Guinea pigs are arseholes, But it's not really their fault, instinctually they are just arseholes at least to us humans.
In my last post, I talked about the passing of perhaps the greatest guinea pig to have ever lived, Max. At the time I really didn't feel like going into details on what happened and everything was still rather raw and it really wasn't the place to talk about what ultimately caused his passing.
There is something you should know about guinea pigs: They are prey animals and any sign of sickness or injury can often see them picked off by a preditor. This especially means that they have a tendency to hide any sickness or injury pretty damn well and that is exactly what Max did this. If Max was in a group of guinea pigs, even at full health I'm pretty sure he would have been voted "guinea pig most likely to be picked off first " because he was just so chilled and relaxed.
About a year or so ago now, Max hurt his back leg. We took him to the vets and he was on some painkillers for about a couple of months. He was also put on a small dose of a calcium supplement and he finished his course of both and we thought nothing more of it.
Fast forward to Monday last week and we had gotten him out for a cuddle on Monday evening and we noticed a small amount of blood in his urine so we booked an appointment at the vets expecting that he would have a UTI be put on a course of antibiotics and all would be good. The vet did an ultrasound and found he had a bladder stone. These are pretty bad news for a guinea pig at the best of times, but this one was very different. Rather than just being a small thing, this literally took up 98% of his bladder. After talking with the vet, we decided to operate as there was a pretty high chance of successfully removing the stone and recovery.
All the time he had that stone inside of his bladder, there was absolutely no outward sign of discomfort or pain and he was just Max. After operating his recovery started well, he showed signs of wanting to eat once the anaesthetic had worn of seemed quite bright given all that he had been through, what little vegies he was eating were being supplemented every 2 hours with some critical care (A complete nutrition slurry that keeps their digestive system going). He went back to the vets the next day and had a check-up and another painkiller injection. This night was the worst one, it seemed every time we looked in on him he would get worse and worse. Again back to the vets that morning. After talking to her for just under an hour we came to the decision to let Max go. He had fought hard and so had we, neither of us had had more than an hour or two of sleep in the previous days and we just couldn't watch him waste away in front of our eyes. There were a lot of tears as we both said our final goodbyes to him and Max drifted off to sleep one final time.
He may be gone, but he will never be forgotten, this small little pig will always have the biggest place in my heart
In my last post, I talked about the passing of perhaps the greatest guinea pig to have ever lived, Max. At the time I really didn't feel like going into details on what happened and everything was still rather raw and it really wasn't the place to talk about what ultimately caused his passing.
There is something you should know about guinea pigs: They are prey animals and any sign of sickness or injury can often see them picked off by a preditor. This especially means that they have a tendency to hide any sickness or injury pretty damn well and that is exactly what Max did this. If Max was in a group of guinea pigs, even at full health I'm pretty sure he would have been voted "guinea pig most likely to be picked off first " because he was just so chilled and relaxed.
About a year or so ago now, Max hurt his back leg. We took him to the vets and he was on some painkillers for about a couple of months. He was also put on a small dose of a calcium supplement and he finished his course of both and we thought nothing more of it.
Fast forward to Monday last week and we had gotten him out for a cuddle on Monday evening and we noticed a small amount of blood in his urine so we booked an appointment at the vets expecting that he would have a UTI be put on a course of antibiotics and all would be good. The vet did an ultrasound and found he had a bladder stone. These are pretty bad news for a guinea pig at the best of times, but this one was very different. Rather than just being a small thing, this literally took up 98% of his bladder. After talking with the vet, we decided to operate as there was a pretty high chance of successfully removing the stone and recovery.
All the time he had that stone inside of his bladder, there was absolutely no outward sign of discomfort or pain and he was just Max. After operating his recovery started well, he showed signs of wanting to eat once the anaesthetic had worn of seemed quite bright given all that he had been through, what little vegies he was eating were being supplemented every 2 hours with some critical care (A complete nutrition slurry that keeps their digestive system going). He went back to the vets the next day and had a check-up and another painkiller injection. This night was the worst one, it seemed every time we looked in on him he would get worse and worse. Again back to the vets that morning. After talking to her for just under an hour we came to the decision to let Max go. He had fought hard and so had we, neither of us had had more than an hour or two of sleep in the previous days and we just couldn't watch him waste away in front of our eyes. There were a lot of tears as we both said our final goodbyes to him and Max drifted off to sleep one final time.
He may be gone, but he will never be forgotten, this small little pig will always have the biggest place in my heart
