I no longer update here. Please follow me on DeviantArt:

https://www.deviantart.com/ratshadows/gallery/all

I barely post here any more. My main gallery is now here:

https://www.deviantart.com/ratshado.....ery/?catpath=/

He'll be 2 on January 1st!

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?.....34466175473818

Need money, to be frank, so am open for commissions.
Can do single character, plain or no background, usual style, shaded, for £15.

Anything more involved, which Im also up for, PM me and we'll talk. Hath been a hefty vet bill month!

This is fucked up.

I post a photo of some rat babies that Im raising, for a breeder friend of mine, because I find baby rats fascinating and know not everyone gets to see them so young, and I log off.
I come back to find drama in my absence caused by another fucking snake owner deciding to leave totally inappropriate comments? AGAIN?
How many times does this have to happen? Why do rat owners have to put up with this shit all the time from these mentally diseased morons?

These are PET RATS.
They are bred by a friend, one of the most respected breeders in the UK, for pets/show. Im looking after them until they are old enough to go back to my friend, where they'll be homed into loving families.

I rescue, I do not get to experience the birth, growth and 'childhood' of rats. I get rats in at old age, or teenage stage. I don't get the joy of seeing them from day one, seeing how mum takes care of them, seeing how they grow, watching how they develop, I miss all that. As a rat person, I want to experience that, I want to observe it and learn more about rats from it. I also just wanna play with some ridiculously cute babies.
So my friend kindly offered to let me foster her girl and let her birth her babies here, so I could socialise and raise them.

This is exciting, for me.
So I come to post a pic, because other people might also find it exciting or just wanna see what newborn rats look like, and oh what a fucking surprise, I come back to a snake owner leaving a dickhead comment.

You know the worst thing? When I put the picture up, I even had a thought in the back of my mind of 'I hope snake owners don't ruin this post', but assured myself that as there was no mention of anything to do with snakes on it, that no-one would be that socially inept.

And wowee, look what happened.


What is wrong with you people?
I don't mean ALL snake owners, I know some that would never dream of doing that. I mean the kind that seem compelled to leave stupid comments on my pictures. Did your mothers drop you on your heads when you were babies?
Do I go on pictures of people's cats or rabbits or small dogs and go 'wow, my doberman would love to rip him to bits! LOL!'

You're fucking idiots, and you deserve to have the shit beaten out of you.
I know furries aren't the most socially capable beings on earth anyway, but what the fuck?

And wow, you hid the comment, thanks a bunch. Now I have the comment string fucked up with stupid 'hidden' messages just because you wanted to be a prick.

ENOUGH. THIS IS TO EVERYONE.

STOP FUCKING TALKING ABOUT SNAKES ON PICTURES I POST OF RATS.
If I want to talk about snakes, I'll mention snakes in the description.

OTHERWISE....
THESE ARE MY PETS, THEY'RE MY FAMILY, HAVE SOME FUCKING RESPECT OR JUST THROW YOURSELF OVER A CLIFF, PLEASE, STUPID CUNTS.

Here are some recent pics I don't think I've put up for y'all!

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/.....p;l=a7d2563972


https://www.facebook.com/media/set/.....p;l=72454af7b8

Mr Flibble did not come back from his hernia operation today. He had to be euthanized while under anaesthetic.

The vet was pretty annoying, actually, and kept trying to tell me the lump was an abscess and unlikely to be a hernia. He just didn't seem to actually respect my opinion, or the 16 years of rat keeping I've had whereupon I've seen too many abscesses to count, and know generally when something is not right with one of my rats.

He kept telling me hernias are rare in rats. How come I've seen at least 3 in the last 5 years, then? Maybe HE hasn't seen any before, but then, as I said, I've had 16 years of living with multiple rats all day, every day. I've owned over 250 of them to date, and each one has shown me some kind of medical issue. Im not a vet, but I know rats, and I know what Im looking at, and, most importantly, I know how to tell an abscess from something more serious.
Vets get a tiny amount of training on small furries, and that which they do get lumps all small furries in together as one. So their rat knowledge is really not going to be great, unless they have a personal interest in rats and have taken it upon themselves to better their knowledge.

So he went on about how he wanted to put a needle in it to check for pus. I was pretty pissed off at this point. This was NOT a cheap operation, nor was it something I could easily afford. I had to really scrimp and go short to afford this, and he was trying to bump more cash onto it by doing pointless things such as that.
The bottom line was, there was a lump the size of a small walnut on my rat's stomach, over his bellybutton, matching exactly umbilical hernias I've seen on other rats. It could only be one of four things: a hernia, an abscess, a tumour or a cyst.
Regardless of which one it was, ALL would need surgical intervention, so why mess about with needles and such when whatever the outcome, the rat has to be opened up?

I told him I really wasn't happy with the abscess diagnoses, as it just didn't fit ANY of the typical behaviours of an abscess. It came up the second Mr Flibble was bitten by his brother, something an abscess does not do: they take hours or even days to build up, and they usually come to a head or become obvious as abscesses after a few days.
But I had no choice but to leave Flibble with them, as he needed surgery, and if the only way I could convince the vet to do it was to go along with his stupid needle tests, then I had to do it.

He rang me about an hour later to say he had been unable to find any pus in the needle aspirate so it was looking less like an abscess after all................which is what I said all along.
They got him on the table and opened him up, and found he did, indeed, have a hernia which had infection in it, and parts of it were necrotic, so basically, there was no option with surgery. Nothing could be done.
I opted for him to just not be woken up.

This was just.......a horrible day. So stressful, having a vet who doesn't respect or listen to your view, who you get the distinct impression would take the whole thing more seriously if it were someone's beloved dog or cat.
And so I have a horrendous vet bill to pay, and not even the joy of knowing I have a healthy, happy rat at the end of it.

Fuck it.

Mr flibble will be getting his hernia repair operation tomorrow morning.

I will live on beans and noodles for a while, but meh, its worth it.

Mr Flibble has a hernia, a fairly large one, which is probably going to need surgical repair, though it currently isn't bothering him at all.
Vet quoted me £170 (about $257) so.....well............... thats just great :( So may not be about for a while while I try and sort this shit all out.

Im serious, anything, no matter how random, stupid, serious or goofy. I'll do my best to answer.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/.....p;l=8acf0f21fe

He's old, really old.
He has lice, his back legs have gone, and he appears on first impressions to be a barberer.

In honesty, I don't think he has long to go :( But he's very, very affectionate and licky.

VIDEO:
This was literally seconds after I got him in the car and had a hello with him. Totally trusting, straight into licking.

https://www.facebook.com/video/vide.....51528392483064

I AM THE LAW, AND THE LAW IS NOT MOCKED!


Yeah.
So, off to pick up a rescue rat. Lets see what this one brings.
Hopeful for this boy, doesn't sound bad.

First vid I've taken of him:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVoO.....ature=youtu.be

Thats him pretty much 24/7....

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/.....p;l=b094908ae3

Dresden's first real snow! My mum and I took him to the little park.

Yes....he's big now! But still not huge for a dobe.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/.....p;l=7376f3bf25

This is my newest boy, totally unexpected.
I got a phone call Tuesday morning (it woke me up!) from a branch of the YMCA who needed my help.
A rat had been found outside on the street, peering in through their glass doors!
They managed to catch him up, said they knew he was domestic because he was white. He apparently promptly took a chunk out of two of the workers.

I got dressed, and literally left that minute.
When I got there, I found a very dirty, thin, scared boy in a cardboard box.
I went to gather him up, and he showed me the body language that suggested he wasn't above biting me. Im confident with rats, but Im not stupid. Im not getting bitten if I can help it, and he would have done, quite readily.
In the end, I tipped him into the carry cage. The second he got in, he grabbed the food that was in there and began to eat. Most nervous rats won't eat, but he was so hungry he just ate......and ate....for two solid hours. He didn't stop.
And when he was offered water, he drank for 5 whole minutes, before leaving, then heading back for another epic drink.
None of this is normal. This boy was starving, and hadn't had a drink in at least 24 hours, probably longer.
He was eating so fast that he choked himself on 3 occasions.
He is dirty, his claws are worn to stumps, and he has a wound on his tail.

I've named him Cowboy. Since he's been here, his eating and drinking has returned to normal, and I have managed to pick him up.
But he is still keen to bite if you get too close too fast. Its pure fear, no actual 'aggression'. This kind of biting only occurs in rats that have a reason to be on the defensive.

If he's been living wild for a while, and it has been more than a few days as rats don't get this thin and dirty and dehydrated in 24 hours, then its likely he's had to learn to bite first and ask questions later.

Just another plea to people, anyone, PLEASE don't release a domestic rat into the wild, ever.
They don't survive.
This boy was just lucky he had the sense to go to the homeless shelter and peer in. And lucky they had the good heart to box him up for me. And lucky he was born white, because the man said had he been brown, he would have 'disposed of him'.
It is absolutely freezing tonight, this boy wouldn't have lasted had we not got him in time. This was a big city, and the building he was found outside is right on a busy road.

These rats are domesticated, they have lost a lot of their survival skills. I've had a handful of these 'found wild' rats come in over the years, and none have fared well. This boy has been the worst so far, but all have been thin and very dehydrated.

Just.....look at him. And PLEASE....if you don't want your rat, take it to a rescue, don't just release it. It will die.

Cowboy is extremely lucky.

After losing our two cats to antifreeze poisoning a few weeks back, I had to make the difficult decision to keep any future cats as indoor only, at least for the forseeable future. That was hard for me, as I generally have always been in favour of cats being allowed out, and its how I've always done it. I've had cats 23 years, and never an indoor only one.

Then, as chance would have it, someone I knew from a dog forum asked me if I would like to adopt a cat she was fostering. The cats owner was an elderly lady who had had to go into care.
The fosterer told me that cat was good with other cats and (more importantly) was ok with dogs, and had always been an indoor only cat. I wouldn't feel so guilty about keeping a cat in when they've never known any different. The fosterer was having trouble finding somewhere for the cat to go, as indoor only homes are half as common here, and was thinking she'd have to go to a rescue centre, so we said we'd take her.

She's 4, and is an exotic shorthair, aka, the lazy man's persian.
They are basically persians, but short haired. Bred for those who like the temperament of the persian, but not the grooming.
I want to make it very clear that this is NOT a breed I would have chosen. Flat faced animals bother me, and I think its disgusting that people are allowed to still breed cats and dogs with such extreme deformities.
But she needed a home, and we needed a cat, and she matched us perfectly.

She's is certainly not going to win any beauty contests, and she snuffles and snorts for england, but she has the most wonderful temperament, extremely laid back, affectionate and loving.

I've named her Myrtle:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/.....p;l=73c6f09939

My cats, Magic and Betelgeuse, were both poisoned with antifreeze over the last 24 hours. Neither survived. Signs point to it being deliberate.

I may be absent for a few days.

To those who saw this pic and commented on how lovely the black and white boy is (Captain Metropolis).

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/9319289/

Well.....

the fade has begun!
This is him today:
http://www.shadowrat.com/rats/capmetfa.jpg

When he's finished his fade, I'll be posting a video of all the daily pics I've taken of him to show it happening.

totally and utterly this week :( It hasn't been this bad financially for years. I've had to literally use a recent donation to buy rat food, and don't know what I'd have done without that donation. Thats how bad it is.
I have one commission to finish, which Im hoping to do this week, but I don't even know if I can open for more because Im taking far too long getting these done, I have so little time :(

The rats will be fine. They will eat before I will, and will not go without.
This is mostly down to a bank error who told me I had more in my account that I did, and caused me to go overdrawn and thusly get charged. To ask them about it, they worm their way out of it, as they have in the past when this happened.
Im hoping pay day will help me get out of this a little bit, but things are shit right now.

If I can, I will try to open for some quick commissions. I don't have time any more to do huge ones that take many hours, but can grab 2 or 3 hours here and there to do mini ones.
Any ideas for quick commission ideas I can open for that won't take hours, but will be nice, and people will want?

I'll do a proper big update soon, but just for now, I thought people would like to see my whore of a dog with my husband (oh yes, I've got to get used to that!):

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/.....p;l=449d7bc684

Apologies for not being very active of late.
I am getting married on November the 1st, so had a lot of stuff to do. In between that, I had awful tonsillitis, which Im only just getting over properly. Add to that a puppy that has reached adolescence and is trying me at every possible opportunity, and it hasn't left much chance for art.
And this bothers me a lot.

Im hoping things will settle down soon as most wedding stuff is sorted now, and Im feeling much better.

In the mean time, here are my hen night photos:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/.....p;l=baff59f91c

And some photos of the beast:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/.....p;l=dbf98341cb

Work has cut my shifts down lately by one shift a week, which is making life a bit hard :/ Hopefully its only temporary for the summer season, but I can get by on the shifts I used to have, but cutting one out has made things a bit harder. And we've had a good handful of vet bills lately.

So, against my better judgement, and something I never normally do, Im asking if anyone either wants to donate to the sanctuary, or I could do cheapy little £10 head shot commissions or something. Whichever way, I need to bring in some funds one way or the other!

Thanks all

ratgirl666[at]hotmail.com