Older female rat needs retirement home

[Melissa_K]

A customer of mine came into the store with her older fawn female rat. Very sweet. She's previously housed it with a prairie dog (yes I know) who just passed away. The rat has started developing tumors, the customer does NOT want to keep her and cannot/will not pay for a vet exam/euthansia. I couldn't find any rat rescues in the area.
I can't take her in. She doesn't seem to be in pain, she's alert, cleans herself, is old though. Any suggestions for her or would anyone be willing to be a retirement home for a tumorous old rat?

[cecilia]

..... Any suggestions for her or would anyone be willing to be a retirement home for a tumorous old rat?

I had a female pet rat years ago that developed tumors. She died soon after that. I doubt that this little girl is going to last very long.
I was going to go into a harangue about irresponsible pet owners who put off unpleasant inevitabilities to someone else, but I'll spare you.

I'm adding this because my post wasn't very helpful. (I'm just irritated with your customer.) If you decide to euthanize and don't want to do it, there's at least 1 club member who can do it for free with his co2 compressor. If you don't come to meetings, (I know it's far for you) maybe someone who's coming to the next meeting and lives in your area can pick up the rat from you.

[Melissa_K]

Thanks for your post Cecilia, believe me if it would have been possible I would have had words for her, one of my biggest pet peeves is passing on an animal to die with someone else. She is a really sweet rat, it's a pity. I'm suppose to call this woman by 5 this afternoon with what I've found, I honestly don't know if she'd hold onto her for any length of time and I have no additional caging she could stay over in, she was kept in a 65 gal (yes with the prairie dog *sigh*) and I have NO room for that, moving boxes all over the place. She even contemplated dropping her off at the humane society but I doubt they'd take her with the tumor. I used to have a C02 chamber set up but dismantled it ages ago and plus have no C02.
This is one of the things I hate when people at work find out I have exotic animals, they assume I can do amazing things and fix things they don't want to deal with.
Thanks Cecilia. :)

[Izzy]

Melissa,

Sorry to hear about your customer (But Congrats on the baby and being able to go home WITH your husband!, how exciting for you!)

You could do a camping cooler/Dry Ice chamber since you de-commissioned yours a while ago, I'm sure you know how it works. Frustrating that the customer doesn't want to take responsibility for her own pets tho.