# Desperate - rat acting very strange all of a sudden :(



## anetaxo (Aug 16, 2011)

Hi all, 


My rat, who is about 7 months or so, has been acting very strange lately, she is not really herself. I have tried to google the problem or find it on here but I don't really know how to describe her behaviour. 

Let me start off by saying that I currently live at my university house, and take rats back home with me when I go home for longer periods of time. In my university house, my housemate has a cat, who a few times has entered the room and started at the cage when I wasn't aware of it. The cat has not been in the room for about 2 weeks now, and I don't think anything partiular happened to traumatize them, especially as my other rat is acting normal. 

Last week at night, one of my rats woke up (and woke me up) and started making a load of noise, and when I lookes she was literally bouncing/running off the walls in circles at an incredible speed for about 30 sec or so, and then got scared and sat in her igloo all day, motionless. 

Similar thing happened this morning, where all of a sudden she ran off the bottom of the cage right to the top and was just clinging to the age motionless for absolute ages. 

She was fine when I had her home for Christmas, and ever since we came back about 2 weeks ago she has been acting a bit weird, when I try to take her out for some play time she runs straight to her cage, whereas normally she loves to explore! She doesn't want to come out whatsoever, only to the cage door. My other rat is completely fine. 

I was thinking, maybe it is the cat that she is scared of, but even though it was in the room before she acted normal, and now the cat hasnt been here for ages. I also thought maybe she had a scary dream (?) and just got terrified of something. She seems healthy, she had a bit of sneezing before but this has cleared after a course of Baytril. 

Can someone please help me, I am desperate and worried, I have no idea what's wrong!


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## 1a1a (May 6, 2011)

This reminded me of this http://australianratforum.com/forum/showthread.php?10232-can-a-fright-cause-a-seizure


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## teri (Jul 18, 2011)

I was thinking seizure also. I have a friend who had a rat that would have "panic attacks". Although I never witnessed it, I see how it would make sense. I can't remember what her vet prescribed for her though.


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## Rat lover (Dec 28, 2011)

Seizure I think. How many times has she done that?


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