How are Maple and Pingu doing?

It has been AGES since I’ve posted a pet rat update for you all, so here it is!

Maple has made so much progress lately, I’m so proud of both of us. She’s much tamer than Olive was at five months with me, and she’s happy sitting on Mum’s shoulder while she knits, or sitting on Dad’s hand or snuggling up in Daniel’s jumper. The cutest times are when she’s spooked by something in my bedroom, and she comes zooming back to me! Last night I put her on my shoulder and brushed my teeth and hair with her! I can do daily tasks with her in my pocket or shoulder, like make breakfast, do my hair and teeth, my schoolwork etc, and when I need to tidy my room, I’ll just shut the door and let her zoom around while i clean up! I think it’s adorable when there’s nothing on my floor (except for the Sylvanians, which she’s used to) and Maple gets the hops and speeds across the floor – sometime I’ll have to get a video of it for you all to see! She runs, but she’s also leaping up in the air at the same time – a little like the Spanish Andalusians doing Haute Ecole! 😂 Currently she and Pingu get free range time in my bedroom every evening and cuddles in the morning on the couch, and the constant attention stops them from squeaking and fighting eachother which they do when they’re bored. Sushi, our Japanese Spitz, hates it when the ratties squeak at eachother, and when there’s a bit of wrestling going on in the cage, you can hear the doggy-door flapping after she’s run out of it!

My bedroom is really only the safest room for Maple and Pingu, because all the others have exposed electronic cords, and believe me, I speak from experience, it only takes a millisecond and there’s bite marks in the cable. I’ve lost a lamp that way….😑So I put all my lamp and power cords inside my headboard that’s hollow with a shelf, so they can’t get to it. There were cracks between my bed and the headboard just on the floor, not going all the way up, and I had to stuff socks in there so they couldn’t get through, but they always pulled the socks out, so I made some Lego stoppers, and now their plans are foiled, mwa ha ha ha ha!!🤪But now they’ve resorted to raiding Lady Stella’s mansion and digging up the Treehouse vegetable patches…sighhhhh. Anyway, I’ve collected some adorable videos of Pingu and Maple, so here you are!

The next few paragraphs are actually written today – the writing before was done a month or so ago, and I have quite a serious update now. This afternoon I’ve spent doing extensive research, because Maple and Pingu are in a bit of trouble with eachother right now. Bascially, what’s happening is they have been fighting SO MUCH lately, since…last month, really! Normally, it’s fine because rats playfight and have their own fierce hierarchy. But my family and I hear them squeaking and crashing around in the cage all through the night, and during the day they sleep seperatly which is concerning. Although they don’t draw blood, Pingu’s bottom-fuzz is looking a little thin, and they keep biting eachothers’ necks and pinning eachother down and our dog, Sushi, is so scared when they squeak and holler, and she runs out the doggy-door! I’ve done lots of research on what to do, and I’m concerned because it’s been six months since they were born, and they’ve been together that whole time, and STILL they are bickering. It’s mostly sad for me that they’re not sleeping together anymore. I decided that for the next few weeks to a month I’ll split their double-story cage in half, like I did when I introduced them to Maple, and have one rat on one half, and one on the other. They can still smell each other and will still get to play together in my bedroom, but hopefully it will give them some time alone to calm down and appreciate each other again. So that’s the plan! I’ll have lots of updates on how they’re doing from now on! I’ve got so many adoreable pictures and videos of them for this post, and I wanted to share as many as possible! Maple is so photogenic – as soon as you point the camera in her direction, she freezes for the shot and then continues what she was doing!! Also, the first photos I took in the evening, so the light isn’t so good 🙂