# Losing them is SO HARD



## Bombalurina (Oct 10, 2011)

I have lost so many of my beautiful rats recently. 7 in the last six months. Words fail me on how bad it feels to watch a pet die. 

If you want to share your experiences with a pet-death, or give a little obituary, please do so.


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## twolovers101 (Sep 17, 2012)

I'm so sorry for your losses, I know it's hard  

My previous cat, shadow, I still miss her a lot. I got her when I was seven years old, and she was my best friend for 15 years. When she died in 2011 it was really sudden. I got a phone call from my mom while I was at college (3 hours away from my house) telling me that she was at the vet and Shadow wasn't doing well... They had her in an oxygen tent, her lungs were filling with fluid, she was experiencing heart failure and had cancer (our previous vet visits had told us nothing was wrong, so everything happened really fast.) 

I had to make the call to put her to sleep... she was kind of a rescue, the family we adopted her from, the son abused her. She was terrified of people and would hide from everyone but me (and after about 10 years, accepted my parents) I was her primary care, and she loved me. She would sleep on my pillow next to me until I fell asleep every night, and even kept me warm one winter night when I lost my blankets.

I wanted so bad to be there for her, but I didn't want to make her wait 3 hours while I drove to see her. Honestly I don't think she would have lasted that long anyway. It broke my heart that I couldn't be the one to hold her paw and pet her and tell her that it was okay. 

It's taken me 2 years to recover from her death, and I'm still tearing up about it right now. 

Long story short, I got married, and now I have Rajah, who is the joy of my life. I've only had him for a month, but he and I are really bonded and if I'm home, he's always in the same room with me and follows me around the apartment. He greets me when I come home and is just so loving. 

He was a rescue of sorts also, the shelter we adopted from were going to put him down because they were overflowing with cats, and he had been there the longest. We were his last chance, and I can't imagine anyone NOT wanting him. But here he is, and every now and then I get the feeling that Shadow approves, and I feel like I can finally move on.  (He does a lot of the same things she did).

Anyway, I'll stop now, not sure if this is longer than you wanted posts to be, but I felt the need to talk about it. RIP Shadow, I'll see you again one day.


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## Bombalurina (Oct 10, 2011)

That's a beautiful story. Make your posts as long as you like.  I'm so glad that you have Rajah now.


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## twolovers101 (Sep 17, 2012)

Thank you  I'm really thankful for Rajah, he's so sweet (most of the time).


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## Romad (Jun 28, 2009)

Sorry for all of your ratty losses Bomba. Hugs ((()))


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## LittleBettaFish (Oct 2, 2010)

So sorry to hear that Bombalurina. The bonds we can form with our pets will never cease to amaze me. It never gets any easier losing a pet, no matter how many may have come before it. 

We recently came very close to losing our senior cat Bandit. We thought he had a tumour and the vet did exploratory surgery with the understanding that if it was cancer and had spread through his body, she was going to let him go while he was still under the anaesthetic. 

I never realised how much I loved that bloody cat until I was bawling my eyes out and saying my goodbyes. 

The mass ended up being the end of a corn cob he'd swallowed (it was seriously the size of about a 20 cent coin), but he also was diagnosed with low grade lymphoma. I cherish every single moment I have with him now because I know how much it is going to hurt when I do eventually lose him. 

Were your rats particularly old? Or was this just something that has happened out of the blue? I was an emotional wreck and I only was contemplating losing one pet. Can't imagine the heartbreak of losing seven pets in such a short space of time.


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## Bombalurina (Oct 10, 2011)

Willoughby was getting on a bit. He died very suddenly in May whilst I was at a fish auction. He had a stroke and just keeled over by the food bowl. He'd been a bit dazed leading up to that, but I thought he was just recovering from his latest set of blood loss (he had a dislocated piece of bone in his nose that used to cause him to sneeze copious amounts of blood, and he'd had a bout the day before). Despite that and his age, he was otherwise completely healthy, so that was definitely not expected.

d'Artagnan died about five weeks after that. He contracted a dental disease (without visible symptoms, so we couldn't pin down what was making him sick) and he suddenly lost buckets of weight. He was just an exhausted little bag of bones when we euthanised him. He was a sweetheart to the very end, though. He was one of my adoptions from a breeder, rather than a rescue, so I'd had him almost his entire life - losing him was really hard. He was 2 years 9 months or so when he died, which was elderly, and he'd had a good life. 

Jack died six weeks after Willoughby (six weeks after we got him). He and his brother Algy had both been diagnosed with advanced lung tumours taking up a third to half of their lung capacity. We tried a heck of a lot of drugs, but things weren't getting better, and they were both going in to respiratory distress. Jack just died one Saturday evening; I didn't realise until I reached in to pick him up. We had to put his brother Algy down the following Monday - he wasn't as bad as Jack, but he was getting worse, and respiratory distress is a horrible way to die. I didn't want him to go through that. They were both only 18 months old - not young, but hardly geriatric, so that was hard too.

They're all hard.

My tiny, sweet, perfect, angelic, beautiful Darcy was next. Words cannot encapsulate how special that rat was. He was incredibly affectionate - his favourite place to be was on my neck. You could do absolutely anything with him, and he'd just lick you and smile. When I got him from the RSPCA, he was already two, and I didn't think I'd have long with him. Luckily, he lived to be 3 years and 6 months old, so I had a lot of time with him that I didn't expect. He just gradually went downhill after Algy died. He stopped eating and spent all of his time asleep. He was as limp and floppy as if he were already dead, but he still found the energy to boggle happily at me and lick chocolate custard out of a syringe. He never had the bony, unhealthy feel that Darty did as he aged - he simply got very very light. He was only 250 grams by the time we had him euthanised. By contrast, at his heaviest, my big fat rat Hyde, who died a year ago, was 815 grams. Darcy's death was as sweet and peaceful as I could have hoped. We euthanised him, and he simply drifted off to sleep and didn't wake up. Unlike most rats, he felt no different to hold between living and dying, and he still looked utterly perfect and content. 

Richelieu's death, about six weeks later, was the polar opposite. He went into acute respiratory distress without warning. We hospitalised him, where he recovered enough for us to take him home that night, but he had a relapse at about 11. I stayed up with him for about three hours, desperately trying to clear the blockage of phlegm in his airways, but I couldn't. He had two seizures whilst I cuddled him in my bed, trying to keep him calm, and the second one killed him. It was the most horrifying, distressing thing I had ever seen, and I still get flashbacks to it. He'd lived a good life - he was three weeks off his third birthday - but his death was just awful.

Richelieu's death was a huge motivating factor in my decision to put Lizzie to sleep. She was nearly two, so bordering on old, but not so old that I was at all worried about her. Then, on Monday, she too went into respiratory distress. She survived through the night, but could only relax if she was constantly kept in a nebuliser. Steroids failed to help. I did not want her to suffer the way Richelieu did, and my vet thought that she might well do so, so euthanasia seemed infinitely kinder. I can't imagine the terror she'd have felt if she'd choked to death instead of drifting off on a wave of oxygen. It wasn't easier to lose her, knowing that I was sparing her that, but it was easier to make the decision to do so. 

Sorry about the detail, but in short: some were expected, some were not. All were awful in their own way. I wish a Darcy-death on all my future rats - he didn't suffer and was utterly contented, even as he slipped peacefully out of this world. 

That month where I lost four in a short space of time was the absolute worst, particularly since it culminated in the loss of Darcy, who was just ridiculously special. I love all my rats like other people love their dogs and cats, but sometimes, you just meet one who is life-alteringly perfect: heart-rats, we call them. He was definitely in that category. All that death in such a short space of time was really hard - I was still grieving for each loss when another one happened. I just didn't have any time to recover, and I think it's going to take a long while before it stops hurting. The out-lying deaths - Willougby, Richelieu and Lizzie - feel too close together, too. 

I hope your Bandit enjoys his remaining time with you to the full. When the time comes, there isn't really anything that makes it better, or comforts you, but once the initial, horrific pain has lessened into a sort of dull grief, there is comfort in knowing that they had a great time whilst they were alive.


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## Quinn (Apr 4, 2010)

I'm so sorry for your losses. I miss my ratties so much, and few people under stand because "eeww they're so gross. Eeww their tails" etc etc. I wish I could own them again now. Maybe someday again, but the upkeep and stinky ness can be hard. I last had 6 boys in a divided Ferret Nation a few years ago. My heart ray was named Keemun, he was just a regular ole agouti, compared to his brother who was a Rex and a cinnamon-y agouti, (and my mean old first hairless boys), so no one else liked him best, but that boy had me wrapped around his little paws. He was so sweet, and licky, and squishy. When he hit two he started to lose the use of his rear legs and I had to cup him in my arms so he could sit up and clean his belly and boy parts. He always wanted the dignity of cleaning himself. Gah now I'm tearing up. 
RIP all your sweet fur babies.


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