Summer Update

It has been some time since my last update on The Gang and their latest adventures.  This year has been exceptionally busy for me with my various activities and raising the newer additions to the family.  Regardless, I had decided to set aside some time to provide you all with this long-overdue update on my animal family.

To begin, fans of my crew recently informed me of two fake instagram accounts (owned by the same person) which claim to be my animals' official sites.  This impersonator has been falsely claiming ownership of my animals and their photos/videos, and he/she has been claiming to be me.  I must ask that anyone who is able to report or flag their accounts for impersonation do so, since I myself am not on instagram (nor are my animals).  Please spread the word in the comments section of their photos/videos with a link to this blog post or my website's homepage (which also has a warning of this impostor).  I cannot thank you all enough for your support.

In other news...
As many are aware, I had adopted a Brazilian opossum named Shorty last summer, and he made his YouTube debut back in February of this year.  I brought him home as a tiny 10-week-old joey and he is currently a year old now.  Below are a few photos of Shorty:

Shorty is an anomaly for this independent and solitary species, being extremely cuddly, gregarious, and enjoys snuggling on my lap in the evenings.  I had captured footage of him sleeping on me whilst getting petted and compiled it into his debut video:

Back in autumn last year, I of course had brought home four baby boy rats (Cash, Mortimer, London, & Britain), which was covered in my previous blog post.  Shortly afterwards in November, I began raising Saoirse (pronounced SAIR-shuh), a female naked rat baby.  I have had her since her birth on the 27th of November and raised her by hand.  After six weeks of syringe-feeding, Saoirse blossomed into a beautiful nearly-hairless girl with a sassy personality and bursting at the seams with energy.

Saoirse at 3 weeks

In March, 2015, I had discovered a small mammary tumour in Shadow's left axilla, so I booked an appointment with her veterinarian to have the small lump surgically removed.  Unfortunately, Shadow's body reacted negatively to the anesthetic used during her surgery and she passed shortly after awakening.  It was an unexpected shock losing her and it has been tremendously painful, since she was otherwise robust and healthy and I had been expecting her to live at least another year or two.

Shadow, just prior to leaving the house for her surgery

I showed Shadow to the other rats after she passed.  Everyone took their time sniffing her and showing patent concern; Raven in particular stood over her while licking her ears and neck, then refused to leave her.  In the days that followed, Raven slipped into severe depression and became anorexic as well as completely uninterested in partaking in any activities with the other rats.  Her lack of vitality had me deeply concerned and distraught; however, my level of concern for her heightened when she began to lose weight due to her appetite loss.  Thus, my best friend (who also has pet rats) allowed me to temporarily "borrow" one of her girls to see if it might be the solution for cheering up Raven.  Bringing the little girl home remedied Raven's anorexia, although she still had little desire to play with the other rats or leave her bed.  That was when I decided to find another female rat for her.... and thus, Arrow joined the crew.

Arrow is a playful but reserved chocolate agouti rat.  I have found a number of parallels between her personality and Shadow's, coincidentally, although as a youngster she is much more rambunctious than Shadow was.  Saoirse and London adore her most and Arrow is scarcely seen without one or both of them close by her side.  As of late, Raven has been eating well and exercising more than she had been prior to Arrow's arrival, although sadly, she has still not been the same since Shadow's passing.  It truly breaks my heart.

Arrow wrestling at 5 1/2 weeks

There is one more big piece of news that I must share.  I was initially going to include it in this update, however I decided that it deserves its own blog post.  The newest member of the family will be formally introduced later on. :)