THELMA

2/00-2/15/02

One of the greats passed away on Friday, Feb 15. Thelma, who just celebrated her 2nd birthday a week earlier, seemed to have a mild respiratory problem and was on batryl and vibrymicyn. Unfortunately, it got the best of her. Thelma was another one of those rats who were the reason why they're such good pets. Besides loving humans and a good scratch, Thelma was the only rat of the current clan who never wrestled, never fought, never had any problems with any other rats. Because of that, I think she was pretty "respected" by her roommates. None of them ever confronted her, jumped on her or started anything with her. She was the queen of the clan. And she was smart. She always would give me the "I can't believe you're putting me to bed" look when the rats all went back in their cages at night, so many times, Thelma would get to stay out all night, often waking me in the middle of the night to show me a treat she had found stashed somewhere. Many times I'd wake up to her lying right beside me.

Thelma came to me with her sister Louise (who died late last year) and Thelma's litter of 12 babies in September of 2000.  She had been with a lady who wanted to get rid of them because Thelma and Louise had both gotten out of their cages and chewed up her new couch. Obviously, the rats should have known the couch was new and not to chew it. I shook my head in disbelief that this woman actually initiated getting rats at one point. She laughed about how she was going to feed them all to snakes if someone hadn't claimed them. She also mentioned something about how the father of Thelma's babies already went to a snake. So I took the group of 14 rats (running from this lady's place as fast as I could carry them), initially with the intention of finding them all homes. I ended up keeping three of the babies (found homes for the rest), and Thelma and Louise. It only took a couple weeks for those two to show me that they were extremely great pets and there was no way I could let them go, even making more mad when I think of the buffoon who was going to feed them to a snake. Both sisters were two of my all time favorites.

Thelma outlived the three babies that stayed with me as well as her sister. She was a great girl and had a great life and I miss her a lot. I wish everyone could experience a great pet like Thelma. It was an honor to have had her with me.