Well, no picture of Angus…
Guinea pig memorial plaques…
November was a cruel month.
I’d noticed that Angus was becoming partial to the softer hay and food, which bodes ill for guinea pigs, who need to keep their little teeth filed down. He managed to loudly choke on some food one Saturday night, then acted a bit peaky and was hunching up a little by Sunday evening.
I should have known.
Monday morning, I woke up early to find him flopped over halfway out of the main hutch and barely responsive. I managed to nudge him upright, and by the time I’d gotten myself up, he’d maneuvered himself out to his favorite basket tube, to watch what would be his last sunrise.
I packed him up and took him to the (expensive) vet, who talked me into letting them try a few heroic measures, but it was soon quite clear the little guy was not going to ever be OK, so with a heavy heart (and without letting them keep him on oxygen for additional hours to let us come say goodbye, etc., since I doubt he would have noticed) we let him go.
The (expensive) vet offered us a range of memorial options, but we chose to have his ashes scattered, and just accept the memorial plaque (included with the price of euthanasia).
That left us with a solitary Mr. Molasses, always a rather stolid guy. We figured that he would be lonely, and started investigating getting him a friend. Worried, though, that Angus might have left him the parting gift of piggie pneumonia, I got him set up for a vet visit with a (less expensive) vet for that Friday. He was still eating and pooping - the main measures of guinea pig health - but just moving more slowly and sleeping more than seemed quite right. The (less expensive) vet recommended an x-ray… which revealed a mass in his chest.
It may have been there all along and slow-growing. It might have been aggressive and more recent. Either way, he was returned to us with a course of antibiotics and instructions to give him all the treats he wanted, but to prepare to euthanize him, probably within a matter of days.
Mr. Moonface Molasses, during his final stint on Earth, enjoying only-pet attention
Antibiotics and unlimited strawberries gave Molasses a week of uncharacteristic frolicking, including rearranging the basket hutches and climbing on top of them, and even a few half-hearted popcorns, but then the sluggishness fell on him again, and he began sleeping longer and longer each day. We made our own homemade memorial plaque, and took him in to the (less expensive) vet to join Angus in piggie heaven just 16 days behind him.
Yes, this was the label that came with Angus’ plaque but, out of context, it has provided us some grim hilarity