Stealing the spoon

At first it was difficult to convince my younger rats to take their meds. We put their medication in muffins, jam, peanut butter, bacon...basically anything we could think of. The problem was probably with the fact that they weren't sure whether treats were actually food, so it didn't really work too well to hide their meds in treats. (It even took them time to figure out that bacon was edible...how sad is that?) I had to resort to force feeding them meds on more than one occasion, which was not a pleasant experience for anyone involved.

But now, that's changed.

Now, they've finally figured out what treats are. And they have figured out that they like ice cream. In fact, they like it a lot. The only time they've hurt me was when I had ice cream on my fingers. And these are the girls who are normally so gentle no matter what I offer them.

Niki is currently on meds for some weird skin problem. (Maybe ringworm, we're waiting for test results back. In any case, it's improving.) I give it to her twice a day, and of course I also have to give a treat to her cage mate Kora.

I've been hiding the medication in coffee ice cream. I know, this may not be the brightest idea in the world. I mean, ice cream already has a lot of sugar, and I'm going to assume there's some small amount of caffeine in it too. I only give them a little, but by the time I finish medicating Niki I've got two rats on sugar (and maybe caffeine) highs. And this happens twice a day.

Hey, I'm just glad Niki is taking her meds.

Oh, but does the post title say something about a spoon being stolen?

A couple nights ago Kora was so enthusiastic about her ice cream that after she had licked the spoon clean, she pulled it out of my hand. She dragged it off to a corner of her cage, and seemed to think that a close examination of the handle would reveal more ice cream.

I thought it was adorable beyond words, especially since the part of it that had actually held ice cream was hanging out of the cage wires. Photographic evidence is below.

Rats. Just when I think they can't get more adorable, they manage to top themselves.

Kora and her prize