Kitties and rats have I! (with pictures)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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So, I’ve been in St. Louis for about 3 weeks now, and my fiance and I have acquired several pets (mostly my doing). While searching for the rats we’d agreed to get, I dragged him into the pet adoption center at PetSmart (local shelters bring animals in, and you can adopt on the weekends). Anyhow, I somehow convinced him to put in applications for two adult kitties, Mimi and Merlin.

Ed, the lovely man from Pet Connections, called us a few days later and says we can have Mimi, but that Merlin already had a pending adoption and was being given to the first person. However, due to a glut of kittens they’ve been receiving, they have an overload of adult cats and will have some when we go get Mimi.

We go to get Mimi, and while there they show us Seth, this gorgeous orange long-haired tabby who is unfortunately diabetic. We were worried about the cost and care of him, but he kept looking at me with these enormous green eyes and purring, so we took him. Here is Seth. There are a few more of him here, as well.
Here is Mimi. She is less photogenic than Seth, but she is actually very tiny and is ALL fur. She only weighed 7 pounds when we got her, but she’s gaining a little, though she is still bony. They are both about a year old, so she will probably always be tiny. We think Mimi is part siamese. Though it doesn’t necessarily show in the picture, she has a very pointy siamese face, and talks ALL THE TIME, which I understand is a Siamese trait. Also, though that picture says she is calm, that’s a total lie. She’s a complete spaz, that was from the first or second day we had them, so she was calm them. She also a total lap cat, she loves being in people’s laps more than any other cat I’ve seen. Seth is less so, but he likes to sit near us and purrs very loudly all the time. Also, since he’s on an eating schedule he’s completely obsessed with food and thus loves the kitchen, because that’s where the food is.

Onto the rats - Emory and Oglethorpe. They are hard to photograph because they move around a lot, but they’re great little ratties. They’re both dumbo poodle rats, which means they have big round ears and curly fur. They aren’t very curly like some poodle rats I’ve seen, but the fur on their backs and butts is very furry.

Just thought I’d share some animals pics of the new family!

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<Seth and Mimi, thinking> Ohh, look, mommy and daddy bought us dinner, too!

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Wow, thanks for the cute photos! I miss my ratties. We had both rats and cats sharing a household for several years. The rats were quite oblivious of the fact that the cats were staring at them through the glass (and sometimes sitting on the wire mesh lid of the cage). From the cats’ standpoint, watching the rats was better than television.

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Hehe, fortunately for us, Seth is not interested in the rats at all, and they could kick Mimi’s ass if ever given the chance - they’re quite large and she’s quite small, and she was also declawed before we got her. She’s really like having a large kitten - even if she attacks, there’s really no danger of actual injury. The rats, on the other hand, just want to make friends with her. They show no fear, and stick their faces out of the cage to say hi - she runs away when they do that :smiley:

Mimi - a sweet kitty, but not at all smart. She’s also clumsy and falls a lot - she is front declawed, and was brought to the shelter that way, and we dont’ think she can use her back claws. I’ve never seen her use them even to hold on for balance, though she does have them.

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Such sweetiekins! That Seth is a beautiful boy (and if you don’t already know about them, there are a lot of resources for caring for diabetic cats online). Mimi doesn’t look like much in the first picture, but the one where she’s standing at the rat cage is just adorable. You can look at her and tell she’s got some personality.

And sweet little snuggle rats! They are just precious! One of my pals used to have a rat named Oliver. Her boyfriend at the time called him “Smoliver” because, as he said, “He’s small and he’s Oliver.”
Well, I thought it was cute.

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If your fiance has never owned rats before, I have a warning for him. No matter how cute and friendly your rats are, do not let them explore under the covers of your bed while your fiance is lying in the bed wearing loose fitting boxer shorts. The rats may get unexpectedly hungry and decide the nearest grapes are worth a nibble. I have anecdotal evidence proving that this happens.

Sadly, I could not find a way to turn it into a patentable alarm clock. But it does make one jump out of bed in a hurry.

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Yeah, Mimi’s a cutie but she’s hard to photograph, partly because of her coloring and partly because of the fact that she doesn’t sit still unless she’s sleeping. Part of her personality involves being a total attention whore - I’ve deduced that the name “Mimi” is actually a pun on her constant “me, me!” attitude. She also likes to leap on my head in the wee hours of the morning, and attack our feet under the blankets. The first night we had her she decided it would be a good idea to do laps underneath the bedcovers between my fiance and I, her giant feathery tail flying by our faces. She thinks she’s a fierce predator, but you can pick her up with one hand, and she just looks at you and meows this pathetic little meow.

I have no idea where the name Seth came from, but my fiance wanted to keep the name, and since I was the one who really wanted the cat, I let him have his way :slight_smile: His diabetes is under good control now, but when the shelter got him nobody had any idea what was wrong with him. Poor guy was so matted they had to shave him, and he lived at the vet for a month or two before he was fostered. He gets .4 cc’s of insulin every day, and he’s very good about his shots. He growled the first couple of times I did it (and I felt really bad!), but now he just continues whatever he’s doing and pays the crazy lady with the needle no mind.

I actually don’t have any online resources for diabetic cats, any links? I’ll have to google when I get a chance, as well.

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Seth looks (and sounds) an awful lot like he is at least partly Maine Coon. They are known for hanging around right next to you but not necessarily on you, for wanting to be in on all the action and ESPECIALLY for purring like motorboats. Does Seth make chirping noises? One of my Maine Coon’s many nicknames is “Chirper” because he sounds more like a bird than a cat half the time.

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He does have a bit of the Maine Coon face - he’s big, too, probably bigger than he looks in the pictures since there isn’t a lot for size comparison. I don’t know how much he ways, but he was certainly the biggest cat at the shelter. He’s not quite a year old, so he may or may not get bigger. I’d like him to get bigger, just so that we have a huge cat and a tiny cat. He’s not as big as my sister’s cats, which are also part MC, but maybe in a few months! His meows are LOUD, and sounds more like “MEH!” than real cat-like meows. I haven’t heard any chirping that I recall - Mimi chirps a bit, but I think that’s because she’s just tiny, because I can’t imagine she has any MC in her.

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Ohh, pretty kitties! And your ratfaces are so sweet! Love the names too.
I have to show you my little ones too: Emma, and from L to R, Lola, Bettina, and most of Cookie. :slight_smile:

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Awwwww !! Cute Ratties and Kitties !! I would really like to get a couple rats, they are one of the few small animals I have never had .

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Wow, that’s weird. My little Mia is a lot like that, but she’s tiny (about 6lbs.). Her brothers and uncles are HUGE boys though. Big balls of long fur and very friendly. Mimi (see - mine too!) is very, very talkative and a little motor boat, but she doesn’t like to be held or lay on you. She’ll be as close as possible and she’ll even lay under the covers at night, but she’s right there purring away . . . next to you. I was most amazed at her “chirping”; when she gets happy (a.k.a. staring out the window at the birds) I swear I have a robin in the house and not a cat.

Anyways, your new kitties are lovely and the rats are adorable! Plus I love that apartment, it’s beautiful.

Here is my little Mia (Mimi) about 15 minutes ago.

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You wouldn’t regret it - they are very affectionate, entertaining and smart pets. They can be trained (you can even get a book on tricks you can teach them). My ratfaces have kicked litter on the floor, chewed a poster to bits, and carved notches in the collars of most of my shirts, but I wouldn’t trade them for anything. :slight_smile:

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Awww. They’re all so kyoote. Seth is absolutely gorgeous, and your ratties are so adorable! I wish I could get good pictures of my ratsy girls (here’s some crappy ones: Templeton and Bob - and yes they’re both girls I just really wanted to name them Templeton and Bob), and I wish my father would let me get a new cat. The last 10 months are the first time in my life I haven’t had a cat. ::sigh:: I’ll just have to drool over everyone else’s pretty kitties.

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Aww, cute ratties! Yours are great too, Amazon Floozy Goddess (I knew you had rats, I figured you’d show up here sooner or later!)

These guys are actually both my first rats and first cats, so I’m learning. Figures, my first cat is diabetic so there’s extra care. He’s actually easier to care for than Mimi, simply due to the fact that he’s calmer and apparently smarter. Also, he doesn’t leap on my head. He doesn’t need to, he’s big enough just to walk on me to wake me up, no leaping necessary. :smiley:

If any of you are wondering why one of his pictures is labeled “Starvin Marvin”, it’s because of his constant interest in food. He loves to just be near food, and he’s gotten so excited about eating that he’s fallen off of the kitchen counter twice (we feed him up there so Mimi doesn’t get jealous or try to take his food - it’s all he gets, so we want to make sure he isn’t bothered when eating).

My fiance also calls him “Stinky Pete” b/c his poop is very, very smelly due to eating only wet food. Also, he’s huge, so there’s a lot of it. Mimi is known as “kitten”, “princess” and “spaz”. The rats are “gentlemen”, “ratties”, “the boys”, “ratty rat rat rats” and anything else that seems appropriate at the moment.

<<Yes, I talk about my pets a lot - be prepared for when we have children!>>

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I agree with the assesment of rats as pets - they beat the heck out of other small pets. Ours would even come when we called (not by name but by us imitating rat noises.)

However, since they are better pets, you may get more attached to them. And they only live 2 or 3 years. Many rats are prone to cancer. It’s hard to explain to the neighbors why you spent $100 on surgery for your $3 rat.

Didn’t mean to be a downer, but figured new rat owners should be prepared.

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Well that’s good that they get along. I always thought that the primary point of hiring a cat was to get rid of rats and mice. Can your rats roam about safely?

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What we call our “guest room” is really a rat-proofed room with a bed in it, so when I let them roam free that’s where we go. I’m pretty sure they’d be safe roaming anywhere, but I’m not going to take that chance. They might kill Mimi! :smiley:

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Cute Medical Story About a Rat:

I took one of my cats in for surgery a couple of months ago and when I was dropping him off, at the same time there was a guy dropping off a large white rat. Off went the rat and my cat into the netherworlds of the MSPCA surgical unit. When I went to pick up my cat that night, the rat was also being picked up - he was sitting happily in his cage with a tiny Elizabethan collar around his little neck! It was just about the cutest thing you’ve ever seen. I wish I had had my camera. :slight_smile:

Piggy: gorgeous babies! Seth is strikingly handsome.

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You could be right about Mimi being part Siamese - my husband’s cat is one quarter Siamese, and she is coloured almost exactly like Mimi, and is also very talkative and energetic. Apparently, she was a non-stop ball of energy for the first three years! Max has so much personality - she can be somewhat difficult (if not getting her own way, there can be biting!), but she makes up for it by being so much fun. She’s always up for playing - she’s great at volleyball.

Seth is just gorgeous.