Meet Daniel. Many of youy already have read about him in the rat tails and mug shots section of the forum but for those of you who don't know his story, it's goes a little something like this....
Daniel was brought into the shelter as a stray by the animal control officer. His parents had been tossed out a window when the owners were bitten by his rat relatives. Daniel was born and raised outside and had never encountered people until the day the ACO caught him. Upon his arrival at the shelter, we noticed a large abscess on his back left hip. That turned out to be a Bot Fly Larvea (a yucky worm thingy) that was living inside Daniel's body. We removed the larvea and Daniel has been in foster care ever since. That must have been 2-3 weeks ago. Daniel had his final vet check up today and is ready for adoption.
Here's the catch, Daniel has not been using his left rear leg and may never be able to. Due to the infection and damage to his cyatic (sp) nerve, Danny's leg has built up a ton of scar tissue and muscle atrophy. The vet recommended that Daniel recieve physical therapy (the do it yourself type)twice a day which may or may not help but she doesn't want to amputate because she thinks it is not worth the risks involved in surgery and post op infections etc... He gets around fine with only using 3 legs and the bad leg has no drag wounds or sores at all. Today we introduced Daniel to a wire cage to see how he will manage it.
Daniel is very small for his age, probably due the improper diet he was on while living in the wild. His torpedos are very large for a rat his size which leads us to belive that he is actually older than he looks. He is the size of a 5-6 week old rat but must be at least 8-9 weeks if not older.
Daniel is becoming more social each day and loves to cuddle with his foster mommy whenever she has him out of his cage. He will go to her for comfort and brux away as he hides in her hair.
Since in our care, Daniel has not encountered another rat but we feel it would be in his best interest to live with others of his kind.
Although Daniel's foster Mom is very attatched to him, she can not keep him due to her small apartment and her attack cats. She wants a better life for him and he deserves it.
Transport may be arranged as far away as Michigan and anywhere on the east coast. Now on to todays pictures.
If you think you might be interested in adopting this special boy, please contact me as soon as possible so we can start planning transport.
