08.18.08
Posted in Medical, Memorials, Uncategorized at 10:11 am by ACR&S
On August 12, we got an email requesting us to take in a sick pig:
I’m desperate! I have a sick guinea pig and I will be leaving to go out of town on Thursday for a wedding that my daughter is in. I don’t know what to do as I had planned on leaving the pig with a neighbor but I now feel that she needs more care than an inexperinced person. I do not have the time or resources to take her to a vet. I suspect a possible jaw malocclusion as she tries to eat but cannot seem to chew. She has diarhea and is losing weight. I really just noticed today how sick she is.
Can you or do you know of anyone who can help? I don’t want to put her down.
Thanks,
Normally, we don’t take owner surrenders, and this attitude is exactly the reason why. If your pig is sick and you cannot afford medical care, euthanasia is the only humane choice. But this person was seeking to absolve themselves of responsibility by dumping their problems on someone else. By helping them, we reinforce that this is acceptable behavior, rather than making them deal with the consequences of their choices. But my NC coordinators both badly wanted to take this poor piggy in, so I agreed.
My Charlotte coordinator Andrea went to get the piggy, named Trixie, from the owner. This horrible person was not even willing to donate even a DOLLAR to help cover vet care costs. Why? Because she had just spent $1,000 on her horse, and her daughter was in this wedding and had to buy a dress, and they both had to fly out, and it was all SO expensive.
Incidentally, she was only feeding the pig the cheapest, seed-filled, Walmart-brand pellets, and baby cereal (unacceptable under any circumstances).
Trixie seemed to have a raging upper respiratory infection. We took her to the vet on August 13th and got Baytril and a general physical exam, which showed no problems with her teeth. Andrea syringe fed her, gave her subcues, and there seemed to be improvement over the next day or so. She was even eating hay and drinking a little water on her own. Then on August 15 she took a turn for the worse. Andrea put her on the floor for playtime and Trixie completely freaked out, hobbling and trembling and doing weird little jumps. It was like a seizure but it wasn’t steady, it was like a popcorn only she squealed each time, like she was in pain. It was anywhere from a few seconds to a whole minute or two in between each one. Eventually these subsided and she seemed calm again. But Andrea knew Trixie definitely had something wrong with her joints and her shoulders/legs, and needed an X-ray to diagnose.
First thing the next morning, Andrea got Trixie in with Dr. Lauren Powers, who is one of the best exotics vets in NC. They did the X-rays and the findings were unbelievable: Trixie had almost no bones left. Every bone in her body was degraded, showing a swiss-cheese pattern similar to the calcium-leeching disease osteodystrophy. Only Trixie was not a satin. Our regular vet in Cary reviewed the X-rays and asked if she had been starved. Presumably, her condition was caused by terrible malnutrition. As is common in OD, her bones and joints were probably causing her tremendous pain, to the point where it hurt even to eat.
All of us were in shock (including both vets). Andrea dosed her up with pain meds, but we finally decided she would probably need to be euthanized. There are a few reports of OD being reversed through calcium supplementation, but given the extent of the the damage, and the amount of pain she was already displaying, we didn’t think we could give her a reasonable quality of life long enough to reverse the bone damage. We decided to wait till Monday in case our vets or anyone on GL came up with any better ideas.
On August 17, Trixie chose her own ending. Andrea found her dead in her cage around 4pm EST.
I’m so sorry, Trixie. I’m sorry your former owner was so heartless as to starve you to death because you weren’t worth spending money on. I’m sorry that three vets, $200 in diagnostics and medications, and all of our tears and anguish over the last five days weren’t enough to save you and give you a chance at a better life. I hope you find peace, comfort, and plenty of good food as the newest member of Death’s herd. You will find many new friends waiting for you there as well.
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08.15.08
Posted in Memorials at 12:41 am by ACR&S
I’ve been keeping quiet, hoping to avoid attracting Death’s attention again, but it didn’t work. On August 13 we lost Chubby.
Chubby was #12 of the Jacksonville 48 rescue. He was a lovely pig, gold and agouti, and his only idiosyncrasy was that one day he randomly tried to murder the cagemate he’d been living with for over a year.
After that, we never successfully bonded him to any other pigs - he would go into full-on attack mode so quickly after starting an intro. He ended up living in a divided cage, which seemed to suit him fine. He could bully and swagger at the pigs on both sides, without having to work himself up too much. He was also incredibly lazy - his favorite game was pulling ALL the hay out of his manger, digging a nest, and eating his way out.
On the evening of the 13th we found that he had a hard lump on his belly. It was either a bowel obstruction, or a distended bladder. On the way to the e-vet he produced several lovely poops so we figured it was a bladder stone.
It was actually several stones. He had a huge, 4-5mm stone in his urethra, developing proto-stones in both of his kidneys, and an enormous 2cm calcification buried inside the lining of his bladder. The vet felt that there was almost no chance he would survive an operation to remove it, and we opted to euthanize.
Chubby was a funny, bossy pig who made up for his murderous ways by being very people-oriented. He was one of the tamest pigs we had, always ready for a nose rub or a c-tablet treat.
We’ll miss you, little guy. Say hi to all the others for us.
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08.01.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 8:04 am by ACR&S
Piglet, our little toothless wonder, has been chosen as Sponsor A Guinea Pig’s Piggy of the Month! SAGP is run by the same wonderful person who runs the two adopt-a-guinea-pig blogs we link to (down there, on your right). This blog spotlights Sanctuary piggies all over the country and helps draw attention to their special needs and the needs (especially financial) of the rescues who care for them. We’re so grateful to SAGP for this great publicity opportunity!
Piglet is still going in every month for an anesthetized molar trim (which is where all the monthly medical costs come from) , but we did have a great breakthrough in the last month - she’s started to eat baby lettuce all by herself, not even needing it cut up! Other veggies still give her trouble, and we still haven’t seen her show any interest in hay, but at this point, any progress is good progress.
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07.29.08
Posted in Medical at 1:58 am by ACR&S
Last week was pretty rough coming on the heels of the three losses we’ve had so far. About a week ago today, Roo, our big white New Zealand rabbit, started showing signs of an upper respiratory infection (sneezing, snuffling, etc). We scheduled him to go to the vet on Thursday the 24th. Then, on the morning of Wednesday the 23rd, I found our 10 year old bun Rosemarie with a wet bottom, likely caused by stones or kidney failure. She ended up being squeezed in that morning as an emergency case.
I was really not looking forward to two more deaths. But in both cases, we got lucky. Rosemary didn’t have kidney failure, she didn’t even have stones - just bladder sludge. This is a condition where calcium and other minerals become trapped in the bladder, but can be passed with a little extra hydration. We had to give her a week of subcu fluids and she’s now on a more restricted set of veggies. Unfortunately, she also went into stasis for a day or two after her vet visit - she wasn’t eating, and not producing any poops. She had to be handfed for several days, which she does not tolerate well.
Roo also came out lucky. He was also found to be drooling, and tooth problems came on the table. Combined with the nasal issues, it could have meant a tooth root abscess, which requires invasive surgery on the rare chance it’s not fatal. He ended up with - nothing at all! His teeth were perfect, and the vet saw no signs of URI, although we are culturing his nasal discharge, but it had already started to dry up by the time the visit occurred. It’s possible that he just had a bit of hay or water up his nose and there was nothing wrong even to start. Both rabbits are doing fine at this point, with seemingly no lingering symptoms.
It’s nice to catch a lucky break once and a while.
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07.24.08
Posted in Adoptions, Day-to-day, Medical at 12:33 am by Jenn
This past Saturday (July 19), Fozzie and Kismet, the longest fosters we have had at ACR&S since I became the local coordinator, went to their forever home.
Fozzie was from a litter of shelter pigs whose adopters contacted us for help in placement. Kismet was purchased pregnant from a big box pet store (you know, the ones that sell only one sex to prevent missexing?), but ended up being pregnant. Her owner dumped both her and her young son off at a dog rescue in South Carolina. Her son was adopted as a partner for an older male, and his new owner called us, distressed, asking us if we had room for Kismet.
So she caught several rides north and came to ACR&S, where she and a neutered Fozzie quickly became close friends.
But while other pigs were adopted, nobody seemed interested in this pair. Even older pigs who were considered “less” adoptable, like our 4 year old boys from a hoarder bust, found homes as Fozzie and Kismet were left behind.
This weekend, it quickly became clear that they were waiting for a special family of adopters to move cross country in order to find their perfect home! Jamie and her family opened up their hearts (and fridges) to the duo, and in a very short time it was clear that it was love as first sight.
They quickly settled in, and now their new mom says:
Right now Fozzie is on the couch and Kismet is mad that she is not out. I walked past her home and she ran up to me, she has learned fast that lap time = treat time.
Guinea pigs are lovable, but they are not above being mercenary with their affections. With the correct bribing, they do quickly learn that the loud bipeds who wander around generally come with food and are to be tolerated.
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07.23.08
Posted in Day-to-day at 10:33 am by Jenn
This is the story of Ferdinand the guinea pig, and how he came to an end at the hands of humans without compassion.
I was called on Tuesday, July 22rd, around 12pm on the rescue line at work. I listened to the voicemail when it came in. Two guys, working at a small office in a neighboring city, had come into possession of two guinea pigs. They had been found outside that morning, and could we come and pick them up? They admitted they were nice animals, but they had no experience or personal desire to keep said nice animals, and really felt like we knew more of what we were doing.
I asked some questions about their health to ascertain how emergent the situation was. He said their eyes were clear, they were moving around the cage, and that he couldn’t see any mucous caked around their noses, and that both were nibbling at food and that he heard the water bottle being used (and saw water disappearing, consequently). All of these things sounded completely normal for two very freaked out pigs who had just survived a night in the parking lot. I made plans to pick them up after work.
When I arrived, the very nice people at the office had actually made an emergency supply run to the local Walmart to procure some bedding, a water bottle, a cage, just for temporary use. But even with completely new supplies, the pigs smelled absolutely fetid.
I pulled each pig out in turn, checking sex to see if we were soon going to have a lot of stray pigs. Luckily, both were male.
The larger of the two seemed to be in fine shape. An almost completely black abbyssinian, he was big and frisky and chowing down heartily on the food they’d purchased for him. Unfortunately, nearly his entire underside was bald and covered with scabs. He appeared to have “urine scald”, which happens when animals stay in their own urine and feces for extended periods of time. The acidic nature of urine will actually burn the skin.
The second pig was not in good shape. He was much smaller, and for whatever reason, the entire ordeal had been much harder on him. When I picked him up, he flopped like a rag doll, and some clear liquid (perhaps water?) streamed out of his mouth onto my hand. I thanked the office profusely and told them we were going go the vet.
I arrived at our vet’s office 20 minutes later. Both pigs were examined, and the smaller one actually sat and retched repeatedly during his gentle palpations. I was told, basically, that he was not doing well, but that anything we could do may make him worse from stress. Take him home, give him pedialyte at room temperature, wait, and say a prayer to the deity of my choice. He was breathing in gasping, heaving breaths.
I arrived home at 5:30pm. Knowing that the smaller of the two pigs was not likely to survive, I enlisted Anthony to help me ready their living area. We quickly sat up my largest quarantine cage (much smaller than a C&C, but 3 times as large as the cage they had been in), and inserted the pigs. The bigger pig immediately started wolfing down pellets and nibbling at hay, but the smaller one was not interested.
He felt very cool to the touch. I got some Pedialyte that hadn’t made it into the fridge, got a 1CC syringe, and started slowly working some liquid into his system. While I did that, Anthony grabbed the laptop and we started looking for names. He deserved to have a name and a home if the worst happened. The horrible people who had abandoned him in a parking lot had taken everything from him — identity, home, health, and now even his hope. He deserved to have something of his own.
While browsing, we saw the name Ferdinand, and both of us were reminded of the book, “The Story of Ferdinand” about a bull who didn’t want to fight, but wanted to smell the flowers instead. This little guy certainly needed a bull’s strength, but had such a kind, patient eye, that the name seemed perfect. The actual meaning of Ferdinand was “to be courageous”. It was appropriate.
It took about an hour of careful syringing to get an entire CC into his poor little body. As I finished, he wheeked at me weakly, and gave me a small headbutt as I petted his head. I put him back into his cage so I could grab a quick bite of supper and then come back to continue nursing him.
30 minutes later, I heard him scream and saw him convulse. I knew it wasn’t good. I called Susan on my cell phone, and we decided to run for the emergency vet. He was probably going to have to be euthanized, but at least he wouldn’t be in agony for hours. I threw on my shoes and tucked him into a cat carrier, wrapped in a fleece. I called the vet on the phone to let them know I was coming.
I opened the carrier for the trip, and stuck my hand into the fleece so that he could feel me. His breathing had finally calmed down. About a mile out of my driveway, I felt him draw a deep, ragged breath. He seemed to sigh and laid his head down against my hand. I told him with a choked voice that it was ok to go, because I knew he was hurting. And then he died.
I pulled over into the parking lot of some warehouse and pulled him out of the carrier. I didn’t want to believe it. It wasn’t right that he should die. He didn’t do anything wrong. He was so young, only a baby. He couldn’t have been more than 7-8 months old. But he was gone. And I sat there with him for several minutes and cried.
I returned home with him. It was 7:24pm. I had known him for 3 hours, and now he was dead. He awaits burial in my freezer. It was pouring and lightning last night, so it wasn’t in the cards.
So this is the story of Ferdinand. Of a guinea pig that had everything taken from him, even his hope. And who was left in a way that made death the only option left for him.
Ferdinand left behind his buddy, Sullivan, the black abby pig. Sullivan is getting along very well, and eating with hearty appetite. He will be looking for his forever home very soon.
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07.22.08
Posted in Day-to-day, Philosophy at 2:11 am by ACR&S
Well, I recently posted about some of my early kitten-rescue days and I’ve been asked to elaborate on that story. It was my first experience working with an organized rescue, and really helped set the stage for later opening my own rescue, so here you go:
Back in 1998, I accidentally got involved in cat rescue. I was living in a smallish apartment complex in High Point, NC; small enough that my landlord lived in the apartment across from me. She was an animal lover, and knew I was too, although at this point I didn’t have any pets apart from my birds.
One morning my landlord called and said, “Um, can you come over? I need your help!” I trooped over and found that she had rescued a litter of five tiny baby kittens. There was some construction being done in the back of the complex, and they’d been huddled in the shade under a bulldozer. She had to move them or they would have been crushed. After several hours of not seeing any sign of the momma cat, the landlady gave up and brought them home.
She wanted to know if I knew anything about cats, and could I help her raise them. I told her what little I knew (that she needed to buy KMR [kitten milk replacement] and wipe their butts to get them to defecate). She asked me to take them - I balked, having never raised kittens, and not being particularly fond of them in the first place. Well, if I couldn’t take the kittens, could I help her find a home for this older cat that she had rescued a few months earlier?
So I started calling around, looking for rescues who would take or help us place this cat and the kittens. I found a group called Feral Cat Management (now the Feral Cat Assistance Program). The weren’t a shelter, they explained, but if my landlord and I could keep the cats as their foster parents, they could provide vet care, spay/neuter, even litter and food, and of course help with placement.
With my costs covered, I had no problem being talked into fostering my landlord’s older kitten. The landlord definitely had her hands full with five infants needing to be bottle-fed and butt-wiped, so even though it wasn’t my problem, I couldn’t refuse. Enter Belle, AKA Jezebel, dually named for her beauty and for the tawdry way she would stick her bottom in your face to be petted. She was about 4 months old, another kitten from the feral colony who lived behind the apartment complex.
After about a month, Belle was old enough to be spayed and start going to adoption events. At this point, my landlord begged me to take the five younger kittens. They were eating solid food and using a litterbox, so it wasn’t as bad as it would have been a month ago. I think she used the excuse that she had her own human baby, who was learning to walk and starting to require more active supervision. For whatever reason, I agreed, and now I had six crazy furballs in my house.
FCAP was as good as their word, and covered all my costs except toys and a few supplies. They helped me get one kitten after another placed, and I found that I really enjoyed helping them. I enjoyed going to adoption events, I enjoyed meeting adopters, I enjoyed watching the kittens explore their new homes. One by one, the herd dwindled.
Now, to reiterate: I had never before, as an adult, owned a cat. I didn’t even particularly like cats. But I was a sucker. And that was clear to the good folks at FCAP. I didn’t have cats of my own, therefore, I had no personal kitties who would be at risk if I could be persuaded to foster the, um, difficult cats. As the original Gang of Six started to be adopted, FCAP asked, or rather begged, me to take one cat after another who, for various reasons, couldn’t be placed into a foster home where the foster parent had cats of their own:
There was Abbie, who had explosive diarrhea of unknown origin. It got worse due to the very known origin of eating an entire pound cake while I was away for Christmas vacation (a pound cake given to me by the FCAP petsitter, left sitting on the counter by said petsitter, while I was out of town).
There was Yoda, who taught me that tapeworm eggs look just like sesame seeds.
There was Ghost, who at eight weeks old was the most hateful, feral little monster ever. He bit and scratched whenever he was handled; I still bear the scars. After three months he was among the friendliest cat I’d ever seen.
There was Maggie, who had ringworm. For sixteen weeks I had to bathe the cat, the laundry room, all her supplies, and myself, in bleach and sulfur dip, twice a day. I STILL caught a spot of it on my arm.
There was Tang, who had a urinary tract infection that had to be treated with antibiotic tablets. I learned that cats can have a pill shoved 8″ down their esophagus and still hork it back up without swallowing it. I also learned that a 170 lb adult male human is not stronger than a 3 lb kitten when the kitten is holding onto the underside of the couch and does not want to be pulled out to take his pill.
In just 10 months, I had fostered a total of 11 cats for FCAP. I had not had less than three foster cats in that entire time. If only I had known what I was getting into when I agreed to take that ONE, first kitten.
We started to think about moving to Chapel Hill, so I had to tell them that I needed to wind down my foster role. My last foster was in the early fall of 1999, a young adult cat with FIV. When she got adopted, it was so weird to come home and think I didn’t have a single litter box to clean, a single food bowl to fill.
Less than six months later, I met my first guinea pig…
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07.15.08
Posted in Memorials, Philosophy at 4:52 am by ACR&S
Here’s another tale from the very early days of rescue, sometime in early 2003. WARNING: this one might be considered a bit graphic for delicate sensibilities. Please proceed at your own risk.
One of my guinea pigs died unexpectedly on Sunday the 9th. I called over to the local vet school, to a friend who is a vet pathologist, to get a necropsy done. She agreed, but since this would be done on her own time and for free, I couldn’t take him into the clinic as I usually would for a necropsy. She instructed me to take him to a walk-in cooler located the maze of alleys behind the vet school. This cooler is left unlocked 24-7 for the various clinics to drop off their unclaimed, deceased animals after business hours; the vet students can then practice their budding surgical skills on them. I was instructed to put him in a box and label it, and she would pick it up the next time she was on call.
In her directions, she warned me that “there might be a carcass or two in there”. Now, I’ve worked at a vet clinic, and seen the inside of the clinic necropsy freezer, so this didn’t bother me - usually it means the animal was too big for a box, so you see a black plastic bag with the stiffened limbs of a dead cat or dog tenting up the plastic. This can be disconcerting if you come across it unexpectedly, but it’s not particularly disturbing.
I wasn’t able to take him over that same day, so I kept him in the fridge overnight, planning to take him to the cooler the following day. The next day, Monday, my boss had a meeting with an important sponsor, so I had to dress up at work - something I never have to do. I didn’t take time to change after work, as the vet school was about 45 minutes out of my way anyhow, so I’m traipsing out there, with my dead piggy in a box, wearing skirt and hose and heels.
Now, the cooler is not exactly where she said it would be - it’s supposed to be a big metal door on the left, but instead, it’s on the right. It’s also not marked. I finally see a tiny, hand-lettered sign that says “Refuse Cooler”. Refuse? Whatever. That must be it.
I got out of the car, with the sad little box containing my dead pig in hand. I was immediately aware of a strong smell. Not quite the stink of road kill, but definitely the scent of blood and death. Hoo boy. This must be the right place.
The cooler had this big metal door latch which you lift like an old-fashioned refrigerator handle. One-handed, it took me a few seconds of struggling with it to get it open. I pulled the door ajar and headed into the dimly-lit interior of the cooler.
The next events happened in the span of just a second or two, far less time than it takes to describe:
The cooler was about 10 feet wide, and about 20 deep. I could see the shelves, way back against the opposite wall, labeled necropsy boxes and bags here and there under the single, low-watt bulb. As I stepped over the threshold I saw a gleam at floor level. Another step, and it resolved itself into a horseshoe. What struck me, in that instant before recognition dawned, was that the shoe was shiny, bright metal. The horse wearing that shoe must have been newly shod and kept in a very clean stall for that shoe to be so pristine.
My eyes started to adjust; I take another half-step, and I see that the shoe was attached in the normal way to a hoof and leg. The leg was attached in the normal way to a body. The body was attached in the normal way to a head and three other legs, but also, in a most un-normal way, to a huge pile of intestines and other organs which were stacked neatly between the four outflung limbs. In the middle of the cooler, spanning it completely, was a dead, eviscerated horse.
I took a deep, reflexive breath - a mistake as that filled my lungs with the scent of old, raw meat. I backed over the threshold and slammed the door. I didn’t depress the latch properly and it rebounded open again. It took me three tries to get it to click shut. I think I must have looked a little panicky.
I had to stand on the edge of the loading dock and concentrate on not throwing up for a few seconds. It wasn’t that I was bothered by there being a horse in the middle of the damn floor. It wasn’t the fact that it was dead. It wasn’t even the fact that it was eviscerated. It was the overwhelming triple play: THERE IS A DEAD, EVISCERATED HORSE ALL OVER THE FREAKIN’ FREEZER. It was just utterly incongruous with all those shelves of neatly labeled bags and boxes.
Eventually I steeled myself and went back in. I just forced myself not look down, and focused on holding my skirt clear of the pile of innards. I had to step around the pile, over the front legs, and over the neck to get back to the shelves. A horse is a ENORMOUS animal when it’s laying, disemboweled, across the entire width of a 10-foot-wide cooler.
Despite keeping my eyes firmly fixed on the back wall, I did take in details peripherally. The horse had an IV line draped over its neck, needle still taped in place. It was brown (dark bay for you horsey people) and the mane and tail were neatly trimmed. The eyes were closed. There was no blood - apart from the gaping abdomen, the collapsed ribcage, and the tidy heap of entrails, it might have been asleep.
I put my pig in his box onto the shelf, and did the carefully avoidant little dance back to the door, thankfully without brushing up against any guts at all. On the way home I came to several mental conclusions:
1. It’s not everyday you get to use the word “eviscerated” to tell someone how your day went.
2. I had no desire to smell steak cooking ever again.
3. My vet-pathologist friend is a master of understatement.
Of course, after the shock wore off, I wondered about the horse and its fate. Had it been ill? Why was it disemboweled - was it a difficult birth gone horribly wrong? If there was a foal, did they save it? This was just a macabre minor chapter in my story, but it was the climax of someone else’s tragedy.
To this day, I am struck by the clean, shiny shoes; the trimmed, brushed mane and tail; the closed eyes; the incredible, bizarre neatness of the piled organs. That horse was not “refuse”; someone loved it and cared for it and treated it with dignity, right up to the moment they closed the cooler door on its body.
But sometimes, you just don’t get to find out how the story ends.
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07.11.08
Posted in Memorials at 1:28 am by ACR&S
Sharp on the heels of Tilly’s loss came another: On July 3, we had to euthanize our oldest Sanctuary resident, BunBun. He would have been 12 years old in September.
Here’s the story of how he came to us, from an earlier post:
BunBun was found by a police officer who was doing a check at a school after a hurricane. He was in an outdoor, wire-floor hutch with a broken-in roof, mounds of droppings and dead chickens underneath, no water or hay, and moldy pellets. We accepted him after he was seized, and contacted the school - they were out on break, the teacher who owned him thought a neighbor kid was taking care of him, “but maybe he got busy with vacation”.
She told me he was eight years old and had always been “perfectly happy” in those conditions.
I cried at hearing this, when I hadn’t cried before at seeing the filth he lived in. He had lived for eight years in a tiny, outdoor hutch, in increasingly abominable conditions.
There was NO way in hell I was going to be able to place an eight year old rabbit. He had tumors that had to be removed. He wasn’t litter trained at all. His teeth were horrible. Rabbits only live 8-12 years, he could die a week after being adopted.
But he was a sweet, affectionate, playful animal. He literally danced the first day he was in his big new pen. He made friends with a grieving rabbit who had just lost a mate. After his teeth were trimmed, he showed that he loved chewing up boxes.
I could have euthanized him. But I decided that I didn’t want him going straight from squalor to death, not with the beautiful personality he showed. He deserved at least one shot at a good life.
I’ve done everything possible to be sure BunBun had that good life. He has had friends, a huge pen, extra treats and scritches. But it’s been clear for the last six months or so that he’s been slowing down. His eyes have been clouding with developing cataracts. He’s not able to clean or groom his rear end, requiring lots of assisted grooming regular trims.
Most concerning has been that in the past 2-3 months, there have been times when BunBun has had a hard time standing up. I’d occasionally find him laying in his litterbox with all the litter kicked to the sides as if he had been struggling. Or he’d be laying with his front feet on the coroplast and his back feet on his rug, and seemed unable to get enough traction to stand up without help. I’d pick him up and set him upright, and he’d shake himself and hop off, but it’s been evident that he was starting to lose control of his hindquarters.
On July 2, the evening we got home after losing Tilly, BunBun didn’t get up when I shook the bottle of papaya treats. I picked him up, and he flopped right back down into a laying position. I checked his underside, and it was crusted with cecals - he hadn’t moved for several hours. I knew it was time, but I wasn’t quite ready to lose him on the heels of Tilly. I gave him fluids and critical care, cuddled with him for the rest of the evening, and then set him in his litterbox with water and pellets at hand so his friends Roo and Gracie could say goodbye too.
The next morning, I drove him to the vet with both of his friends accompanying him. The vet didn’t even need to examine him to agree that his body was dying, and all we could do was ease his passing. She euthanized him and we returned the body to the carrier with his friends - rabbits who see the dead body of a friend are better able to understand their loss, and seem to suffer their grief less. After we got home, I left the body in the cage with them until they seemed to start avoiding it. I was certainly grateful for our new arrival Gracie at that moment; she snuggled with Roo and seemed to share his concern, even though she hadn’t known BunBun more than a few weeks.
Bad things happen in clusters, it seems. This morning, July 10, we lost Cookie. He was one of the Jacksonville 48, a group of young males dumped in summer 2005 by an irresponsible backyard breeder.
When Cookie came in, he was the smallest and thinnest pig, at barely over 400 grams. That’s emaciated for an intact, year-old male. All four of his incisors were broken off at the gumline, and he couldn’t eat on his own; plus he had a URI. It took nearly four months of handfeeding and subcu fluids and antibiotics to get him eating on his own and gaining weight.
He was neutered and bonded with a little girl, Ms Piggy, and the two were adopted in January 2006. In April 2007 the adopter returned them - she had adopted two human children and no longer had time for them. They were ungroomed and fairly thin, so we decided to send them up as Sanctuary animals to get them healthy.
Unfortunately Cookie never seemed to be able to put on weight like a normal piggy. He was always bony despite a diet of unlimited pellets and alfalfa for extra calories. We did an extensive work up, and teeth, stones, and other typical culprits were ruled out, and we were left with a diagnosis of “failure to thrive”.
Despite this, Cookie was an affectionate, entertaining piggy. He was the loudest wheeker when veggies and food came around, and so patient about having his fur trimmed and his beard washed (he was a messy eater). He was very fond of his partner Ms Piggy.
Cookie has been sleeping more and more over the last few weeks and although his weight has been steady, I guessed his time was drawing near. This morning I found him dead in his cage, curled up in his favorite sleeping place. Necropsy revealed that his cecum (part of the bowel) was necrotic, as if it had been twisted. However, no twisting was evident. There is a condition in humans called volvulus in which the bowel is not correctly fixed to the abdominal wall and can twist and untwist during the person’s life until it is discovered and surgically corrected. This is a birth defect, and the likelihood of this is increased by the fact that another of the Jacksonville 48 died shortly after intake, of the same cecal torsion. It’s also possible that Cookie had an intestinal wall disease causing the bowel to degrade this way. Biopsies have been taken, which may help us discover the underlying cause.
It is both heartening and disappointing to know that this was not something we could have discovered through all the usual tests we did. It’s not something I just missed, which is always a worry with these little guys. But I wish these serious illnesses weren’t so invisible; I could have saved him so much discomfort if we had the same kind of diagnostics for piggies as we have for humans.
It’s been a very sad week. It mostly just seems so unfair to me that these patient, loving animals had to live through years of neglect and misery before someone came around who would give him the life they deserved. I really hope their last years eclipsed the previous ones. But at least I know without a shadow of a doubt that it was their own time to go, and I made it as easy for them as I could. I’m not sad for them, I’m sad for me:
“When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”
– Kahlil Gibran
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07.10.08
Posted in Adoptions at 7:43 am by Jenn
Congratulations to Mia Hamm and her new mom and dad, Carrie and Michael!
Mia Hamm got to go home for the holidays on July 4th. Carrie and Michael had just lost their special hamster buddy Freddie, and saw Mia on our Petfinder and were smitten! They quickly filled out an application, went through our approval process, and then excitedly waited to meet their new buddy.
According to Carrie, Mia has settled in very well! She already climbs out of her cage and into her new dad’s hands, and has consented to use their hamster ball! (Carrie and Michael must have magic powers, Mia looked at me like I was loony when I tried to let her use a hamster ball…) She has continued her wheel-based exercise regiment, and seems perfectly at home.
Mia originally came from a local shelter, abandoned with several other hamsters in their overnight box. Everybody else was adopted, but they left Mia behind! ACR&S took her in to allow them more room for small animals, and to socialize her more extensively (although she was already ridiculously friendly). We’re happy that she has found her new place where she can be spoiled and cuddled as she deserves!
Also, in case you haven’t noticed, we at ACR&S have a penchant for a good pun. Mia is named after real life soccer player, Mia Hamm. We have also had a rabbit named Paula Bunyan. It’s ok, groan away.
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My Charlotte coordinator Andrea went to get the piggy, named Trixie, from the owner. This horrible person was not even willing to donate even a DOLLAR to help cover vet care costs. Why? Because she had just spent $1,000 on her horse, and her daughter was in this wedding and had to buy a dress, and they both had to fly out, and it was all SO expensive.
First thing the next morning, Andrea got Trixie in with Dr. Lauren Powers, who is one of the best exotics vets in NC. They did the X-rays and the findings were unbelievable: Trixie had almost no bones left. Every bone in her body was degraded, showing a swiss-cheese pattern similar to the calcium-leeching disease osteodystrophy. Only Trixie was not a satin. Our regular vet in Cary reviewed the X-rays and asked if she had been starved. Presumably, her condition was caused by terrible malnutrition. As is common in OD, her bones and joints were probably causing her tremendous pain, to the point where it hurt even to eat.
