SANTA!!!!!!!!!!!

Pons: "I think he likes us Venous!!! I really like his fuzzy suit!"

Photo and Santa courtesy of our wonderful vets who, with

their great technicians and staff, keep us up and running:
Park Cities Animal Hospital.

Pons: "They don't even seem to mind that we are rats."

Venous: "They know we are Fancy rats, Pons."

Pons: "Fancy that, Venous."

Our Updated Mileage Report!!

a Mexican Style Party

"It was so much fun! All kinds of treats were in there. My favorite was the almond!" - venous

We Are Back!!!

Note from Mom

Houston, we've got a problem. . .

Pons: "Look what you did to the wheel Venous."
Venous: "Did not"
Pons: "Did too"
Venous: "Did not"
Pons: "Did too"
Venous and Pons: "Mom, send money - we are stuck in Fort Worth with a broken-down wheel."

A Little Social Time Never Hurts

The Rattie Girls with Mom

Pons

Venous

Mileage on November 17, 2009

Almost 16 Miles! They will be waking up soon for their nightly travels.

14.497 miles - We Made it to Grandma's!!!

Grandma was surprised to see us at her front door!

What have those girls been doing on their free time?

Well, Venous got all prettied up to go to the new opera house in Dallas.























And Pons wanted to be a cowgirl.

Our New Continuous Chart has finally begun!

Ratgirls' mom had a little trouble figuring out how to do this - geez. Our goal is to update it weekly.

Mileage on November 13, 2009: 13.237 miles

Mmmmmmmm, vitamins

Pons decided a few swigs of a vitamin drink couldn't hurt her athletic quest.

October 25 - 29 Mileage Report

Okay, I'm just learning how to chart this little experiment - number crunching has never been one of my stronger points. Looks like we are averaging almost a mile per rattie day (human night).

Cereal

The girls have a bedtime snack (which is at their human pet's breakfast time) consiting of Total cereal (because it's covered in vitamins the girls need), a little oatmeal and some fruit. As I was pulling out some of the larger flakes of Total, one caught my eye. It was heart shaped (awwww):

But wait - I noticed that not only was it heart shaped, but it was also rat-face shaped!!!

So I was giving the cereal and fruit to the girls and Venous happened to be the one that got the rat-face. It was so big she held her head up high to carry it. Pons came along, saw it and grabbed onto it. A heated tug-of-war ensued until the thing broke.

They ended up with a broken heart.

Our Starting Point

A Few ZZZZZZZ's Between Runs

And We're Off!!!

The cage is all clean, the wheel is all wired up, and the girls are ready to go. They've been running on it a short time now:

0.140 miles (or 739.20 feet, or 8870.40 inches)       
0.22526 kilometers (or 225.26 meters, or 22526.00 centimeters)
Check back tomorrow for a 24-hour total.

the Scientific Apparatus

This is the $10 bike computer, the magnet, double-sided tape and the tube, which will have to be cut to about a one-inch segment.

The girls are getting excited!!

Methods

An inexpensive bike computer was purchased, along with a magnet and some sticky tape. The magnet will be mounted on the back of the wheel with the tape. The sensor for the computer will be attached to the wheel stand. Using the diameter of the wheel, multiplied by pi (pi = 3.14159265) will give the wheel factor - that is, the number that will be used by the computer to calculate mileage per each turn of the wheel. Each passing of the magnet over the sensor will activate the computer, thus adding the distance for each turn.


Rats like to chew and they will chew through wires. My next task is to go by the hardware store to see if there are any metal tubes through which I can run the wire safely out of the cage and out of reach of the chewers. If I can't find exactly what I need to fit, then I will cut off a piece of my curtain rod, which conveniently happens to be a tube.

Unusual Names

Their names are anatomical names.

Meet Venous and Pons

Venous

Pons