Ginger - My Silverfawn Berkshire Boy
I intend to add stories to this as I go along and create an archive, but here is a couple of stories to start you off with.....
When Scamp was very little he really was very mischievous. The time that proves this beyond all others was when he was about 4 weeks old and a cute little fluff still. At this time one of the dominant males in the cage was Charlie, a lovely and very big champagne berkshire boy but who HAD to be dominant. Well Sweep was a tiny little dot compared to this big adult rat but when he saw his chance to be dominant he sure took it. Scamp snuck up on Charlie when Charlie was on his back legs and off balance. Scamp flew into Charlie, knocked him over and proceeded to do the 'cob corn clean' dominance power groom very fast right up Charlie's belly. Scamp them bolted for his life! Charlie got back to his feet and went flying after him till Dad rescued Scamp and calmed Charlie down. It took a lot of fuss and treats to get Charlie to forgive Scamp lol.
Toby was Scamps Dad and he had more than a bit of the mischief maker in him. One day he got out of my bedroom during playtime. Later I found him in the bathroom. Well I also found the soap had been eaten. What was mysterious about this was that the soap was in a tile soap bowl in the middle of a tiled wall of the shower.... There was no bars or ledges nearby this was on the wall opposite from the cabinet and glass side. The curtain was thin plastic and not near the bowl. We still don't know how he got to it but he sure never tried that again. Poor Toby seemed to have one heck of a belly ache from the soap!
This is another story involving Scamp that happened when he was about 2 years old. Scamp was on the settee with Dad. Dad had a cold at the time so he had a vick's stick in his pocket (strong mint/eucalypt sort of smell for sniffing and has the effect of clearing blocked noses). Scamp got hold of this without Dad realizing at first and started sniffing (rats adore the smell of this stuff). Dad spotted him and covered the hole in the top so it would not be too strong and let him sniff it. Well Scamp seemed absolutely fascinated with the stick and would not let it alone and Dad called me over to see. Then Dad took the stick away, but when scamp went to walk away and started walking along the top of the settee I saw he was staggering and one side seemed to be collapsing. This totally freaked me out as I was wondering what on earth was wrong with him! It turned out the stick had two holes down the bottom Dad did not know about and it seems rats get high on this stuff and that’s exactly what Scamp had done! We had to look after him till he had recovered enough to regain his balance and recover his dignity lol. Meanwhile Scamp was very satisfied with himself and his new smell and all the fuss it had earned him.