yourself to a shorter lifespan. That’s just how the cookie crumbles.

For those of you who don’t already know, I have a dander allergy. I can hang out with furry animals for a few hours, even a few days, but beyond that I start having issues in the breathing department. I found this out when I took a foster puppy for a friend who works in rescues — after a month, I was sucking down Benadryl like it was candy. It was something of a shock, really, because I had previously done pet-sitting stints of up to two weeks with very fluffy pups, though when I thought about it, I realized that I had always had allergy attacks after a few days in their space. At the time, I somehow hadn’t put two and two together — mostly because I’m also allergic to new places (which sounds odd, but I always have to adjust my sinuses when I move or visit somewhere for a long period of time), and season changes, and abrupt changes in weather and temperature, and… the list goes on. In any case, this was a crushing blow to my lifetime dream of owning a dog, and I had to improvise.

For the last few years, I have kept rats as pets. “Rats?!” I hear you say. Yes, rats. They are social, smart, cuddly, and because they live primarily in a cage, their already minimal dander stays in one easy to clean place. I started with a pair of females, Tiny Tina (named for the NPC in Borderlands 2) and Gabby Rat (so named because she had A LOT to say.) After about four months, Tina had a catastrophic respiratory episode and I had to put her down. It was unexpected and, obviously, very upsetting. Gabby was an only-rat for a while after that, because shortly after I lost her sister, she developed her own set of health issues. She had so much personality, and we bonded so strongly after Tina was gone, that I ended up spending far more time, money, and energy trying to keep her going that I expect most people would. But I loved her. And so did everyone who met her. Of course, eventually the guilt of ‘she’s a social animal, they’re not supposed to be on their own’ caught up with me, and I adopted a bonded pair from a rodent rescue in the area — North Star Rescue, you can find them on Facebook and Twitter at the moment because their website is undergoing a complete re-do. Penny and Big Dutch (formerly Betty and Thomas) came home to be bonded with Gabby.

It didn’t go too well.

We were a two-cage family until I had to face the fact that my Gabby girl wasn’t living her best little rat life anymore. Letting her go was… awful. Especially after everything I went through to try to keep her healthy. I still miss her shenanigans. My food was her food. My coffee was her coffee. I was a jungle gym, my sleeves and hood were a labyrinth to be explored, my shirts were for chewing through, and underneath the kitchen hutch I use as a bar was the coolest place ever. I was with someone at the time, and if he had her out when I came home from work she would skitter across the top of the sofa to greet me when I came in the door.

She was my girl.

Penny and Big Dutch (who was a neutered male, by the way) were left behind, and though they were both quite sweet in their own ways, neither of them really had the same gregarious personality Gabby had. However, we got on very nicely, and they were just as spoiled as they could have been. Eventually Penny developed a tumor similar to the one I tried so hard to rid Gabby of, and having been through it once before I decided that it would be better for both Penny’s and my sanity if we just kept her happy and monitored her condition closely, and when the time came, we would deal with things. I lost her this past February.

That left Dutch. He developed bilateral rear-limb neuropathy, his appetite tanked, and he lost a bunch of the weight he had originally been named for. (He was such a chunk when I adopted him!) He was on a daily dose of Meloxicam and the longer it went on, he ended up being fed whatever he would eat, which was basically a diet of yogurt treats. And he got so many snuggles.

Last Saturday, Big Dutch’s breathing was very, very labored, and I knew it was time. I had known it was coming, but you’re never really prepared for this kind of thing. He’s buried next to Penny. The cage is cleaned and broken down, ready to be put into storage. The leftover food and supplies are ready to be donated to the rescue. My house is too quiet at night. I keep thinking I see movement in the corner where the cage was, hearing those familiar little scuffling and snuffling noises.
 
But there’s no more critter crunching on kibble or chewing on anything he can get his teeth on or popping up to see what I’m doing.

I miss him.