The Plight of Matilda the Rat

We've got another rat coming our way.

Unfortunately, one of our rats, Maizy, died last weekend. As I said in my "Rat Crack" post, she's never been very well, and she finally went over the Bridge. That means that Batman needs another girlfriend, as we still can't put him in a cage with Bitey.

So the wife emailed Little Mischief Rescue to see if they had any more girls that we could adopt. It just so happened that a situation was developing that would end up causing a *lot* of hoopla, so much so that it has become almost silly.

The province of Alberta has a law on the books dating back to the '50s that outlawed the ownership of rats, basically stating that Alberta is a "rat-free" province. Any rats that are found are put down. It seems a family was moving from BC to Alberta and then discovered the law. They gave Matilda to the Calgary Animal Services. Usually, any rats turned in are put to death, but Matilda was so docile and domesticated that they called Little Mischief, which has done this before with Calgary rats. This was happening just as the wife contacted the organization looking for a new rat.

Thus prompted a media frenzy. Matilda's story made the front page of the Vancouver Sun. Volunteers were paying for and escorting Matilda to fly from Calgary to Vancouver today on Westjet airlines, and they were met by video cameras from CTV and Global television. Evidently, it made Global National News as well as it's going to be on CBC's "The National" newscast tonight as well.

It's all become quite surreal, actually. The wife's been getting requests to do TV interviews (promptly turned down) and has been quoted. Simone Bur, spokeswoman for Little Mischief, has been interviewed in a lot of places, even on CBC Radio in Calgary.

This is great publicity for Little Mischief, and I would hope this would lead to an eventual lightening of the laws in Alberta, but really...isn't there something more important for the News to be talking about?

Matilda will be in quarantine for 3 weeks and be spayed, and then we'll be picking her up.

Isn't she cute?

*Edit: 5/9/10* Unfortunately, the Vancouver Sun no longer has the photo I used. So you'll just have to imagine her cuteness. Or look for an upcoming post about her arrival in our home.