Elvis is Alive!

    My first longhaired mouse was a little black buck that a woman picked up at a pet store in Georgia for me. I was describing him to a friend who suggested that I name him Elvis. I liked the idea, so I decided that would be an appropriate name, so Elvis it was.

    I took on Elvis and Sylan (Satin Silver) as the head bucks for my rodentry. I decided to try a new caging idea at this time, so I had housed Sylan and Elvis together in a large plastic storage bin with no lid. Just for the record, I had very docile males that were often able to be housed together, and Elvis and Sylan were no exceptions. The first night I tried this cage idea, Elvis got out.

    So, since I'm so bright, and can never learn a lesson the easy way, I decided to move the cage to a shelf, so that if Sylan got out, he wouldn't get off the shelf. In the meantime, I began searching high and low for Elvis. We had just moved into this house, and I knew he hadn't got out of the rodent room (which had an attached bathroom), but after searching it all over, could not find him. I did find a small hole that had been drilled into the floor to run cable. So I decided that Elvis must have gone down this hole and was no longer in the house.

    A couple of days later, I come in the rodent room to find Sylan also missing. I start really panicking, and can not find him anywhere. This is when I realized that there was a gap in between the shower door and the floor of the shower (which no one used). After looking, I saw evidence of mousey droppings, and thought maybe they had gone down the drain.

    My husband and I head to local hardware store to buy a humane mouse trap. We set it up in the kitchen, in the hopes that Sylan might still be in the house, convinced, of course, that Elvis is already long gone. The next morning, low and behold, Sylan is in the trap.

    However, his foot is extremely swollen, so I take him to the vet. I had to go to work, so I dropped him off at the vet's that morning and plan to pick him up that evening. The vet calls me and tells me that he has treated Sylan's foot, but that he was extremely dehydrated and he had also given him some sugar water. He calls me back that afternoon to tell me that Sylan had died, probably from stress and dehydration. I mention to the vet that I have another mouse that has been missing about a week now. The vet tells me that it is very unlikely that Elvis is still alive, but that if I do find him, to give him some sugar water, and keep him hydrated.

    A couple of more weeks pass by, and life goes on. One afternoon, I am sitting in the mouse room cleaning the cages, and all of a sudden I see something black shoot by.

    I immediately jump to my feet and yell "Elvis is alive!" Then I thank God that no one heard me say that. I proceed to catch Elvis and place him in a secure cage with plenty of food and water.

    A few months down the road is when I discovered that Elvis was completely sterile, so I sold him to a nice couple from Tupelo, MS. So Elvis is alive, and he went home.