Last week one of our rats jammed the nail from one of his back feet into his underside. He had an injury in that area before; I fucking told the vet he did it to himself, but he kept saying it had to be the other rat, who is lazy and docile.
I've been treating the wound and it had been building a wide scab, clearly healing. Things were looking up ... then tonight I turn around on the couch and see he's got something in his paws--it's a chunk of scab with rat hair in it. I flip him over.
There's a HUGE FUCKING HOLE in his underside near his leg. We padded it until the bleeding ebbed, cleaned it, and put some cream in it, then gave him meds crushed in yogurt so he'd fall asleep and stop picking at it, but we can't watch him all night when we sleep, nor all day while we're at work. I'm gonna check him in the morning and put more cream on it.
I just want to scream at him for being such a fucking idiot, but I know he won't understand what he's done. It's very easy to get an infection in that area, especially when these dumb animals piss and shit wherever they please. And you know, the area was healing. I could see new skin on the edges of the hole, but he just ripped that fucker out 'cause it was itchy. Things were going to be fine, but now I don't know. The vet said there's nothing to be done there--put a cone on a rat and he'll use his little hands to yank it off. We just have to keep it clean and hope he doesn't rip the scab off when it heals (and that it doesn't get infected).
This is how the baby rat in April 2012 died. We removed the scab on his tail, thinking we were doing the right thing, and he started chewing on the wound until it got infected and he couldn't survive surgery. I take small consolation that this time it's not my fault, but it doesn't change my being upset and pissed off.
