RIP my sweet cookie bear!

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Dena

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 12, 2018
Messages
377
Location
Texas
My sweet oldest boy cookie died today. I'm not home, so I don't know how or when. More details when we get home tomorrow. He's free with pepper now. Have fun my sweet boys! I love y'all so so much!!
 
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I am out of town, and don't know what he could have died from. He had clear lungs, and never showed signs of illness except for losing a little bit of weight, and a couple of weeks ago, he was obviously in pain from something, so I gave him the lowest dose of metacam for two days. He never showed signs of ANYTHING. I was just going off his facial and body cues for pain. But two days later, he perked right up like normal, and has been normal ever since. He would have been two in August, so he was still pretty young....
 
Thanks guys! So I just got home and asked my daughter a little bit about how they found cookie. She said she saw him a little earlier, and he seemed fine, and when they found him, he was laying on the bottom of the cage, stretched out, with his front feet stretched a little in front of him like he was just relaxing. She said he looked like he was just laying there sleeping. Any ideas on what could have killed him? He wasn't overweight, and didn't have any lumps, or hard spots. He seemed to be using his front legs just fine, and didn't have a head tilt. I'm gonna watch the surveillance, and see if I see anything out of the ordinary, but everything that I know of was the same as usual. This will bug me until I find out....
 
From the sounds of it, he could have had a massive heart attack and just died very suddenly. I don't have any explanation since he exhibited no visible symptoms and seemed to be just doing his normal things.
I don't know if any vets would do it, but you could always attempt to have a necropsy done. I don't know the pricing of that, or if there's even any vet who'll do it, but I guess it's always on the table.
I'm sorry and I hope you find out what happened. :oops:
 
I talked to a new, more experienced vet about him today, and they said while he is really young for it to happen, it sounded like a heart attack. The surveillance didn't show anything out of the ordinary, except my youngest rat, skittle, kept going towards the bottom of the cage, looking toward where cookie was found, and running back to the top. He was doing that over and over, like he was kinda freaking out. But cookie was found with his legs stretched out in front and behind him, in a corner, on the ground by his space pod. His eyes were still open, but my son said he looked like he was just laying down, relaxed. They said he could have had a congenital defect we never knew about or picked up on? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
Awww. Hearing about Skittle's reaction made it all the sadder. Hugs from me to you.

I'm wondering if the congenital defect is the best bet. Some of those things aren't even picked up on humans except by accident or if something happens. My cousin just upped and collapsed one day and after an ER trip, found out he had only three functioning chambers in his heart. Or it could have even been a genetic issue. He was just more likely to have a heart attack young.
 
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