"You're getting veeeery sleepy..."

Hard days night

Time to relax.

They had their first taste of a "rat playground."

Rat Cam

If you were a rat taking a stroll, this might be what it would be like...visually-speaking, that is.

Rat Film

Sounds fun!

Flushed Away
Starring (Vocal):
Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Ian McKellen, Andy Serkis, Bill Nighy, Simon Callow, Geoffrey Palmer, Shane Richie
Distributed by: DreamWorks

Synopsis:
From the creators of "Chicken Run" and "The Wallace and Gromit Movie" comes this claymation feature which tells the story of an uptown rat who is flushed down the toilet from his penthouse apartment into the sewers of London, where he has to learn a whole new way of life. McKellen voices the story's antagonist, a villainous frog, while Serkis plays his hench-rat, Spike. Jackman will play Roddy, the pampered rat.

Rat-tastic

The rats are moving on up in their new cage.

Faces of Pudding

Pudding can be very hard to convince when it comes to posing for photographs.

Little Brown Mouse

Again, I woke up hearing the sound of distant rolling thunder.

After a period of illness caused by what could have been a stroke or inner ear infection it appeared Little Brown Mouse was making a come back. She was becoming her old manic, frisky self. She was even making rounds of the cages, looking for her old sleeping nests and pestering the other mice.

I found her this morning. She looked as if she had passed in her sleep. Her little body was beginning to stiffen and I could see that she had been in a sleeping-crouch pose when she died. Momma Mouse Pudding, the mother of Little Brown Mouse and the oldest of all the mice, was fussing around her, almost looking is if she had been attending to her on Little Brown Mouse's last moments.

I took Little Brown Mouse to the place where her father Mabel, sister Lena and Auntie Belle were buried. As I placed the last bit of earth on top of her final nest a soft rain began to fall.

Mouse Humour

Homeless Together

You do get used to the rats.

One thing they always tell you when you're sleeping out is make sure you wash your hands and face. And this one particular night I didn't and I also had a sandwich in my pocket, a peanut-butter sandwich, and I really love peanut butter and as I was sleeping I felt a little something moving and it was sorta like somebody going for my pocket. Somebody trying to rip me off or something. I reach in the pocket real quick and hello there! I find myself holding a rat, face-to-face. What are you doing here? And he's like looking at me you know and I'm like, Oh you're hungry, too, and I gave him the sandwich. A couple nights later same thing, although a different rat. I felt him on me and I was like, Oh he's trying to get warm. Just like a dog, the rat wants to cuddle up to you. And in the summertime, you can count on keeping fresh rat bites on your hands. They don't mean any harm, they're just looking for food. Everybody thinks they carry rabies, and that's the biggest farce going. All right, they do carry some disease, that's true, but how many people actually die of rat bites? Check with the board of health and you'll see none. How many people got sick from the rat bite? Perhaps a few.

They don't bother me.

I am homeless, and this is my story, and rats, for instance, are simply a fact of my life...

From The Story of Cadillac Man and the Land of the Lost Souls, Esquire magazine, May 2005.

Closeups

Pudding being Pudding. She is the oldest mouse and the mother of all the remaining mice.




Dixie Mouse. The friendlier of the twins Pixie& Dixie.


Little Brown Mouse, having another bad day.

Sleeping beauty

Beatrice sleeping and wishing to not be disturbed.

Beatrice being disturbed, but not really minding it.

Cute

Regina working very hard at being cute. I'm still working in getting a decent picture of her sister.

The Great Hamster Escape

This is going to be one hell of a jump. It could be the last jump my little hammy body ever takes. Is it worth it?

*thud* OW!

Oz Mice "Hang 20" Down Under

Although I was concerned a bit at first (as was the RSPCA...), after watching this video of the man who owns and trains the surfing mice, I can see he cares for them.

Regina says "relax."

Regina says "relax." Regina spending some time in the hammock.

Dogster? Catster?

There are websites now dedicated to the love of dogs and cats. I say, where are sites for mice and rats?! If I wasn't so darned busy already, I'd start one...

Ralph, the cloned Rat

Cloned sheep, cat, and dog...but has anyone heard of the cloned RAT? Of course not...

But I present to you...RALPH!!

Isn't he a sweetie?

Mabel will always be a winner in our hearts & memories... 

Landslide

A fitting tribute to the one and only Mabel... *


* Out of 388 Total votes, Mabel had 171, or 40% of the vote...

"Let me outta here...!"

Now this character (!), Regina, is a bit more of a challenge. She is not convinced she wants to be handled by people. She can't get away fast enough, and if you try to hold her the base of her tail to encourage her to give you half a chance, she'll nip at you. After several scratches, she got her way and was back in her hammock lounging. I am not giving up, though. She has her reasons, I'm sure... 

Presenting...

Beatrice, our first rat, is one of two sisters we adopted over the weekend. She's intelligent, playful, and very, very endearing. The moment I saw her at the petstore, I knew she was a special little person...