Yesterday we lost our sweet rat, Ruby. I'm not sure what happened to her. She had always been smaller than her sister, Mina, but I just thought she was naturally a small girl. She seemed fine and was playing on Saturday. Sunday morning Isaac mentioned to me that she didn't come out of her hammock when he went to say hi to them but I didn't think much of it.
A few hours later, he ran upstairs sobbing, and told me that Ruby died. I went to see what was going on and Russ was holding her. She was still with us, but barely. She wasn't moving, blinking and you could barely tell she was breathing. We held her, loved her and kept her warm for about an hour and a half and then she passed away in Russ's hands.
Isaac took it very hard. He cried and cried, locked himself in the bathroom for awhile and said he never wanted another pet again, it was just too hard to lose them. We eventually convinced him to come out and he went and sat with Ruby until she died. After we all said our goodbyes and let Mina see her and say goodbye, we made up a box for her. We lined it with layers of fleece, put in some eggs noodles which were a favorite treat, a toilet paper roll that she loved to chew and we covered her with another fleece blanket and an old sock-another favorite bedding of hers. We picked a special spot in our yard to bury her and will plant flowers there this spring.
Ruby will be greatly missed. She was such a sweet, fun, outgoing and feisty little rat and we loved her to bits. Goodbye sweet Rubester.
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