A new home

When we moved into our flat in Hythe on 31 August 2007, we got Reggie a proper rat cage.

This is the smallest rat cage there was. Rats need space because they can grow quite big and like to climb. You should also keep more than one rat as they are social creatures. Doesn't he look a bit lost in his big cage. He was 3.5 months old.



and this is how he had grown into his cage -it looks a lot less spacious. By then he had 3 cargo nets -which were positioned to catch him if he fell (being a bit of a clumsy boy). He also had 3 big comfy hammocks and 3 wooden ledges.



The last hammock I installed - under the wooden ledges - I put there for the trip over to Dublin and it proved very useful when the car went over a bump and he slid right off his ledge onto it. Thereafter he loved to just laze on it during the day - it would give him a good view point of any goings on in the kitchen -



and he would sleep in his hanging hammock at night. He always looked so comfy in it.

Baby Reggie

We got Reggie on 19 July 2007 - he was 9 weeks old and had been at the pet shop for 2 weeks. He was all on his own the day we saw him as his brother had been sold some days before.

I peered in through the glass and he got up to come and check me out. We bonded through the glass and I knew I couldn't leave him there. We went away and debated the practicalities of getting a little critter, especially when we were about to leave the north of the country (Northumberland) and drive all the way to the south coast (Southampton), and then raced back to get him.

We weren't at all prepared for what looking after a rat involved - we got the rat and then got the book on how to look after rats - but somehow we made it through. Reggie was very relaxed from the moment we got him back and took everything in his stride - from living in a box for 4 days, then making a 7 hour car trip across the country, then a hamster cage in a hotel room for 6 weeks (where his world was the hotel bed), and then finally his big rat cage in his own flat (where the flat became his kingdom).

The baby on the bed in the hotel room -looking at his empty food bowl.


The little one was soon up to his tricks of hiding in my clothes. I can't believe how small he was.


and of course, he could sleep anywhere and any which way!

Beautiful Boy

As Reggie got older, his fur started to change colour.

He went from a shiny black coat

January 2008
(8 months old -climbing out of Mommy's handbag!)



to a beautiful fluffy auburn colour

December 2009
(2 years 7 months old - getting Daddy tickles)

Reggie the Lap Rat

Reggie had become a serious 'lap rat' in his old age. He would spend hours on my lap - making it impossible for me to do anything. I learned to make sure, before he settled down, that the TV remote, a magazine/book and cup of coffee were close by.

Sometimes he got onto my lap and settled down before I'd sorted these things.







It was also a great reason (excuse) as to why no housework was done or meals cooked!