Pepper

Pepper gave us the fright of our lives last Thursday.  We played with him and Pippin in the morning, as usual, and he was happy and bouncy, climbing on us and generally being his mischievous self.  When they both started to slow down we popped them in so they could get a drink and some food.  They are both terrible for not going in by themselves when they’re hungry or thirsty, they just start doing naughty things so we’ll put them away.

Anyway, we popped them in and they had some food and water and settled down for a nap.  It was barely fifteen minutes later and Pepper started making this terrible sound.  He was gasping for breath and this horrible stuff seemed to be coming out of his mouth.  We grabbed Pepper, put him in a pet carrier and took him straight to the vet.  When we got there we handed him over to a nurse, who took him straight through to the back to see a vet, and we had to wait in the waiting area while they helped him.

It seemed like forever until someone came to talk to us, but they did.  The vet explained that because he is a small animal there isn’t much they could do, but they had him on oxygen and all we could do was see if it would help.  I hate leaving the animals at the vet, but it was obviously the best thing for Pepper as there was nothing we could do for him at home.

We picked him up at about four that afternoon, after the vet called us to say Pepper was doing a lot better and had been off the oxygen for a couple of hours.  It was lovely to see Pepper again.  When we took him to the vet he was in such a state I really didn’t know if he would make it and though he was obviously still weak and upset from his ordeal, I can’t describe what a relief it was to see him again.  Our vet explained to us that he was still bringing up some bloody/snotty discharge through his nose, but it was no longer causing him any distress.

We took him straight home and put him back in his cage with his brother, Pippin.  Pepper wasn’t interested in very much and he disappeared into their plastic igloo and Pippin being the good brother he is knew to leave him alone.

About nine o’clock that night Pepper’s breathing became laboured again and he started gasping though his mouth.  It wasn’t as bad as it had been that morning, as he could still breath, but the problem with rats is they don’t like to breath through their mouths so that alone can cause them distress.  Fortunately I was able to sit and hold Pepper and calm him down and after a couple of hours his breathing did settle again.  The poor little guy looked shattered, so I popped him back in his cage and let him sleep.

Pepper & Pippin

The next morning Pepper was a lot brighter, while he didn’t want to leave the igloo he’d been sleeping in, he did take some small bits of cereal from me.  He was obviously still feeling a bit rough, but we got his medicine (Baytril) into him after mixing it with a small amount of baby food and he did want to come out for a little run on the floor.  I guess after all the gasping from the night before his throat was feeling a little sore and was putting him off his food.

We let him rest most of the day and by tea time, when we came up to give them some bread, Pepper surprised us by snatching it out of Derek’s hands.  We had brought the bread up for Pippin and only had a bit for Pepper out of habit.  After that we knew Pepper had fully recovered his strength, by the end of Friday you would not have believed he’d been ill at all.

He had a check up at the vets on Monday and even the vet was surprised with how well he was doing.  We have no idea what happened to Pepper or, more scarily, if it will happen again.  When the vet listened to his chest and lungs they sounded clear and there has been no sign of any respiratory illness.  While we are so happy that Pepper is back to his old troublesome self, we can only wait and hope that whatever made him so ill has gone away for good.

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