Here's the condensed version of the back story:
About one week ago, I decided to try putting the two rat girls together in a "neutral" area. Instead, I put them on the couch, but didn't allow them to exit the blanket (on top, of course). Tierna seemed to always want to go under the blanket and Malia thought Tierna was a jungle gym, constantly climbing and crawling over her.

Each night, I tried putting them together, with Ryan and myself as watchers. Tierna seemed to care less and less about Malia, so I figured Tierna wasn't going to be the dominant one. Malia, on the other hand, seemed to want to poke and prode at Tierna a bit now and again.

Each night, a little more time than the last, a little less interaction of myself and Ryan. Each time; a little more unclear who was going to be the dominant one. No signs of aggression, so I figured I could move on to the joining them in one cage bit.

Last night, I moved around Malia's stuff, inserted some of Tierna's, added a new box, and washed the food bowl that was to become THEIRS! I put Tierna in first so she could sniff out the place. (She's bigger, and slower so it takes more time for her to move through a place). Then I put Malia in...

And there was no fur flying, no crazy antics, other than Malia's normal "I-don't-know-what-I-want-to-do-but-I-want-to-do-something" movements. Malia crawled across Tierna several times, and Tierna looked at me like she'd done something wrong to deserve this, but I didn't interfer. I had Ryan and myself watching, and I'm glad I did, because sometimes I couldn't see every angle.

I figured I'd give them a good few hours to determine if they could go the night together or not. Since I only heard one squeak (which I can't tell them apart unless Malia is doing her Mikey squeaking), I figured one of them was displaying dominance and the other was submitting. I only heard 2 squeak-sequences during the test time, so I figured they could go the night.

Finally, before bed, I held Malia close to my face and told her very seriously, "if you hurt my Tierna, you won't have to answer only to me, but to Ryan, and Maxine... so watch it". And then, I put them in the cage for the night, and this morning -- I have two rats, one cage, all their fur connected!

Carisa

Happy idea for today:
a pulsating shower head (p. 373)

(From: 14,000 things to be happy about. by Barbara Ann Kipfer)

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