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!