This World Rat Day I'd like to spotlight our very first pair of pet rats: Jack and Reiji.
For a while after starting to live together Naz and I started playing with the idea of owning rats since she used to have some as a child. We decided we would consider it after we moved into our second house, but losing my job during Covid made that plan fall through. So once lockdown was over we decided we needed some joy and just went for it anyway.
Jack and Reiji were brothers, and they really loved us a lot. Reiji was quite boisterous and adventurous, whereas Jack was a bit lazier and preferred just sitting around relaxing. Apart from some hormonal aggression in Reiji that we neutered out of him they got along just great.
Reiji suffered some kind of neurological issue that slowly paralyzed his body starting from the hind legs, and we sadly lost him in June 2022. We eventually got Zack and Taro to keep Jack company, but it didn't work out, and we think he was pining after his brother frankly. He passed away suddenly in August of the same year after failing to integrate with the new boys. Not a day goes by that I don't remember these two and all the joy they gave us when the world was a really scary place.
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