Sam Sam

We had a friendly visitor for the two weeks that Belle was out of school. That Friday before Winter Break, Belle had asked if she could bring home the class pet. Sam is a lab rat that came from a local college. The teacher has not had him for very long. Bello and I are very keen to rats and we had noticed that Sam was very skitish (rightfully so for being a lab rat) but it was an odd skitish. He jumped at every movement and every sound. Belle had also informed me that he bites the kids at school because they constantly stick their fingers in the cage and poke at him. Come to find out, the poor thing always remains in his cage and the teacher never takes him home not even on the weekends. Here is this poor creature who receives no attention accept for little fingers poking at him and is hardly ever taken out of his cage. As a result of all this, he refuses to eat (I wouldn't either with the crap we were given to feed him) causing him to become skinny. I could feel the little bumps on his tiny spine which is a bad thing. Upon checking his cage, it turns out that the owner was also using the wrong bedding in the cage. So, Belle, Bello and I went to the pet store and got him some yummy yogurt treats, proper bedding, chew sticks (to stop him from biting) and then we ventured to another store to get him some miscellaneous granola and trail mix with banana chips. We gave him lots of love and spent some much needed time with him. On Monday, two weeks later, Belle and I returned a bright eyed, happy, plump and energetic rat. You can bet your life that I gave Belle's teacher a good scolding on how to treat rats. I even told her that if it is too much for her to take care of Sam, then I would be happy to take him off her hands. It was sad to see Sam Sam go and I can tell when his eyes began to squint just like the day we brought him home, he wasn't too pleased to be back in that room with all those dreadful brat fingers poking at him all day. We can only hope that the teacher does the right thing by loving and caring for him the right way or giving him to someone that can; like us. :) We miss you Sam Sam.