# The rats of the Bananana household! [pic/text heavy]



## Bananana (Aug 1, 2011)

I've posted many pictures of my gang on a different forum, but since I'm new here, I thought I'd give them a formal introduction! This is kind of long, and I don't expect you to read through it all, but I wanted to post it so I'd have it on here. 

*Charlie:* 










Charlie is crazy. She's extremely smart and she uses her intelligence for trouble-making. She has a sweet side, though. I like to think of her like a troubled teenager - her misbehavior could be considered a cry for attention. At first, she wouldn't allow me to pet her, but I've had her for about six months now and she's starting to discover that petting is actually quite enjoyable. Now she'll come over to the edge of the CN and lay her little head on the lip of the litter pan, inviting me to scratch it. Charlie is the alpha of her group and she is an expert power-groomer. She is the least gentle rat I've ever met. I can tell she has good intentions, but her raticures are like battling an overly willful cheese grater. She's such a ballsy little thing. Most normal rats hand-wrestle with their person's hands, but Charlie takes it to the next level by trying to wrestle my entire body. She bounds over to me, leaps onto my stomach and proceeds to try to wrangle me into submission. I think it's really adorable that she thinks she can take me. 

*Lizard: *










Lizard (more often referred to as "Pizzo") is my heart rat. After I lost my heart-rat-of-all-hear-rats, Sasha, I honestly didn't think I'd ever find another rat who touched my heart in the same way, but Lizard snuck in there and surprised me. She is the most laid-back lady rat I've ever come across (even though she's still a relative youngster at 8 or so months old) and she wants nothing more than to curl up draped over the back of my neck. We call her "jello-rat" or "pudding-rat" because her body is so relaxed that holding her feels like holding a water balloon filled with jello or pudding. She can be a bit of a brat when I'm paying attention to the other rats (she gets jealous), but her misbehavior comes off as kind of pathetic and adorable since she isn't a natural troublemaker like Charlie. She has to really work to pull it off. I can just see her going "_am I doing it? Am I being bad? You should stop me because I'm being so bad... probably._" She is quite the convincing beggar. Our main computer is in the rat room and when I'm in there, Lizard scrunches herself into the corner of the cage closest to me and stares at the back of my head until I take her out. She's quite dramatic about the whole thing. If given the choice, she would spend all her time on or near me. 

*Raptor:* 










Raptor is Lizard's sister and, like Lizard, she's extremely affectionate and people-oriented. She's almost pathologically licky (she licks so frantically and so enthusiastically that I honestly worry there's something wrong with her sometimes). Raptor is also the only female rat I've ever had who will allow me to scritch her belly. She really, really loves petting and will rub herself on my hand if I stop petting her, much like a cat would. She's the drama queen of the group - squeaking over the most trivial of upsets (like when I push her away to prevent her from stealing another rat's doxy/baytril-laced baby food). She's very playful. She likes to run up to me, wrestle my hand a little bit and then bound away. Her other favorite thing is sleeve-diving. She loves spending time curled up in my sleeve, licking me. Raptor also loves water. She spends all night splashing and paddling in their water bowl. We jokingly theorize that she is trying to replenish her fluid stores from all the licking. 

*Emma:* 










Emma is my fiancé's heart rat. She was adopted in a moment of weakness from PetSmart. We didn't go in intending to get a rat (I'm sure you're all familiar with that particular sequence of events), but then we saw Emma slumped over the entrance to her igloo, almost dead from heat exhaustion (she was the only rat in the store and it was really, really hot out that day). We asked to hold her, hoping that opening her tank would allow some airflow in there and help her cool down, but then she started grooming my fiancé's hands and just generally being an adorable baby rat, and she was so pathetically limp from being so hot, and all our resolve melted away. She had a stubborn respiratory infection at first and we didn't think she was going to make it, but we nursed her through it. We've had her for a few months now and she is just the weirdest little rat. She was alone while she was in the store and for her longer-than-normal quarantine, so she spent her formative weeks in isolation and she never quite learned how to be a rat properly. She tries to play with the other rats by grabbing their skin in her mouth and tugging. We call it the "skin-stretching game", and Emma is the only one who enjoys it. She often sleeps by herself, curled up in the litter box. She's also tragically uncoordinated and didn't figure out how to get down to the bottom level of their DCN until many weeks of living there. She's still working on figuring out the wheel. 

*Tyler:*










Tyler is one of our two token man rats, neutered so he can hang out with the ladies. He's getting up there in years and has turned out to be a lovely squish. He's one of my best computer buddies and loves to cuddle with me while I work. He also likes to hang out with us on the couch while we're watching TV. He's really good about not jumping down to the floor (unlike some other rats I know... (cough)_Charlie!_(cough)). 

*Toby:* 










Toby is our other old man rat. He is also turning into a big squish in his twilight years and he is my other best computer buddy. As sweet and mellow as he is, Toby has never been the brightest crayon in the box. He just doesn't understand some things. For example, he freaks out about things being stuck through the bars of the cage, and will attack anything that comes through (including fingers). He's the sweetest rat otherwise, but there's something about having things stuck through the bars that he doesn't quite understand. He also hates spoons. The first time we tried to give him antibiotics in baby food, he attacked the spoon like it was a hostile rebel force. He eventually got over it, but every now and then he'll revert to his old, spoon-hating ways. He recently got very, very ill, but we nursed him back to health and he's now squishier than ever. However, he's still very playful. He's a well over 2 years old, neutered male, but he still popcorns like a baby. 

*Nina:*










Nina (also known as Neener pig) is a people-rat. She LOVES people. All people. She has never been scared of strangers or loud noises or anything. As long as she's being petted, she's totally happy. Nina has a metabolic disorder that causes her to be morbidly obese (like a Zucker rat), but surprisingly, she's the healthiest senior rat we've had. She's never had a tumor (even though she's 2 years and a few months old) and she's only had to be put on medication for a myco flare-up twice (knock on wood). She has a large, gelatinous lump on one of her sides, and at first we thought is was a tumor, but we had it biopsied and apparently it's just fat tissue. We call her our little lopsided pontoon boat because the lump, coupled with her all-over fatness makes her look just like a pontoon boat with one side partially deflated. While she'll never be able to be normal-size, we do our best to keep her weight in check. We hide her food blocks all over the cage so she has to walk around to find them and we play hand-tag with her as often as possible (like Toby, Nina still has the playfulness of a young rat). Over the span of about seven months she went from 650 grams to 520 grams, so her diet is working at least a little bit, even though she's still very large. But despite her obvious obsession with food, Nina will forgo even the tastiest morsel if she can get attention instead. She's a true lover. 

A bit about me: 

My name is Allie and I'm 26 years old. I got my first rat, a beige hooded named Clara, when I was around 5. My mom picked her up at a neighbor's garage sale (even though my mom was kind of freaked out by rats, she couldn't stand the sight of the poor thing in a tiny cage out in the hot sun, so she took her). My whole family fell in love with Clara and we ended up getting her a couple little friends. After discovering how awesome they are, I had rats all throughout my childhood. There wasn't a lot of information about proper rat care back then, but we did the best we could and our rats were definitely well-loved. My sister and I almost always had a rat out at any given time. 

When I started high school, my family took a break from owning rats. But over spring break during my junior year of college (2007), my boyfriend (who is now my fiancé) and I walked into a PetCo to pick up dog food for his parents' dog and walked out with a pair of black hooded girls who we named Dora and Isabelle (we didn't know not to buy from pet stores at the time). My boyfriend had never had rats before, but he trusted me that they were awesome and now he's a rat lover too. 

In the last four years, we've cared for many wonderful rats, each of whom has taught us new things and touched our hearts in their own special way. We've been through tumors, pneumonia, abscesses, eye infections, kidney disease, liver cancer, strokes, PT's, mites, choking, urinary tract infections, and seizures together. We've driven two hours to an e-vet at 3 AM during a blizzard because one of our rats chewed through her sutures. We did it again the next day, but without the blizzard. We eventually figured out how to make a vest out of vet wrap so that we wouldn't have to make late-night vet trips for suture chewing. But we had to make another trip anyway because our first attempt at the vest restraint wasn't sturdy enough. We've cleaned penis plugs and drained abscesses. We have become almost completely desensitized to any bodily fluid that comes from a rat. 

Even still, I'm constantly learning new things about caring for rats. They are wonderful, complex little creatures with many mystifying tendencies  That's why rat forums are such a great thing! 

Anyway, that's me and my whole crew. Again, I apologize for the length of this post. I may have gotten carried away and introduced myself/my rats a tad bit too thoroughly...


----------



## abmama (Aug 2, 2011)

*Re: Introducing the rats of the Bananana household! [pic/text heavy]*

Oh my what a great looking crew! And they all sound so fun!


----------



## Werepuppy (Aug 28, 2008)

Can I steals Lizard? please please please 
She looks so adorable and her name suits her. She has such a gecko expression in that photo...


----------



## Rattymonday (Jun 22, 2011)

I'm seen all your rat babies already on gm.. But Lizard and Raptor have got to by my favs lol. They're such lovely little ladies .

And Emma? So cute! Her story kind of reminds me of how I got Mr. Westley actually.. lol.

Hehe.. Really, all your ratties are absolutely gorgeous .


----------



## Bananana (Aug 1, 2011)

Werepuppy said:


> Can I steals Lizard? please please please
> She looks so adorable and her name suits her. She has such a gecko expression in that photo...


Thanks! I thought her name was pretty fitting, too. Her movements are uncannily Lizard-like. Her spine seems to lack the more pronounced thoracic curvature that most rats have, so she's very flat and scuttle-y. 

Unfortunately, I can't give you permission to steal her. Lizard has faced many near-stealings (her face just does that to people), so she has been put under 24-hour surveillance. However, our only means of securing Lizard is putting Charlie on watch duty, and Charlie is a rat and therefor not very formidable as a security guard. She's the best we have, though. She might groom you to death. Maybe. Probably she'll just sit there and look at you kind of weird.


----------



## Bananana (Aug 1, 2011)

RattyMonday said:


> I'm seen all your rat babies already on gm.. But Lizard and Raptor have got to by my favs lol. They're such lovely little ladies .
> 
> And Emma? So cute! Her story kind of reminds me of how I got Mr. Westley actually.. lol.
> 
> Hehe.. Really, all your ratties are absolutely gorgeous .


I remember your crew from GM too! The first time I saw the picture of Walter in that hammock/hat thing, I nearly died.


----------



## Werepuppy (Aug 28, 2008)

Bananana said:


> Werepuppy said:
> 
> 
> > Can I steals Lizard? please please please
> ...


 ;D Can I at least request more photos of Lizard? And/or videos of her scuttling like a lizard~ I would love to see that! <3


----------



## Bananana (Aug 1, 2011)

As you wish  

(But really, it doesn't take much to convince me to post pictures of Lizard). 










^ "_You have to be kidding... nothing is supposed to taste this good...are you tricking me? Am I on Punk'd?_"

And here she is, being a jello rat (don't you just want to poke that belly spot?): 










She likes to take naps in my sweatshirt and then pop her head out every now and then to say hello:










_"Mama, how do I camera? How do I do it?"_










Lizard (as a baby) being a scuttle-y flat rat: 










She's such a good shoulder surfer (I drew a better face over my face because I was making a weird facial expression):










"_I know you're wondering, 'what should I do next?' Well, have you considered taking me out and petting me? That would be awfully nice."_










I don't have any good videos of the scuttling, but I'll try to get one!


----------



## Rattymonday (Jun 22, 2011)

Bananana said:


> RattyMonday said:
> 
> 
> > I'm seen all your rat babies already on gm.. But Lizard and Raptor have got to by my favs lol. They're such lovely little ladies .
> ...


Haha, the one of him in my sock monkey "easter basket" xD. I absolutly adore that pictures too! I couldn't believe I got him to hold still enough to let me take it. lol!

And the newly added pics of Lizard.. Omg.. Jealous.. Hahaha


----------



## Ratsanctuary (Mar 24, 2011)

Your rats are gorgeous


----------



## Kinsey (Jun 14, 2009)

That is a wonderful group of rats, all beautiful! Congrats on a wonderful ratty family. 

Lizard makes my day- she should get together with Louis, they can groom people to death together. I'm sure Mendel and Romeo and Rosebud would love to help, too! (haha no..my boys are intact.)

I hear you on the "never repulsed by anything" part- my parents are squealing in disgust and I'm calmly draining an abcess or cleaning a wound. At work we make jokes about how much unpleasant stuff we do- the other day we were cleaning anal glands right before lunch. (Dogs have butt glands that have to be cleaned, and it's really gross.)


----------



## 1a1a (May 6, 2011)

Loving the detailed descriptions.


----------



## psycho_ash (Sep 27, 2009)

I demand more pictures of Nina!


----------



## A.ngelF.eathers (Jul 6, 2011)

'Mama how do I camera?'
:la: :la: 8D


----------



## Bananana (Aug 1, 2011)

psycho_ash said:


> I demand more pictures of Nina!


Then more pictures of Nina you shall have! 

This one was taken about a year ago (so Nina was a little over a year old in the picture). You can see that she is already starting to take on a slightly pontoon-boat-like appearance:










Glamour shot: 










She loves to eat: 










Like, really, really loves to eat: 










The only thing she likes more than eating is scritches. She will stop whatever she's doing to enjoy a good scritch, even if what she was doing was eating: 










She gets really, really, super into the scritching experience (this picture was taken immediately before the one I posted in her little bio up there. She was gearing up for that big boggle, I think):


----------



## psycho_ash (Sep 27, 2009)

Thank you, I am now dying to scritch that pontoon. Tell Nina she is fabulous for me!


----------



## noMoreFaith (Apr 28, 2010)

G-O-R-G-E-O-U-S rats!


----------



## RatAddict62 (Aug 28, 2011)

Beautiful rats.


----------

