Featuring: Albus

Long story short: Dobby had mites and it made him act very irritable and aggressive towards us and Albus. He bit my partner and I to the point of drawing blood which was scary and very out of character for him.

It took us awhile to consider mites as a possibility because at first he wasn’t scratching himself too much, just grooming himself constantly. By the time we were more convinced it was mites the shops weren’t open anymore and we had to wait a full night and morning to be able to get him some treatment. The waiting around without being able to do anything was unbelievably hard as knowing your pets are suffering and you can’t help them is just heartbreaking.

The treatment took a few days to kick in (we treated Albus as well since if Dobby had mites it was likely he had them too - but Albus was still as lovely as ever bless him ❤️) and this morning is the first time in a while where I feel like everything is back to normal which is such a big relief. Hopefully things will stay this way, I can’t even express how worried we have been.

The pictures ⬇️ show Dobby’s fur which seems very sparse and ruffled due to scratching and over-grooming. I was also wearing thick gloves so as not to risk being bitten again.

Ratty play area set up for this month! I cut holes in the boxes so they can run from one box into another without having to leave their area if they don’t want to. There a lots of boxes lining the walls as well so they have enough options to hide all they like ☺️

We’re a little worried about the proximity to the window but so far they haven’t shown interest in climbing onto the ledge, fingers crossed it stays that way 🤞

The cage is also a bit small for our liking but they get the whole day to roam around the room (they don’t seem interested in chewing cables so far but when/if they do we’ll have to figure something out!) so the cage is really only a night-time necessity.