Sunday, June 7, 2015

The Queen's new subjects

After we said good-bye to her natural sister Twix in April, Crunchie spent nearly another two months with us before herself succumbing to a pituitary tumor.



"I love Papa's scritches."

In those two months, Crunchie and Gwen had grown close:



Crunchie: "What will you do later today?"
Gwen: "Same as always. Collect my magazine pages and arrange them behind the sofa."

Now we had just "the Queen" on her own:



"Hey, wait a minute, I have no subjects left!"

Although we know the risks inherent in introducing new rats to an incumbent who only knew the rats she grew up with, we decided to get two new girls.

Elsa:



"Hewwo. I'm Elsa."

and Marshmallow:



"I'm Marshmallow, wheee!"

The introductions have gone better than we anticipated. Gwen has surprised us by being quite tolerant of the new girls. If anything, rather than being aggressive, Gwen—who we've regarded as rather high-strung—appears to accept that Elsa is younger, therefore more powerful.
It is apparent that Elsa is the dominant rat in this colony. Gwen has already become best buds with Marshmallow, as she is often at the mercy of Elsa's shenanigans as well.



Marshie: "What are we going to do about Elsa?"
Gwen: "I'm thinking, I'm thinking."

But at the end of the day, it's nothing that food can't fix:




Elsa: "Nom, nom, nom ..."
Marshie: "Nom, nom, nom ..."
Gwen: "OK, time to split!"

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