# Please help ! I stepped on my rattie Sugar and now she's acting strange :(



## haleyscomet (Dec 20, 2012)

I have the sweetest, most energetic, and brave girl rat named Sugar. I got her from Petco about 5 months ago. She's about full grown. She's healthy, with myco flare ups occasionaly, and spoiled. 

Last night, Sugar was roaming around and I accidentally stepped on her. I began to put my foot down, felt her underneath, and screamed really loud. She let out a squeak. I didn't put all of my weight down, but I'm not sure how bad I squished her. 
I checked her out and she seemed okay, she made a weird chirping/raspy sound for a minute or two, then proceeded to run around as normal. I put her in the cage about 30 minutes later, and checked on her several times, she was still acting fine.

This afternoon, my boyfriend took her out of the cage. She just sat on his shoulder, sniffing around, when usually she's extremely active, always exploring everything, and doesn't sit still for a second. We put her down on the bed and she hid under the covers. Usually she runs and climbs down the bed to explore the room. This really worried me. She has no outward signs of injury. I pressed along her body and it didn't seem like anything was broken or was hurting her. She's not making any strange noises either.

I came back home tonight, and she seemed a bit more energetic. She seems a bit mad at me, despite my showering of treats and soft apologies to her. She'll come to my boyfriend, but is ignoring me when usually I'm her favorite and she comes running when i call her name. She's running fine without any limping, but she is very jumpy and skiddish and hesitant to explore much. We had her on the bed, and she looked at the window, got extremely spooked by something, and took off with a huge leap off the bed and hid without moving until I found her. She's never hidden from me or anything since I got her. She tries to climb on our big dog and isn't even afraid of our cat, and loves every person she sees. 

Is this behavior of an injured/sick rat? Or is she holding a grudge against me from stepping on her? Why is she acting so scared?


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## RatGirl_Red (Nov 26, 2012)

Probably internal damage which you cant do much about cept have her PTS so she doesnt die slowly.


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## LightningWolf (Jun 8, 2012)

She's just scared, that's all.

My rat Soda once got his nail broken when I picked him up (he was on my dirty hamper) and he was terrified of my room for about 2 weeks. She'll go back to normal soon.

This is not even close to internal damage, she would of died very quickly from it and wouldn't be showing these signs.


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## Drowsy (Oct 23, 2012)

It sounds like she is just terrified. Please for the love of god don't just put her to sleep as suggested.

LightningWolf is totally right. she's not damaged at all, it seems. You just scared her good. 
My rat, Cocoa, fell off the coffee table and was scared for days afterwards. even sitting on my shoulder he would just freeze or shiver, and was very easily startled and jumpy.

Just give her time. c: she isn't angry, and she'll get confident again. It was just a close call.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

I think I'm going to go along with Lightning on this one. In my experience when a small animal is injured critically, it dies pretty quickly. If it survives the first few hours it usually recovers.

My big tail dragger has survived a whole bunch of injuries. Most recently, she got the very tip of her tail squished under the wheels of my office chair. And as you can imagine, she was not very happy with me. But the tail tip grew back and she got over it in a few days and now she keeps her distance from the wheels under my chair. Thankfully, rats don't hold grudges for long.


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## JBlas (Oct 21, 2012)

I sat down on mama rat the other day I'm suprised she survived as I need to lose a few pounds;D She seemed scared and ran into her cage, but came right back out and seems to have forgotten all about it. Now I warn her before I sit down She's a tough girl!


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## Ruka (Dec 20, 2012)

I would say she just sounds really terrified.

One of my first rats years ago, a big boy named Sage, fell off of my shoulder and onto a giant pillow, now the reason I bring Sage up is because he acted the exact same way as your are describing.

And because he fell onto a pillow, I knew he didn't have any internal injuries.

He recovered eventually and gained back his confidence, please don't have her put to sleep for being afraid...


Sent from my iPhone using Petguide.com Free App


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## Raturday (May 26, 2012)

Definitely just sounds like she got spooked! She will be back to herself in no time.


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## Sara00 (Aug 23, 2012)

Definitely just scared. I tried hand-wrestling with one of my girls for the first time the other week & she did not like it at all - She gave me a wide berth for the rest of the day. But by the next morning, she was back to normal & coming back for rat kisses.


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