Here is the story of one of my rats, Tank, dying.
Writing it down felt helpful to me and I know that this is the sort of thing I would find helpful to read about so maybe sharing it is helpful to someone else.
I know people are a bit funny about death so here's my warning that I'm not funny about death and I don't knowingly use any euphemisms, he wasn't put to sleep, I'm happy to just talk about it how it is. And to be honest the reality of how it is isn't that bad. I don't hold back from what happened but there's also nothing horrible to hide. The physical part of death isn't as scary as we sometimes imagine, it's just the losing someone part that's awful.
In case you don't know, we have three rats, Tank, Sharky and Pixel.
So, last month after a long time with an ear infection and an abscess and just lots of antibiotics and pus nothing was getting better and we had Tank x-rayed. He had a tumour in his ear and there's nothing that could be done about it. We were given lots of pain medicine for him and just had to keep him happy for as long as he could be.
A month later and all three of them went to the vet for a checkup and we knew Tank wasn't doing too good, he still had a great personality and seemed happy but he obviously must have been in a lot of pain.
His tumour had spread into his mouth and was effecting his teeth.
We weren't sure whether we'd have him for another week or not when we went in to the appointment but the vet very quickly told us about his teeth being too bad and it was time to have him euthanised.
She left us for a bit to go sort things out with the nurse and when she came back we had to sign a form and had a bit more time to say goodbye to Tank.
She'd explained before and went over again that they would anaesthetise him and then give him an injection so he wouldn't feel anything, like how he'd been anaesthetised for his x-ray last month.
We gave her a piece of fleece from their cage and she carried him on that. She took him away while we waited in the consultation room and cried and kept an eye on the other two who had just fallen asleep lol.
A nurse brought him back wrapped up in his fleece, she checked we were ok and offered us more time in the room but we wanted to get home.
As we left, the vet met us and said when she'd be in next and that we could call her about anything and that we didn't need to worry about payment now, we could sort it out when we were ready.
The vet and the nurse we saw briefly were really good, I can't talk highly enough of them and how they handled it all.
We live very close to the vet so we walk there, I carried Tank and Will carried the other two in the cage.
When we got home we laid Tank down in the cage on his fleece. He was laying on his side and was still warm and his little hands and feet were adorable, poking out from his big ol' bod.
After we'd had a minute with him we put the other two in the cage. Pixel didn't seem to notice and headed off downstairs for a drink. Sharky sniffed all around Tank and in his mouth and stayed with him.
We brought Pixel back upstairs and he sniffed right in Tank's mouth and then quickly went upstairs, got in the sputnik and fell asleep.
Sharky snuggled up to Tank and sat with him for about an hour then went and got food and came back and sat pretty much on Tank and ate. He sniffed all around him and in his mouth a lot and sat with him for at least another hour I think.
Towards the end of Sharky sitting with him he started sticking his nose right in Tank's mouth and was sniffing all around and seemed to be mouthing at his teeth a bit and then he started pulling on his tongue. We gently moved him off from that because we know rats can try and clear up a body by eating it which makes sense in the wild and while we wanted Sharky to mourn however he needed we really didn't want to see him eat Tank's tongue. Even though he was pulling on it he was being careful so I don't think that's what he was doing but we didn't want to find out. He went back to it a few times, so Tank ended up with a bit of a blep but honestly it really helped. Taking the time to sit with them and watch Sharky go through his way of dealing with it and then watching him pull on Tank's tongue was comforting and then funny. And for the rest of the day we had his little blep tongue to simultaneously laugh about and cry about because honestly I would cry about their adorable little body parts when they were perfectly healthy.
After about 3 hours he was starting to get colder and something I wasn't expecting at all, his tail started to shrink. Over the next few hours it ended up a lot shorter than it was when he was alive. His tongue was sticking out the side of his mouth but it was just a little bit, it was cute not grotesque.
We woke up Pixel again to make sure he'd had chance to realise what had happened and he groomed him a bit and sniffed in his mouth again and then just got back in a hammock.
We had Tank in the cage and sat with them for just over 3 hours and then we took Tank out of the cage on his fleece and laid him on the floor.
I went out into the garden to tidy up around where we would bury him. It felt really good to be doing something, not at all like a distraction, it just helped to be proactive about something I had no other control over I guess.
When I came back in Tank had fully gone into
rigor mortis, he was still just laying on his side but when you touched him he was cold and his joints were stiff and if you picked him up he didn't move at all. His flubby tum was still soft though.
While we had him out on the floor before and after he'd started to stiffen we both held him and stroked him whenever we felt like we needed to and the rest of the time we sat and chatted and gave the other two attention and treats and it, I was gonna say it was like a wake but I guess it was a wake. We sat with his body and drank tea and ate crisps and cried and laughed and tried to come to terms with it with as much time as we needed.
Neither of us wanted to cook and Will went out to buy pot noodles. While he was gone I cleaned Tank's nose. He had a small amount of red discharge on his nose and I just carefully wiped it off with a baby wipe.
When Will got back it was dark so we decided to wait till morning to bury him.
We left him on his fleece on the floor and carried on as we were, crying, laughing, watching bad tv and just saying goodbye to him.
Having his body there with us for that amount of time helped so much. Watching Sharky sit with him and go through his little mourning helped a massive amount. No offence to Pixel, everyone deals with things their own way lol but I'm so glad that Sharky sat with him for so long, it really helped calm me down. I'm also glad he pulled his tongue out, just the right amount of humour.
While we sat through the evening we had Sharky on the sofa with us and let Pixel have his free roam time. He mostly ignored Tank but a couple of times as he ran past him he stopped to sniff him and one time he stopped and had a really good sniff all around his head, in his mouth, in his ear, his nose, using his hands to manoeuvre him slightly and then he carried on with his business.
Our living room is quite cool so I imagine it might be different in different temperatures but he stayed in rigor mortis all night until we were ready to go to bed. When we did go to bed we wrapped him up in his fleece and put him on his own shelf in the fridge.
In the morning we laid him out in the living room again. There was some discharge on his nose again, a very small amount and Will cleaned it for him.
We had our breakfast and when we were ready we went out into the garden, dug a hole, brought Tank out, had some last cuddles and laid him in the ground, carefully covered him up with the soil making sure he was nice and safe and once the ground was level again we put a slab on top. This is so we know where he is and also as an extra deterrent, a cat or something can't just easily dig that soft dirt we'd moved.
I pulled some flowers up when I was clearing the area the afternoon before and I laid them down on the slab.
It was really tough. It was easier to have his body with us in the living room than it was to bury him. It was so strange seeing him in the ground, it was simultaneously the most natural thing and seemed right but also why would we put Tank in the ground, we should be looking after him.
But yeah, that's that. I wanted this to be more about the physical aspects of what we did, I can't really talk about the grief, I'm still in it and also I think you just have to feel what you feel and move through it it's not something that can be explained or tips given for it. We're absolutely wiped though, we were a five people unit and one of us is gone and it's so tiring. I'm just exhausted.
I have cried so much so randomly since he died, my whole face hurts, I miss him so much but this slow process of dealing with it, and as a group too, feels so right and I think it helped a lot. If we'd rushed through it and buried him straight away or left him at the vet I don't think we would have had as many calm moments. Sometimes I looked at his little body and cried but equally sometimes I looked at him and didn't, it just helped me come to terms with what had happened even if I was simultaneously wishing it hadn't happened.
I'm not saying this is the one right way to do things, I'm just sharing what we did. Although, I would recommend letting your other rats see the body. I've never had to deal with it myself but I imagine a decent vet would let you take them home for a couple of hours and then bring them back for cremation. Rats are such a unit and can grieve, I think it's important to let them process what happened for themselves if you can.
The few days since it happened Pixel has seemed very out of sorts. He was always very attentive, if they were ever apart for any amount of time he'd go round the cage and stomp on everyone to say hi and check they were still there and go back to sleep, he's very nosy and keeps an eye on everything. When Tank had his x-ray Pixel went with him and all the nurses and vet mentioned how he'd been looking after Tank. He seems to be taking it quite hard. Sharky seems ok, his behaviour is pretty much normal except that he's sitting with Pixel more, I think he's comforting him. Hopefully they can readjust soon.
These three are our first rats and this is our first rat death and it is hard. The only bad thing about keeping rats is their short life expectancy, it's so unfair that someone with such character that can bond with you so much only lives a short time. It's so tough but it's only so tough because it's so worth it.
*update* Pixel seemed to mourn for four days, barely ate, super lethargic, no interest in anything, total opposite personality and on the fifth morning it was like a switch went and he was back to himself. I was so worried about him but he seems to have gotten over it ok 💜
