Billye put this together very quickly in MS Paint, LOL. He says it's very silly, but I think it's quite cute (and funny).
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Happy Halloween (in advance)!
Truffle, Omelet and Dumbo all want to wish you and your family a very happy and safe Halloween this year! We wish that Tommy could be here for Halloween so that the entire brood can look for treats together. Love you so much, Tommy!
A completely random and NAG (Not About Guinea pigs) post.
I saw this weird-looking insect jumping around spiritedly when Billye and I were out and about in Brooklyn yesterday afternoon. He said it was a grasshopper. I instantly named him Louie (he looked like a Louie). Louie kept jumping and hitting himself against the wall of an apartment building. :( After a bit, I pulled a ziplock bag and napkin out of my purse and handed it to Billye so he could guide the little guy to plastic safety and away from concrete danger. We rode home on the bus with Billye clutching the bag and keeping a close eye on Louie. When we arrived back in our neighborhood, Billye released Louie into his new home, a garden that belongs to the Catholic church near our building. Billye had wanted to keep Louie in a jar for at least one day but we decided it was best that he get released ASAP. We hope Louie is safe and sound and thriving in that church garden!
Odie. <3 My brother's/family dog. He is four and a half years old now. He loves to eat and beg for food. Here he is hoping Billye will give him a piece of chicken from his Domino's pizza slice. I hereby declare Odie to be an honorary guinea pig (albeit with a big bushy tail!).
Dumbo takes his antibiotic and Omelet takes... a bath.
From last Sunday (October 17):
Being a good sport by taking his meds with minimal 'wheeking'! Thank you for your cooperation, Dumbo! :-D
"Just so you human thingies know, I really HATE having that dumb syringe poked in my face!"
Dumbo gets rewarded with chew blocks for being on his best behavior during Medicine Time. :-)
"I'm ready for my closeup, you human thingies."
Not exactly happy, but extremely squeaky clean! :-D No more poopy butt.
"Where's my baby carrot? I'm soaking wet and have nothing to show for it?"
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Tommy photos.
The photos below are the most recent ones we have of Tommy. Most of these were taken during the summer (July/August). The quality is crappy because they were taken using my camera phone, which is a "dumb phone" (i.e., NOT a "smart phone"). (Hehe, I do like my dumb phone, though).
Billye made me take this one. Where's Tommy? Hmmm... (Yes, Billye stuck him in the freezer. For a split second or two. To cool off from the scorching hotness of a July morning.)
One of my absolute favorites of Tommy. I find guinea pig lips and nostrils to be so utterly charming and endearing. Here is a fine example. :)
Hiding under the (Billye's) blanket. This was from May, I believe. Hiding under the blankets on the bed was one of his all-time favorite pastimes.
Munching on a baby carrot at the end of August. He was in the prime of his health here.
Sitting on my lap.
Looking ever so adorable. :]
XOXO.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Critical to have some Critical Care on standby.
As guinea pig owners, those caring for piglets should always have on hand a bag of Oxbow Critical Care for when your guinea pig stops eating on its own and you need to take charge of the situation. We learned this the hard way.
I tried tracking Critical Care down on Oxbow's website, but they do not seem to sell it directly to the consumer (or, in this case, pet owner, ha - imagine guinea pigs doing online shopping, ha!). They recommend you visit your vet to obtain a supply of CC so that your vet can properly examine and diagnose your piggy.
However, I managed to circumvent that whole process by ordering a backup bag online after doing a Google search. Quite possibly, this might just save a piggy's life if you can catch him doing a food strike just in time!
It's basically a complete daily diet of the food your pig normally eats - hay and vitamin C in powder form. You add one part of the Critical Care to two parts warm water, mix it together and suck it into an open syringe. It smells horribly! (The original - anise - flavor does anyway.) There is a second flavor, apple and banana, but by the time I got around to ordering it, it was all sold out.
The avian and exotics place we went to on the Upper West Side prescribed this for Tommy (his bag expires this month, so we sadly cannot use it for any of our other piggies if needed). He did not seem to like it. I wouldn't either. But if piggies cannot eat on their own, this is the only thing that will get them by for the time-being.
I tried tracking Critical Care down on Oxbow's website, but they do not seem to sell it directly to the consumer (or, in this case, pet owner, ha - imagine guinea pigs doing online shopping, ha!). They recommend you visit your vet to obtain a supply of CC so that your vet can properly examine and diagnose your piggy.
However, I managed to circumvent that whole process by ordering a backup bag online after doing a Google search. Quite possibly, this might just save a piggy's life if you can catch him doing a food strike just in time!
It's basically a complete daily diet of the food your pig normally eats - hay and vitamin C in powder form. You add one part of the Critical Care to two parts warm water, mix it together and suck it into an open syringe. It smells horribly! (The original - anise - flavor does anyway.) There is a second flavor, apple and banana, but by the time I got around to ordering it, it was all sold out.
The avian and exotics place we went to on the Upper West Side prescribed this for Tommy (his bag expires this month, so we sadly cannot use it for any of our other piggies if needed). He did not seem to like it. I wouldn't either. But if piggies cannot eat on their own, this is the only thing that will get them by for the time-being.
Friday, October 15, 2010
More on Tommy's final days...
In my inaugural post here on Blogger, I never actually explained what happened to Tommy other than to inform that his untimely passing was the result of an accidental injury. I never like to do anything halfway, so allow me to explain.
On the night of Saturday, September 25, 2010, Billye was in the midst of putting Tommy back in his cage. Just as he was hovering over the cage in Billye's hands, he suddenly and without warning leaped at full force and smashed his face into the wire wall of his cage, giving a pained cry and sliding the rest of the way down. Billye panicked and scolded him; he promptly fed Tommy a baby carrot to calm him down. He took the offering, gobbled it up and everything seemed perfectly normal.
Neither I nor Billye can recall Tommy behaving out of the ordinary in the couple of days following that incident. I fed all the piglets watermelon the next day and do remember Tommy eating it. Little did we know that everything was unraveling before our eyes.
Fast-forward to the morning of Wednesday, September 29. Billye pointed out that Tommy had all but stopped eating and drinking. We knew something was not right here. We tried to narrow down the possible causes to just a select few. That evening, we came home with a pack of feeding syringes, intent on making Tommy some self-concocted "poop soup" (a watery poop mash with fresh poop donated by his good friend Truffle). Poop from a healthy guinea pig (like Truffle) is supposed to act as a probiotic, helping to support the gut flora in guinea pigs. Allegedly, it's also supposed to whet their appetite (?!). I do not think Tommy enjoyed his poop soup at all, but all of us had little choice. The only things he ate that whole night going into the wee hours of the next morning were about 85-90 percent of a baby carrot and some small leaves of kale. Tommy usually had a voracious appetite, especially for fresh produce. It was heart-wrenching to see him behave this way. This was not the Tommy we knew.
Around 4:15AM the following day (Thursday, September 30), Billye made a call to the 24-hour emergency animal hospital in a nearby neighborhood. For seemingly the umpteenth time the receptionist once again said they did not have any exotic vet/guinea pig specialist on staff. Tommy at this point outright refused to eat anything, even his beloved baby carrots or watermelon.
We rushed him early that morning to an exotics hospital on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The vet who examined him could not tell what was wrong with him just by checking his vitals and palpating his stomach. So the next step, she advised, was to do an x-ray. She also highly recommended an overnight stay because she stated that we would not be able to care for him in the dire condition that he was in. We consented.
The x-rays (of his body) came back later that afternoon and it managed to capture part of his face. It showed a good deal of soft tissue swelling in his right jaw. This was the reason Tommy had stopped eating. The vet had tried to imply that Tommy had some kind of latent or underlying health problems that accounted for the total food stoppage, but even just one week prior to this whole situation unfolding, he was as healthy, vibrant and energetic as could be. After our experience with that avian and exotics place on the UWS, I started having my doubts about their competence, but I think the end result (i.e., Tommy's passing) might have colored my perspective, so I should reserve judgment for now.
We brought him back home the following day (Friday, October 1). I did get a phone update from the nurse and vet on duty that day (not the one Tommy had originally seen). The nurse didn't sound overly optimistic, saying Tommy was "doing OK." I asked the vet how long in general it should take for a situation like Tommy's to start improving and for us to see him start eating again on his own. She said, "I would say by early next week," which would have put him at Monday/Tuesday. This prognosis buoyed my spirits a bit. The entire weekend following his discharge was extremely stressful and difficult, however. Billye had no choice but to work over the next two days and it was up to me during those hours to try my hardest to nurse Tommy back to health.
I will always remember Tommy's reaction upon being reunited with his home. He kept vibrating and doing his characteristic territorial roaming when he saw Truffle. In fact, he would not go inside his pigloo for the first hour and a half after coming home! I put some hay in his hay basket and a small handful of pellets into his food bowl to see if he would want to eat. He was not at all interested in the hay, but when I filled his food bowl with the pellets, he actually went over and picked a pellet up and chewed for a good five minutes (I think it required absolutely painstaking effort to chew even just one pellet). His determination brought me to tears. I thought he was possibly on the mend. But this determination was short-lived - false hope, if you will. Throughout that weekend, we gave him his pain and promotility meds, syringe-fed him round the clock, hand-fed him water and baby food, all in vain, it would soon turn out.
When we went to bed that Sunday night, we didn't know those next handful of hours would be Tommy's very last. I got up at about 2:15AM on Monday, October 4, because of some acid reflux. At 2:30AM, I nudged Billye awake to see if he wanted to give Tommy some more of his syringe feed. He looked exhausted, but managed to nod a yes. I got the syringe ready and Billye went to Tommy's cage to pick him up. He placed him on his chest. At that point, Tommy collapsed over and fell to one side. We were both in shock. We sensed the end was near for Tommy. Then Billye put Tommy on my blanket, something Tommy has always loved for its softness and cuddle potential. :) He tried to walk further up the blanket, but his back legs had completely given out and all he could do was drag himself by his front paws. His breathing, I noticed, had become more intense and labored than ever. Each breath he took was a heavy one. I made a couple calls at that point, one to leave a voicemail for the vet to let them know what was going on and then the next to the same 24-hour emergency animal hospital that we already knew did not staff regular exotic vets. The receptionist said their general doc would be happy to take a look and I told her that I did not think our guinea pig would be able to survive the stress of the bus commute, so what should I do? She simply replied, "I cannot help you over the phone." A short while later, about 3:20AM, Tommy passed away.
We buried Tommy near Pepper, Billye's hamster, in a remote part of Forest Park, somewhere out in the vastness of Queens. (That park is HUGE. I don't even know what area of Queens that park is, it runs through so many parts!) It was a very hard and heart-breaking final farewell. I never thought Tommy would be leaving us so soon. His death was an instant reminder that life is indeed fragile and fleeting. In my mind, Tommy would progress through the various stages of life, growing from a baby piggy into a grandpa pig at perhaps the ripe old age of 5, 6, or maybe even 7! And yet he left before he was able to make it to his second birthday. However, we were very blessed to have been part of his life. We tried our best always to give him a loving and warm home. Billye and Tommy were inseparable. Their love for each other was too obvious and genuine. I miss Tommy very much and could not have foreseen this at all.
I love you, Tommy. I think about you every day and wish you could be here again.
On the night of Saturday, September 25, 2010, Billye was in the midst of putting Tommy back in his cage. Just as he was hovering over the cage in Billye's hands, he suddenly and without warning leaped at full force and smashed his face into the wire wall of his cage, giving a pained cry and sliding the rest of the way down. Billye panicked and scolded him; he promptly fed Tommy a baby carrot to calm him down. He took the offering, gobbled it up and everything seemed perfectly normal.
Neither I nor Billye can recall Tommy behaving out of the ordinary in the couple of days following that incident. I fed all the piglets watermelon the next day and do remember Tommy eating it. Little did we know that everything was unraveling before our eyes.
Fast-forward to the morning of Wednesday, September 29. Billye pointed out that Tommy had all but stopped eating and drinking. We knew something was not right here. We tried to narrow down the possible causes to just a select few. That evening, we came home with a pack of feeding syringes, intent on making Tommy some self-concocted "poop soup" (a watery poop mash with fresh poop donated by his good friend Truffle). Poop from a healthy guinea pig (like Truffle) is supposed to act as a probiotic, helping to support the gut flora in guinea pigs. Allegedly, it's also supposed to whet their appetite (?!). I do not think Tommy enjoyed his poop soup at all, but all of us had little choice. The only things he ate that whole night going into the wee hours of the next morning were about 85-90 percent of a baby carrot and some small leaves of kale. Tommy usually had a voracious appetite, especially for fresh produce. It was heart-wrenching to see him behave this way. This was not the Tommy we knew.
Around 4:15AM the following day (Thursday, September 30), Billye made a call to the 24-hour emergency animal hospital in a nearby neighborhood. For seemingly the umpteenth time the receptionist once again said they did not have any exotic vet/guinea pig specialist on staff. Tommy at this point outright refused to eat anything, even his beloved baby carrots or watermelon.
We rushed him early that morning to an exotics hospital on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The vet who examined him could not tell what was wrong with him just by checking his vitals and palpating his stomach. So the next step, she advised, was to do an x-ray. She also highly recommended an overnight stay because she stated that we would not be able to care for him in the dire condition that he was in. We consented.
The x-rays (of his body) came back later that afternoon and it managed to capture part of his face. It showed a good deal of soft tissue swelling in his right jaw. This was the reason Tommy had stopped eating. The vet had tried to imply that Tommy had some kind of latent or underlying health problems that accounted for the total food stoppage, but even just one week prior to this whole situation unfolding, he was as healthy, vibrant and energetic as could be. After our experience with that avian and exotics place on the UWS, I started having my doubts about their competence, but I think the end result (i.e., Tommy's passing) might have colored my perspective, so I should reserve judgment for now.
We brought him back home the following day (Friday, October 1). I did get a phone update from the nurse and vet on duty that day (not the one Tommy had originally seen). The nurse didn't sound overly optimistic, saying Tommy was "doing OK." I asked the vet how long in general it should take for a situation like Tommy's to start improving and for us to see him start eating again on his own. She said, "I would say by early next week," which would have put him at Monday/Tuesday. This prognosis buoyed my spirits a bit. The entire weekend following his discharge was extremely stressful and difficult, however. Billye had no choice but to work over the next two days and it was up to me during those hours to try my hardest to nurse Tommy back to health.
I will always remember Tommy's reaction upon being reunited with his home. He kept vibrating and doing his characteristic territorial roaming when he saw Truffle. In fact, he would not go inside his pigloo for the first hour and a half after coming home! I put some hay in his hay basket and a small handful of pellets into his food bowl to see if he would want to eat. He was not at all interested in the hay, but when I filled his food bowl with the pellets, he actually went over and picked a pellet up and chewed for a good five minutes (I think it required absolutely painstaking effort to chew even just one pellet). His determination brought me to tears. I thought he was possibly on the mend. But this determination was short-lived - false hope, if you will. Throughout that weekend, we gave him his pain and promotility meds, syringe-fed him round the clock, hand-fed him water and baby food, all in vain, it would soon turn out.
When we went to bed that Sunday night, we didn't know those next handful of hours would be Tommy's very last. I got up at about 2:15AM on Monday, October 4, because of some acid reflux. At 2:30AM, I nudged Billye awake to see if he wanted to give Tommy some more of his syringe feed. He looked exhausted, but managed to nod a yes. I got the syringe ready and Billye went to Tommy's cage to pick him up. He placed him on his chest. At that point, Tommy collapsed over and fell to one side. We were both in shock. We sensed the end was near for Tommy. Then Billye put Tommy on my blanket, something Tommy has always loved for its softness and cuddle potential. :) He tried to walk further up the blanket, but his back legs had completely given out and all he could do was drag himself by his front paws. His breathing, I noticed, had become more intense and labored than ever. Each breath he took was a heavy one. I made a couple calls at that point, one to leave a voicemail for the vet to let them know what was going on and then the next to the same 24-hour emergency animal hospital that we already knew did not staff regular exotic vets. The receptionist said their general doc would be happy to take a look and I told her that I did not think our guinea pig would be able to survive the stress of the bus commute, so what should I do? She simply replied, "I cannot help you over the phone." A short while later, about 3:20AM, Tommy passed away.
We buried Tommy near Pepper, Billye's hamster, in a remote part of Forest Park, somewhere out in the vastness of Queens. (That park is HUGE. I don't even know what area of Queens that park is, it runs through so many parts!) It was a very hard and heart-breaking final farewell. I never thought Tommy would be leaving us so soon. His death was an instant reminder that life is indeed fragile and fleeting. In my mind, Tommy would progress through the various stages of life, growing from a baby piggy into a grandpa pig at perhaps the ripe old age of 5, 6, or maybe even 7! And yet he left before he was able to make it to his second birthday. However, we were very blessed to have been part of his life. We tried our best always to give him a loving and warm home. Billye and Tommy were inseparable. Their love for each other was too obvious and genuine. I miss Tommy very much and could not have foreseen this at all.
I love you, Tommy. I think about you every day and wish you could be here again.
Truffle gets reweighed for the camera...
Here is the little guy, Mr. Truffle-licious, himself, getting reweighed by Billye earlier this morning on the new scale bought exclusively for the pigs.
I think he looks quite handsome and darling here. He groomed himself very well because he knew all eyes would be on him for this weigh-in. 2 lbs 13 oz, one ounce heavier than 1.5 days ago. (Their weights are supposed to fluctuate ever so slightly throughout the day.) Good job, Truff! (He's sitting in the bread pan used for baking, ha.)
I think he looks quite handsome and darling here. He groomed himself very well because he knew all eyes would be on him for this weigh-in. 2 lbs 13 oz, one ounce heavier than 1.5 days ago. (Their weights are supposed to fluctuate ever so slightly throughout the day.) Good job, Truff! (He's sitting in the bread pan used for baking, ha.)
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Weights are in...
Billye bought a food scale from K-mart yesterday and we weighed the pigs.
Surprisingly, Dumbo is 2 lbs. 9 oz! At Vinegar Hill on Sunday, they said he was 2 lbs. 1 oz?!
Here's the results that floored me: Omelet is actually heavier than Truffle. Whoa, did not see that one coming from anywhere! Omelet is almost THREE pounds (2 lbs 15 oz.) and Truffle is slightly less at 2 lbs 12 oz.
I do think Omelet feels noticeably lighter than Truffle and yet he is the fatter one... humph.
Surprisingly, Dumbo is 2 lbs. 9 oz! At Vinegar Hill on Sunday, they said he was 2 lbs. 1 oz?!
Here's the results that floored me: Omelet is actually heavier than Truffle. Whoa, did not see that one coming from anywhere! Omelet is almost THREE pounds (2 lbs 15 oz.) and Truffle is slightly less at 2 lbs 12 oz.
I do think Omelet feels noticeably lighter than Truffle and yet he is the fatter one... humph.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Dumbo is in the clear!
We took our youngest (LOL, I started typing "dumbest"!) one, Dumbo, to a place we've never been to yesterday afternoon. It's Vinegar Hill Veterinary Group out in DUMBO (not kidding :P), Brooklyn. Billye said that the technician thought he was prank-calling her when she asked for the animal's name and he answered, "Dumbo." Hehe.
We suspected he had a recurring upper respiratory infection as he would cough on and off during these last couple of months. His vet, Dr. Sara Neuman, seems like a great doctor and lady. I have my fingers crossed hoping she's a keeper. She was quite skilled with Dumbo and received him warmly and fondly in the examination room. She prescribed Sulfatrim for him and said she is partial to that med. She had a great bedside manner and seemed confident and knowledgeable. I thought it was quirky when she chose to divulge gossip about a fellow vet. It made it easier to connect with her. :)
It's been extremely challenging trying to track down vets that specialize in exotic pets here in NYC (such irony!), but right now I feel good about Dr. Neuman and her capabilities. She did say that she does make referrals, at least with G pigs, if she doesn't think she can handle the case presented to her.
Dumbo is doing well. His weigh-in was 2 lbs., 1 oz. He saw part of DUMBO, the Bridge and the promenade. He is slowly becoming a worldly piglet. He was really pooped when he arrived home. I think he hates the noise of the train because he'd run like crazy from one end of his carrier to the other. The gal on the train sitting next to me was excited when he darted from one side to the other. She yanked her earphones out of her ears to ask whether he was a dog and looked like she wanted to pee on herself from giddiness when I replied, "No, it's a guinea pig." People are funny sometimes. :)
We suspected he had a recurring upper respiratory infection as he would cough on and off during these last couple of months. His vet, Dr. Sara Neuman, seems like a great doctor and lady. I have my fingers crossed hoping she's a keeper. She was quite skilled with Dumbo and received him warmly and fondly in the examination room. She prescribed Sulfatrim for him and said she is partial to that med. She had a great bedside manner and seemed confident and knowledgeable. I thought it was quirky when she chose to divulge gossip about a fellow vet. It made it easier to connect with her. :)
It's been extremely challenging trying to track down vets that specialize in exotic pets here in NYC (such irony!), but right now I feel good about Dr. Neuman and her capabilities. She did say that she does make referrals, at least with G pigs, if she doesn't think she can handle the case presented to her.
Dumbo is doing well. His weigh-in was 2 lbs., 1 oz. He saw part of DUMBO, the Bridge and the promenade. He is slowly becoming a worldly piglet. He was really pooped when he arrived home. I think he hates the noise of the train because he'd run like crazy from one end of his carrier to the other. The gal on the train sitting next to me was excited when he darted from one side to the other. She yanked her earphones out of her ears to ask whether he was a dog and looked like she wanted to pee on herself from giddiness when I replied, "No, it's a guinea pig." People are funny sometimes. :)
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Rest in peace, Tommy. You were truly one of a kind...
Our beloved guinea pig Tommy prematurely passed away due to an accidental injury early Monday morning at 3:19AM. Billye, his beloved "daddy," and I were with him as he passed on naturally to Rainbow's Bridge and then Guinea Pig Heaven. I know that he is once again popcorning about happily, able to munch on his pellets and hay again. We love him dearly and will always hold him close to our hearts. You are very much missed by all of us, Tommy! Until we meet again...
Love always,
Billye/Daddy, Christina, Truffle ("Tommy, I miss you! I wish we could touch noses again through our cages!"), Dumbo, and, yes, Omelet ("Rest in peace, Infidel!")
Love always,
Billye/Daddy, Christina, Truffle ("Tommy, I miss you! I wish we could touch noses again through our cages!"), Dumbo, and, yes, Omelet ("Rest in peace, Infidel!")
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