Moon
Well-Known Member
Rob from Helping Homeless Pets shared this with the group... and I thought it would be fitting to have here.
**PERMISSION TO CROSSPOST **
I was rushing out of the bank a few days ago and was greeted by my friend
Helen. Helen ushered me back inside and said she had to give me something.
As she searched out her cheque book and gave us a donation to Helping
Homeless Pets, she told me the story of Ratty. I immediately asked Helen if
she would take a few minutes and send me Ratty's story.
We never know when an animal will touch our lives and bring us joy.
Christmas Eve seems like a wonderful time to share this story about a Rat
who did just that.
Rob
------
Ratty died a few weeks ago, just as the snows began to fall and a wet
autumn turned very cold. She was by then, arthritic and ill. The last
two times we saw her, Ratty was barely able to move; she hobbled and
could barely grasp the seeds the birds dropped from their feeders. We
don't know her final end, but we know now she's no longer a resident
of the garden where for five years she was a neighbour - of sorts.
We live in a 140-year old house with a back room graced by an old
shopkeeper's glass door where we watch the comings and goings in our
small English country garden populated by critters. And the occasional
human visitor.
We first spied Ratty (we never came up with a better name) in the
garden four summers ago, and it was a bit of shock. A rat. A real,
full-sized Norway rat; not a domestic runaway. There she was, thick
naked tail and all, so very socially unacceptable. She had moved right
in and dug herself a home under ours.
This wasn't a wonderful thing. What would clients and friends think?
So we bought ourselves a live trap, guaranteed to trap the wiliest of
critters. We tried baiting it with tidbits that birds and squirrels
shouldn't care for (what do rats find irresistible, bacon, cheese, who
knew?) to lure her into the live trap so that we could move her. We'd
seen the perfect dropping off spot several miles away, under a small
country bridge, by a stream, far from homes - really a lovely place.
But Ratty was too clever to be seduced by anything we put in that
contraption. She had an instinct for danger. Not so the other
critters. We caught sparrows, chippies and a grey squirrel more than
once, all quickly freed - I'd never seen a grey squirrel run so fast.
The audacity of her - just moving in as though she belonged! But
eventually she did belong. It occurred to us that Ratty thought she
was a chipmunk. She dined on peanuts and sunflower seeds almost
exclusively, and never garbage, not even the cookies the other
critters enjoyed. She was a gourmet, and a clean one at that, and she
was celibate. She was a loner, like some acolyte living her own life
away from others of her kind.
One day I caught sight of her face poking out through some foliage
looking around before she scurried off to another spot. Goodness, what
a beauty. It was an epiphany, really, to see how delicate that face
was and she was as busy as any housekeeper, doing chores. She was shy,
we'd only see her once in a while but she had her regular routes,
which you could only see in winter. Not that we stopped trying to trap
her in the first couple of years. But eventually the trap just
languished in the garden - too many distressed grey squirrels.
One day a friend came over for tea. We had just thrown out some seeds
and peanuts to the chippies - early snow but they were still about.
Look there I pointed; Ratty had made an appearance. Carrol was
shocked. Omigod, Helen! It really was that tail. In that moment, Ratty
had scooted out to get some peanuts, but the chippies were quicker and
had taken them all. Instantly Carrol opened the door a crack and threw
some peanuts towards Ratty, away from the others; "Here you are, sweetie".
Sweetie? Hoo hah! Sheepish grins all round as we recognized how quickly we
can
shift our paradigms.
And so Ratty stayed and we greeted her each time we saw her - not that
she heard us. And then this autumn we saw the sudden change; how rough
she looked. How very old and feeble. I wanted so much to make her last
days warm and easy. (Keith rightly pointed out that any interference
by us would only stress her, although we did make sure there were
plenty of her favourite seeds piled near the entrances to her burrow).
We only hope that the end was mercifully calm and swift.
