Briggsie, Rejected by a Snake

I will dedicate this post to my new little rat, Briggsie, an albino named after the nickname Anna Briggs had for her husband. Anna is the co-founder of The National Humane Education Society. She and her husband dedicated their lives to saving animals. I have been reading her heartwarming story, "Legacy of Love." It is a short book and I highly recommend reading it for any of you who have time.

I adopted Briggsie two weeks ago at PETCO. I do not buy pets sold for profit and I was not aware that PETCO has a rescued pet adoption program. I found out when I went in there just to look around. As part of this adoption program, when people buy baby rats to feed to their snakes (which I highly oppose and PETCO discourages since many snakes can eat frozen food that has already been humanely killed), if the snake for some reason does not eat the rat, the people are asked to return it to PETCO. The company employees then handle these rats to make them friendly and adoptable and put them into their free adoption program.

I guess they figure the poor baby has been through enough and deserves to live. That is how I got Briggsie. It still makes me cringe to think of him running around that snake cage terrified. He was very cautious when I first brought him home. Can you blame him? He is finally starting to come out of his shell - and what a personality he has! He is a more mellow, affectionate and thinking rat than others I have had (all rats are very intelligent by the way - you can even teach them "no" and "come"). I will post a photo of him shortly if my camera is working.