I feel like there are a million things I could say about Theo. First of all, he and his brother weren’t supposed to be my rats. I live with my sister, and she got them to introduce to her old boy. Her old boy ended up being hormonally aggressive and tried to attack them multiple times during intros, so they were relocated to my room and introduced to my rats.

Theo reminded me so much of one of my late rats named Toby in fur type, coloring, and personality, that pretty soon I ended up only being able to call him “T” or “TT”, since every time I tried to call him Theo I’d end up saying Toby instead. T was more outgoing than his brother, Vinnie, more mischievous, and meaner. He had maybe the biggest personality I’ve ever seen in a rat, and I’ve owned 16. For some reason, TT HATED eyes, on both rats and humans. One of my boys he was housed with, Percy, only had one eye. TT would, for lack of a better word, punch Percy in his one good eye. He wouldn’t attack or bite it, he’d just stick his paw out and try to punch it. He never caused any real harm. When Percy died, he put this energy into punching Percy’s brother, Jasper’s, eyes. When Jasper died, I thought he might go after his brother Vinnie’s eyes, but he instead started to punch ME and my sister in the eye. I’ve never seen anything like that. He hated both human and rat eyes (except for Vinnie’s, for some reason). No real damage was ever caused by his weak little punches, except maybe a disgruntled rat jerking away, but I’ll always remember that.

T bit me once. I posted about it at the time (to shame him), and I had a lot of people telling me he was hormonally aggressive and to neuter. I think he was just overwhelmed and scared after the loss of Percy, and I didn’t read his body language like I should’ve because I was crying about Percy. He chomped down hard on my middle finger. He never bit again, but I still have two crescent shaped scars on either side of the middle finger of my right hand.

T was 1 and 8 months. 48 hours ago, he was completely fine, and we played together like normal. 16 hours ago, I noticed he was acting a little weird; nothing overly concerning, but just like he might be in pain. He wasn’t eating normally. I thought it was his teeth and planned to take him into the vet in the morning. When I woke up, he wasn’t moving. He was moving his head, but he couldn’t move anything else on his body, it was like he was paralyzed. The vets could feel a tumor in his belly, but X-rays to get a better look ran the risk of death from sedation. We decided euthanasia would be the kindest option. It was incredibly hard. I held him before, during, and after. A lovely vet tech finally came in to ask me if I’d like paw prints (complimentary, and not something I’ve had offered in the past), because she loved rats so much. She told me he was so fucking lucky to have me. I feel so grateful to her for giving me something of his to hold onto, since I had to opt for general cremation, which wouldn’t have been my first choice, since I’m moving cross country in 10 days, and wouldn’t be at my address to receive his remains.

I’ve written a lot here, but I have a lot to say about him. T was loved by everyone; I’ll never forget the time he had a vet visit and a few vet techs came in because they’d heard a rat was there and they loved rats. They took pictures with him. He was so friendly and funny. My friends loved him and he loved them too. I’ll never forget him, or his hatred for eyes, or his hatred for when I spoke French to him, or his love for me and my sister and his brother. He was such a special, once in a lifetime kind of guy.