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Pet Rats!

Jeanie and I have two pet rats. Note that our pet rats were bought at a pet store, not picked up from the sewer. They are small, cute, and mostly harmless. Their names are Kiya and Loki. Both are female rats, which means two things. They are rather active (male rats have a reputation for being a bit more lazy and cuddly), and we are not in danger of them starting a rat-family together. I forgot to mention that they are soft and fuzzy and sweet.

Kiya is a black and white "hooded" rat. Her head is black, but most of her body is white. Loki is a "brown" rat. We're not quite sure what this means, though -- she started off grey, became more brownish, but is definitely heading towards reddish-brown. Actually, it's mainly her back half and underside that are changing colors.

Kiya died 17 July 2000. A tumor growing from her breast complicated breathing and eating, and she was somewhat prone to infection. All of us; the veterinarian, Kiya, Jeanie and I; did the the best we could. Today was the end of her suffering. She was two years old. We love you, Kiya. Take care.

Loki died 20 March 2001. She probably had a tumor somewhere inside her head, but we never found it on the x-rays. Loki was a real trooper. She sucessfully fought several illnesses, and always tried to keep her tail up. After two years and eight months, it was time for her to be rid of the illnesses she never deserved. As rats go, she lived a long time. Every day after two years old is a gift, we've been told. With Loki, and with Kiya, every day was indeed a gift. We love you, Loki. Kiya, you should show Loki around your new nest!

Update: 27 Feb 2006

We recently commissioned Marilyn Smiel to do an oil painting of Kiya and Loki, as part of a charity auction to benefit R.A.T.S. (Rat Assistance and Teaching Society). Marilyn did a fantastic job, brilliantly adapting one of our favorite pictures to canvas. You can see the result on the right. The original photo of Kiya and Loki peeking at a cellophane-wrapped chocolate Easter bunny is below. I prefer Marilyn's painting. =-)

Update: 1 Nov 2006

Pet Rat Search

Google recently released their Custom Search Engine product, a part of Google Co-op. As one of the software engineers working on Co-op, I felt compelled to make my own Custom Search Engine -- about pet rats! You can use this search engine by entering a ratty-query in the searchbox on the left, or visit its Google-hosted homepage. From the homepage, you can volunteer to help me build, improve, and refine our Pet Rats Custom Search Engine. Two tips: for common words like "photos", search for [rat photos]; for somewhat-rat-related words like "cage" or "dumbo", you might be able to search for just those words. If you ever find offensive material using this tool, please drop me a note.

A Few Of My Pet Rats! Photos

Below are some thumbnails from my Pet Rats! picture collection. Click on the small pictures to see a larger, clearer image. If you don't see any pictures below yet, they should arrive within a minute. If they don't, you should probably try again some other time. Once you've clicked on a picture, retrieving the larger version may take a few minutes. Click on "S", "M", or "L" to change your default picture viewing size; S is 640x480, M is 800x600, and L is full size (varies). Click on "slideshow" to automatically transition from one image to the next with a 5 second interval. Once started, clicking any link will stop the slideshow.

All pictures on this page are taken by, and copyright of Paul and Jeanie Komarek. If you would like to use any of these pictures, just send me an email and a link to the page(s) where they'll be used -- I can't imagine why I wouldn't allow you to use them, but I want to keep track of them. Probably nobody wants to use my pictures anyway, but now I'm just rambling.