Gecko

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Gecko

Dove berkshire

22.1.2007 - 14.8.2009

About Gecko
Photos of Gecko
Tales of Gecko

About Gecko

We adopted Gecko (and his friends Splash and Waffle) from Brisbane Rodent Rescue when he was just 6 weeks old.

Gecko was so named because he was pale, fast and fearless, was an anti-gravity climber, and seemed to be everywhere at once (much like our over-population of house geckos). He was nicknamed "The Dove Bug" since he was so energetic, confident and exasperatingly in-your-face, just like Bug was at this age!

Gecko had a gorgeous pale silvery colour with a delightful belly of white. He had a cheeky face which shone with his cheerful audacious personality. Small and compact, he was ultra-fast and exasperatingly determined to do whatever he wanted to. His specialty was digging around under the cloth on the play table and knocking over all the toys. And also diving down the back of people's shirts. He was always in motion and loved to be played with, leaping about madly with hand wrestling and dashing about with tireless exuberance.

Gecko grew into a gorgeous big fuzz. He was still all action and trouble and naughtiness even in his old age, but then he had a handsome buckly suaveness to go with it. A charm that let him get away with almost anything. And a face full of whiskers and character and confidence that shone in every photo we took of him. He was infatiguably persistent about being naughty andexpasperating at times, but we loved every moment we spent with him.

Photos of Gecko

He was a cute cheeky little fuzzlet!

Naughty by nature

I'm the cutest fuzzlet ever!

He's gone a little bit bananas with age.

Don't be fooled by the sweet innocent look.

He's the most audacious rat in the group.

He's very very silly!

In the garden

Gorgeous and whiskery in his hammock

Meeting Isabelle

Tales of Gecko

The Gecko Character
Gecko grows up
The Skanky Bin Rat
Oh, Gecko!

The Gecko Character

Current nicknames - Mr Gecko, The Dove Bug, Poor Little Gecko (when being power groomed).

Gecko is Mr Enthusiastic, very much like Bug was. Everything - let me emphasise that - EVERYTHING is fascinating and should be thoroughly investigated. Be it a new toy, a piece of fluff in the carpet, someone's nose, etc. And great speed is required to reach everything in the shortest amount of time. He's the only fuzzlet to leap off the sofa and explore the floor - it took us 20 minutes to recover him, he was having so much fun. He flops out onto the floor whenever the cage door is just about to close (we've learned to catch him with one hand and close the door with the other). He can climb anything, including but not limited to - the bookshelf and display shelves above it, the dresser, the windowsill, the cage door, any item of clothing, bare skin, the rat room door barrier (he has yet to leap off the other side, but we're expecting that any day now), the ropes that hang from the wardrobe
door knobs, and pretty much anything else within reach, or at least within leap of him.

He's the smallest fuzzlet, no doubt from the hyperactivity he exudes. He's a very vocal rat and tends to get power-groomed by Waffle all the time, plaintively squeaking. But it doesn't seem to bother him too much as he's immediately off running about happily again once released. I get the feeling he squeaks out of frustration at being held down when he could be running about exploring instead.

His disgusting habit is an ardent passion for snotty tissues or hankies. And believe me, when he wants it you have to work hard at keeping it
from him!

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Gecko grows up

Gecko is still living up to his nickname "The Dove Bug", trying to be just as naughty as Bug was. He's a compact little action machine, always leaping about madly and getting into trouble. He spends his whole run time leaping into the rubbish bin, playing in the cage where I'm trying to clean it, being chased about by and wrestling Waffle, or trying to escape through the barrier. Despite his endless (and very obvious - subtle he's not!) efforts he's never managed to escape without the assistance of Sploosh. His furry face has a gorgeous cheeky expression that suits his personality perfectly. His special talent is pushing all the foofferdomes and nest boxes off the shelves in the cage. He likes to sleep on bare shelves, and so moves everything (including the velcroed down towel bedding) out of the way. He loves treats, but is more intent on stashing them in the terracotta pot than actually eating them. I can offer him the same treat over and over and over again (retrieving the same one from the pot each time) and he'll just keep taking them indefinitely.

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The Skanky Bin Rat

The boys have an annoying habit of repeatedly jumping into the rubbish bin while I'm cleaning the cage. When they do this we call them our "skanky bin rats", but it doesn't seem to deter them at all. Just what they find so irresistible in the bin is anyone's guess. Rats have taught me to be very good at multi-tasking, so I tend to automatically remove rats from the bin with my left hand while I clean the cage with my right. This morning I had emptied the bin of rats and was placing in some shredded paper towels. It was a little full, so I squished them down a bit... until I heard a desperate muffled <squeak!> I look into the bin to see a dove nose poking through the paper towels with a look of "Help me!" on his furry little innocent face. Gecko
had tunneled down into the bin to explore under cover. <sigh> Lucky he wasn't thrown out with the rubbish!

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Oh, Gecko!

I was lying on my side on the floor in The Rat Room while the boys were out running the other day. As my pregnant belly gets bigger my tshirts are getting too short and my pants are more comfy pulled low, so my bare belly was on show. Gecko decided he wanted to be on top of my belly. So he leaped up about half way and clung on to my bare skin. But unlike his
namesake his sharp claws had little traction on my skin, so he hung on as he slid down a little before scrabbling all the way up. I ended up with a perfect set of four scratch marks for each hand and foot. <sigh> I wonder what my obstetrician will think when she sees the scratches at my next appointment and I have to explain it was caused by the rat infestation in my home.

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More tales of Gecko and his friends on the Ratty Ramblings page.


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