A Few Cute Mousie Pics

Becky bought this cup specifically because she thought it would be cute with mice in it.

Another Sad Day

Although this one almost had a happy ending.

It started a week ago Monday when Tabby noticed that her mouse, Springald was having trouble breathing. How serious is that? A cold? Pneumonia? And what do you do for a mouse with a bad cold or something anyway?

I mentioned it to the tech that took my blood at Biolife on Tuesday morning and she just shook her head, "I've owned a bunch of rodents - mice, hamsters, even rabbits and like, half of them before they died had episodes like that."

Ugh.

So maybe the internet has advice right? And it did! Get some tetracycline from the fish department of a pet store, make an antiobiotic paste to feed your mouse and watch it recover. To Petco! But they don't sell it anymore. Apparently the product was intended to treat fish and was being used by too many people for other purposes, so the FDA started regulating it. But they guy there recommended a vet we could visit who could give us a prescription for an antibiotic.

to the Vet! We actually had a great time there. A whole bunch of people were there, mostly with dogs. All really nice (both people and dogs). One guy was there with a bird ("meanie bird" according to Tabby, since it had bitten its owner) and there was a girl there with a ferret. Tabby loved the ferret and spent most of her time in line bonding with its owner. The vet, Dr. Wolf, was very nice, very good with Tabby and had good news. She had an antibiotic, give it to Springald twice a day for two weeks and she should be fine.

"Any hints for how to medicate a mouse?" I asked.

"You don't need any. Mice love this stuff."

Ha! Springald definitely did not love the stuff. She fought us feeding it to her every time. Mostly we just smeared it on her whiskers and fur and she got it by grooming. Then after 3 or 4 days, she started to get better. Her breathing returned to normal and she looked much more comfortable. You know how antibiotic regmines are, though, we continued to administer the medicine twice a day.

Then last night as she struggled against getting it, she twisted her left front leg. When I let her down, she couldn't support herself on it. She didn't squeak like she was in pain or anything, she just couldn't use it and she totally freaked out. Like trying to run, jumping to get away from us, flopping around, obviously in a complete panic until she suddenly just stopped moving and died. My guess is something like a panic induced heart attack.

Man, when we agreed to let Tabby get mice, it didn't even occur to us how fragile an animal they are. I mean, obviously, we knew we'd be dealing with the "death of a pet" issue eventually ... but not so soon! Or frequently.

We went to Petco and got yet another mouse. A black one this time that Tabby has named Mini Shadow. She is sooo tiny. Cornflower seemed somewhat distraught that Springald never returned to the mouse cage, running around frantically looking for something or someone. Eventually she and Shadow curled up together, groomed a bit and went to sleep, though.

Tonight we'll have another mousey funeral and bury Springald next to the first Cornflower under the apple tree.

Rough Week

This week was a rough one for poor Tabby.  Though it started well enough.  Saturday morning was the Magic: the Gathering prerelease events for the new Kaladesh set of cards.  I went to an early morning event and did horribly in my matches.  1-1-2, and I was lucky to eek out the two ties.  But you know, there are worse ways to spend a morning than playing a fun game with good friends, even if you do poorly in the game.


What I was really excited about though is the Two Headed Giant event.  Two players put together decks and play as a team against other 2HG teams.  They do the event every prerlease and I'd like to take Tabby, but they don't start until 6 PM, which means not finishing until nearly 11 PM.  Kinda' late for a nine year old.  This time, however, they had a 2HG event Saturday afternoon at 2 PM.  Perfect! 


And Tabby & I kicked butt. I put together two decks for us that were okay individually; good, synergystic cards.  The real strength was how they complemented each other, though.  I mostly had spells that killed our opponents' creatures and Tabby mostly had creatures with a real high power to cost efficiency.  So I killed blockers while Tabby threw out attacker after attacker after attacker and steamrolled our opponents.  We went 3-1.  Two of the games ending just ridiculously quickly.  And the one game we lost was very close.  Like, we could have won if I'd drawn just one of my 8 swamps.  And even that round, we won a door prize.  Literally, we won something every round.  It was a lot of fun.


One hint of problem though.  As Tabby & were chatting between rounds about her mice, she mentioned that poor Cornflower had an injured paw.  Like, having trouble walking.  So she had carefully put her in a soft kleenex bed.  In a kleenex box on her dresser.


Me: "Did you remember to put her back in the cage before we left?"
Tabby: "Yeah, I think so."
Phone call.
Becky: "Jack, there's a problem, Tabby left her mouse cage door open and I don't see the mice anywhere."
Me: "Hm.  Maybe check the kleenex box on her dresser?"
Becky: "What?  Why? Seriously?"
pause
Becky; "Sure enough.  They're back in the cage."


So we got home flying high after the tournament, check on the mice and found a terrible shock.  Cornflower didn't have an injured paw, she'd actually broken her back.  She couldn't move her back legs or tail at all.  She could just scoot around by pulling with her front paws. It was so sad.  Tabby cried and held Cornflower as much as she could all night.


We figured out that Cornflower actually got around okay.  She could reach her food and water and crawl all over the cage.  She could even climb the tubes in the cage.  Getting up the tall tube took a couple tries, but she managed it.


Tabby had planned on making a YouTube video.  She's been doing research about getting a rat as a pet, which involved watching videos, and she found a wonderful content maker called the Rat Guru who has inspired Tabby to create some of her own.  After finding Cornflower with a broken back, though, she changed her plans to make a video tribute to how strong Cornflower was.  It's a short, sweet video taken with a bad camera ... but it's pretty good for a nine year old's first ever video content.


Monday I kind of got the day off work.  The intranet connection between Green Bay and Indianapolis was broken.  All my work is on the Indianapolis server. All of it.  So I went home and did yard work.


When Tabby got home from school she got Cornflower out of her cage and sat down to pet & cuddle her while watching YouTube videos.  I walked downstairs about an hour later or so to see how it was going and found Tabby in tears, "Cornflower passed away, Dad.  She just fell asleep and now she's dead."  Oh man, it was so sad.  I held Tabby while she cried and cried and cried.  I felt awful.  Even Becky, who never really liked the mice, felt awful.  "Gah, why do I feel so sad about a stupid mouse?"  But she did.


So we had a nice mouse funeral Monday evening and buried Cornflower under the apple tree out back.  We also ran to the PetSmart and bought another mouse so that Springald wouldn't be alone.  Another albino, Cornflower 2.


Tuesday morning also started out fun: Daddy/daughter breakfast at Tabby's school!  We were excited about it all morning, had fun with the short clue hunt around the school before we got our food.  Sat down to eat and Tabby said, "I don't feel well."  When it turned out she couldn't even take more than a sip of her juice, I decided I'd take her home.  On the way to retrieve her stuff from her locker she just exploded.  Projectile vomit across the floor.  At least she aimed down and managed to hit a spot where no one was walking next to us.


Poor Tabby.  She gets that way sometimes and we're not sure why.  Stress maybe?  She'll get sick, throw up all morning, take a nap and wake up fine.  By lunchtime she was all better.  could probably even have gone back to school, but we don't quite feel comfortable with, "Our daughter is better now, we're letting her go back to school."


"You mean the girl that threw up all over our floor about three hours ago?"


Hm.  So she got the whole day off.


This weekend we're going to Chicago.  And Ben is taking some SAT specialized subject tests.  Should be exciting.  Hopefully it turns out to be all good instead of the ups and downs of the past week.