In Memory of Ermengarde
by Ronnie Ugulano
I really didn't want a dog. Don't get me wrong. Dogs make good pets, and can be great companions to a family, especially the children. However, when I was a child, my mother had been a dog breeder, and I felt I had already done my time bathing and cleaning up after them, if you know what I mean. The trouble with my position on this, was that DS had the quintessential boy-and-dog type of personality, that made it hard for me to keep my resolve year after year. After he read Where the Red Fern Grows, I almost lost my grip, but the thought of the smell of doggie breath again permeating the house kept me going. Call me hard-hearted, but I just couldn't stand to own another dog. So, we had to look into other options.
Some friends of ours were also experimenting with family pets. Their son had a pet snake, and they decided that since they had to have a steady supply of live food for him, they would raise small rats as well. Their mated pair of rats were expecting, and hearing of my son's desire for a non-canine pet, offered him "pick of the litter". Compared with the other option of a dog, it seemed like the best choice of the two.
When the babies were old enough, we went to choose our new pocket pet. On our way over, we stopped at the pet supply store, and bought a cage, litter and rat food. We were ready. Rats notoriously have large families, so we had many to choose from, in many colors, but we decided on the almost-solid gray one, with only a slice of white stripe on her belly. We named her Ermengarde, after Sara Crewe's friend from the book The Little Princess.
I was determined to leave the care and expenses of keeping Ermengarde to my son. He had his money from the paper route, sufficient for the job, and DS took his job seriously. Although I had to remind him on occaision to change the litter, he generally did a good job caring for her needs. Before long, Ermie and DS were a team. While she actually spent much of her day in her cage, Ermengarde was out often, and could be seen "shoulder surfing" on DS's shoulder, climbing around on the chair he would sit on, and generally supervise him during schoolwork, or doing whatever activities it was safe for her to join him at. She was fond of tunneling around in his T-shirts, and so she was nicknamed "The Shirt Rat" or "The Sleeve Rat" because she especially enjoyed peeking out of the sleeves. DS was a pretty good sport about all of the minor scratches she'd give him as she did her tunneling, and generally tolerated the absolutely weird feeling of having a rat crawling next to his skin.
If rats get enough kind and gentle handling from humans, they become quite friendly. In fact, we learned that in the pet stores, rat mothers take over the care of all of both the rat and mouse babies, because they make the best mothers. Ermengarde followed this trend. Before long, my husband and I were courteously recognized by Ermengarde. DS was definitely Her Boy, and she was exceptionally partial to him, but my husband and I were accepted by her as auxiliary members of the team. She knew each of us, and knew how we fit into her life. While DS continued to handle her regular care, I played grandmother, and was known to sneak her yummy tidbits from the kitchen, so I became known as "The Food Person" to her.
Rats have a have a reputation for needing to chew to keep their teeth in trim shape, and Ermengarde proved the rumor true. DS had little chew holes in many of his T-shirts, and sadly, even in even his bedsheets, but we just tolerated the inconvenience because DS enjoyed her companionship.
Over time, it became not unusual for my husband and I to babysit during the times Ermengarde was out of her cage. Ermie became part of the family. We couldn't give her unlimited access to the house, but we certainly considered her needs as much as any pet would naturally be granted. I make a fresh vegetable juice every day, and I always reserved a teaspoon or two for her to keep her coat shiny. Sometimes she'd get a scratch or other kind of accidental skin irritation, and a few drops of wheatgrass juice applied both topically and internally would medicate the area and promote healing. Also, we took her with us on our trips to DS's grandmother's house, and even had to find a babysitter for her when we went out of town for our 3-day summer District Conventions each year.
Our first summer with her was a challenge. We knew that since we would be going out of town and staying in a motel for the Convention, we couldn't take her with us, as we would for a trip to Granny's. However, how do you find a babysitter for your pet rat? It took a little bit of gumption to bring the subject up with our prospective babysitters. We explained that we were in a spot and needed somewhere to take Ermie while we were gone. We couldn't leave her at home because our air conditioner wasn't very efficient, and so we couldn't depend on it keeping the house cool enough to protect her from the San Joaquin Valley summer heat. While she would appreciate a little company as well, all she really needed was someone to feed her and make sure she had water in her water bottle each day, and we would be grateful for even that bare minimum of care. Our friends warily agreed to babysit, but were pretty sure that providing socialization was out of the question.
When we brought her over before we left town, we showed our friends how to handle her "just in case" they absolutely needed to. But before we were gone, we knew that Ermie was literally in friendly hands. She had won them over immediately, and was temporarily adopted into the family. Each year after that, the same family eagerly looked forward to babysitting duties during the summer.
DS was about 9 or 10 when we adopted Ermengarde, and she saw him through the many ups and downs of the pre-teen years. On rough days, she'd keep him company while he mulled over monumental kid things as he lay on the bed. During happy times, she would supervise his projects and offer moral support, mostly by excitedly getting in the way.
It was hard to imagine life without her. However, we knew that the lifespan of a rat is very short. It is one of the down sides of choosing a pocket pet. We knew that she could only be expected to live a maximum of about 4 years, 5 if she lived to be absolutely ancient. DS's father and I made a point of reminding DS that our time with Ermengarde was limited. We would casually discuss who would take Ermie's place when she died. We thought about breeding her, and keeping one of her babies, but the older she got, the less we seriously considered this option, since pregnancy and nursing would take its toll on her energy reserves.
Ermengarde started showing signs of age. She was more sedate, and had a few lighter colored gray hairs cropping up in her coat. Her appetite for the vegetable juice increased to about 3 teaspoons a day, and didn't seem to do as well when she missed her daily dose. DS had to begin paying especially close attention to keeping her cage litter clean, and a weekly dose of wheatgrass juice became a good practice. One day we noticed a tumor under her "armpit". I remembered reading that rats were prone to tumors, especially as they got older. It was time to start discussing life after Ermie more earnestly. She was getting old, and we knew that she wouldn't live much longer.
By the beginning of the summer of 1999, we knew we were down to a very short time with Ermengarde. She had a second tumor on her nose, and it was starting to interfere with her breathing. She slept more, and it was beginning to get harder for her to go shoulder surfing with DS. She just had a hard time hanging on anymore. In the meantime, DS had been invited to go on a camping trip with some friends, and was torn by the desire to go and the need to stay and care for Ermengarde. We estimated that she would live for a couple of more weeks before the tumor became too uncomfortable, and he would be gone for 5 days. We had discussed the options with him, and like a man, he made the decision. He would go camping, and we would care for Ermengarde. If, in the event she became overly uncomfortable or feeble while he was gone, we were to take her to the vet's and have her put to sleep. She was not to suffer. We of course, were hoping that he would come to this conclusion and supported with his decision.
DS went with his friends as planned, and we went about our business, letting Ermengarde sleep most of the time, but took her out for an occaisonal brief visit. The next day was a Saturday, and after our regular congregation activities, we dropped by her cage to say hello. The minute we took her out, we knew that she had taken a turn for the worse. My husband and I looked at each other and knew that it was time. Although we knew that this time had been coming, neither of us were really prepared for it. We were stunned.
With a pit in our stomachs, we started looking through the phone book for a veterinary office that might willing to put a rat to sleep on a Saturday. We were pretty sure we found the right place when we saw the words "Pocket Pets" in the ad of one of them. We called to see if they were open, and make arrangements to take her in.
If you've ever had to take a pet to the vet's to put it to sleep, you'll know what a difficult trip it was for us. Ermengarde was our son's baby, and she had become ours too. We were trying to carry out our son's wishes, and what we knew had to be done, but it was not easy. Since I drove, I didn't dare start crying, but my husband was weeping as we went. I was on auto-pilot, and was glad that there were no traffic disturbances to make the job harder, but by the time I was in the vet's office, I was weeping as well, and could hardly relate the information necessary to complete the paper work. Somehow, I made it through the legal formalities, found a way to say goodbye and forced myself to leave.
That was a tough time. DS came home from his camping trip to an empty cage, and finding a successor was not easy. Several weeks later, we finally found Binky, who looked like Ermie, but wasn't anything like her. Later, we also found Sara, who is more like Ermie in personality, but looks nothing like her. They room together in a really cool 3 level cage that we got when we found Binky. Of course, it's not the same, but we've learned to love them for themselves and they do help to fill the emotional hole.
It's amazing that something so small could take up so much space in our hearts. When we got Ermie, we thought that we were teaching our son how to show loving care for an animal, and how to take responsibility for its care. I suppose we found out that the real lesson was this: It's difficult to fill the paws of a beloved pet.