On Sunday, animal rescuers from Germany’s Berufstierrettung Rhein Neckar received a call from a concerned family who’d spotted the chubby rat trapped in the hole of a sewage drain cover.

Evidently, he’d packed on a bit too much weight to squeeze himself out through the opening — and, at that moment, was caught in a futile struggle to wiggle himself free.

The rat’s desperation was pretty apparent. But he wasn’t without help for long.