Winnie was not the first rat I got, but she was the first one I lost. While big sister Miranda carried on boldly for more than three years, Winnie did not even make it to two. She had had her first tumor removed when she was less than a year old; toward the end she developed respiratory problems. At the time I didn’t have the heated tank that almost all my rats spontaneously gravitate to in their old age, and it had been an unusually chilly spring.