Zipper

	Home	Meet Our Rats	The Rat Photo Pages	Rat Information	Links
	Updates	The Grotto	The Ratty Fun Pages	Rat Products	Email

Zipper

Black hooded

2.2008 - 6.11.09

About Zipper
Photos of Zipper
Tales of Zipper

About Zipper

We adopted Zipper (and his buddy Dash) from a member of our local rat club. A pair of adorably cute and incredibly boisterous little 5 week old fuzzlets.

Zipper (aka Zippy, ZipZap, Zippety DooDaa) was so named because he was always zipping about in a frenzied blur of excitement, and his hood stripe looked like a zipper down his back. This ratlet could MOVE! Before we'd even adopted him at 5 weeks of age he already had the record for zooming through the club's rat maze. He had the most glossy dark black and glaringly white fur, with gorgeous black dots on his belly and a half black and half white tail. His fur was super-soft - he was lovely snuggled under your chin for the split second before he climbed inside your shirt and scrabbled all about until you'd be all scratched and laughingly begging someone to "Get him out! Get him out!".

Zip was an in-your-face, outgoing, over-enthusiastic, over-energetic, tirelessly playful little fuzz, who was constantly getting into trouble. His favourite past time was digging underneath the play table cover and shoving his way around until he knocked all the toys off the table. And chasing Dash about and wrestling madly.

Zippy grew into an enormous squish of a rat. Aside from being a little plump, his extra soft and thick fur layer made him feel even squishier - he got nicknamed "the furry doona". Despite his size he still managed to bound about like a mad thing during run times. He was playful and always demanding attention, usually the one to leap out to meet people.

We lost him quite unexpectedly one day - he seemed perfectly happy, healthy and his usual self that morning and an hour later he was gone. Boisterous and happy to the end - it's what I would hope for him, although preferably when he was much, much older. Farewell Zippy.

Photos of Zipper

His black "zipper" down his back.

Always on the move.

He has a slight attitude problem.

He loves to play in the water bowl.

Too many whiskers.

Snuggled with his buddy, Dash.

Hanging about in some gumboots with Dash

In a pumpkin

Arrrrghhh!

Tales of Zipper

The Furry Doona

The Furry Doona

I call Zip my "Furry Doona" [doona = Aussie for warm fluffy quilt]. He's always been very soft and fluffy, with ultra shiny supersoft fur. But as he's matured he's filled out into a delightful squish. When you hold him your fingers sink into a lush thick coat of soft fur and then you feel a nice underlayer of squish which makes him even softer. One look at him and you feel the need to squish him... he's very much like Ilford was, although polar opposites in personality. He has a rather simple enthusiasm for life and way more energy than can be released in the usual way. So bouncing and pouncing and running madly about is the norm for Zip. One touch on his head and he leaps madly in a circle and ends up back under your hand for another go. And poor Dashy cops the brunt of a rampant Zip more often than he would wish. But they get along together wonderfully, often bundled in their hammock together.

Back to index

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


Back to: Meet Our Rats
	Start	Back	Next

	Home	Meet Our Rats	The Rat Photo Pages	Rat Information	Links
	Updates	The Grotto	The Ratty Fun Pages	Rat Products	Email