Homer
Born May, 2014
Black berkshire dumbo
Homer was born without eyes. He has tear ducts that produce moisture, but no eyelid openings. He was also born with a boundless curiosity and an enormous capacity for fun and affection. His blindness does not hamper him in any way from exploring his cage and the outside world, with a little assistance from his humans. Homer's nose is always up, up, up in the air, sniffing madly, as he takes in as much of his surroundings as he can. He loves to go outside with us on our patio and get big whiffs of plants, particularly the aromatic herbs. He is a huge fan of basil and of lemon verbena. He also seems to really enjoy a little warm sun on his back, much more than our sighted rats do. And, best of all for his photo-happy "papaRATzi" mum, he does not notice the annoying flash of the weird smelling camera that I point at him all the time.
Homer was abandoned as a tiny pinkie, along with three siblings and an adult male rat, in a box at a college psychology classroom in Oregon. Happily, one of the students there was a fancy show rat breeder who belongs to RatsPacNW, our regional rat fanciers club, and she was able to find a nursing mom for the abandoned babies. Knowing that we had previous blind rat experience, she adopted Homer out to us, along with his brother and sidekick, M. Gustave. They both live with our other eyeless rat, Ivar, and pretty much rule the living room. Homer's greatest ambition in life is to one day turn our cat Kaesumaru into his noble steed. Or eat her. It's hard to tell sometimes.
Giving his fellow eyeless cagemate Ivar a big smooch.