Poor Charlie!

I was changing the litter in Charlie's cage this morning. Josiah thought it was great - he could see Charlie running around under the top half of the cage on the floor, so both boy and rat were amused...

All was fine, until I had put the bits and pieces into the bottom half of the cage, and put Charlie back while I wiped out the top half... I hear banging and look up to see Josiah with a good grip on the skin on Charlie's back lifting the poor rat up and down! I stopped it, and Charlie went straight to his sleeping corner to recover.

Other than a couple of pulled out hairs, Charlie seems to be fine with no tenderness where he was "got", and is moving around without problems - but he didn't move out of the corner until the top half of the cage was on!

I guess the moral of the story is: if your 9mth old can reach, don't leave the pet rat within reach!

ooh poor wee thing i,m sure he was trying to help and moral lerned!

We've had Charlie for 2.5 years now, and I've taken him along to Kiya's kindy a couple of times... this was definitly the roughest treatment he's endured so far!

He only squeaked a couple of times while Josiah had him, and didn't try to bite me afterwards while I was checking him over... animals sure seem to know when young children don't know better!