Love your pets

[Guppy CEO]

Everyone who knows me knows that i love animals, and they tend to love me. back in december, a friend decided that her family was no longer caring for their 2 ferrets adequately. since every time i went over, i played with them, it made perfect sense to see if i wanted them since i have owned ferrets in the past. i jumped at the opportunity to be a pet owner again after 20 years. with me rarely leaving my home due to med issues, it seemed a match made in heaven.

but things did not start out so well. the older one (riley, nicknamed good boy) either became depressed or sick for the 1st few months. ferrets not in hyperdrive mode are a cause of concern. the little one (reese, eventually nicknamed daddy's little girl) took an ven more aggressive stance and if she saw any opportunity to bite me, she did. ear, hands, fingers, elbow, ankle, it didnt matter. she easily bit me over 30 times those 1st 2 weeks. then i found out that they loved raisins, and our lives changed. they began to accept that i was their new home, and reese stopped biting and riley's energy level went up.

then i started taking them for granted. i noticed that if i went down 4 times a day, they only last 15-30 minutes of play time, but if i went down twice, they lasted 30-45. heck, the math made sense to just visit them twice a day. then i started justifying only once a day because they'd play for 60-90 minutes.

but i forgot to a pet, socializing with their owner is fun and the more times is more important than the actual overall time spent playing. plus seeing them multiple times instead of 1 longer visit means that you are likely to spot behavioral changes faster.

my little girl had a spot on her back that she just wouldnt leave alone, and last sunday, it went from being little to being HUGE and i noticed that she was kinda stumbling. i decided that if it continued, that i'd take her to the vet on tuesday. monday, she was obviously worsening, so tuesday moning i started making phone calls, and the earliest appt i could get was 7:30 that night. by then, she was almost unable to move, but the vet gave me meds and told me to make sure that she was eating and drinking. on wednesday, every 4 hours, i was helping her eat and drink and giving her the meds on time. by 5pm, she was eating more and even moving some, and even managed to use the litter box. looked like we had turned the corner. at her 8pm feeding, my guppy senses were telling me something wasnt right, so instead of letting her sleep in her cage, i kept her on the warming pad on my lap. in hindsight, i suspect that she slipped into a coma some time after 930. about 1015pm, she lurched backwards and her little mouth open real wide as she took her last breaths. i didnt quite get my hand there fast enough as her little head dropped to the side. ended up that she had multiple cancers and nothing i could have done would have saved her.

meanwhile poor riley is getting semi ignored as i tried to nurse reese back to healthy. after she died, of course riley got tons of attention, but i wasnt paying enough attention. i've seen animals grieve b4 so i know that they do, so when he started acting all snuggly, i thought he was grieving. since i had feared that i had waited too long to save reese, i took him into the vet on thursday, and we were waiting on blood tests to determine how to treat what looked like adrenal disease. i also dropped of reese for a necropsy to see exactly what she died of.

today at 6am, i went down to see riley and he was again in a snuggly mode instead of play mode, so after he fell asleep, i put him back into his cage even tho it made him cry. at 130 i left to pick up reese's body so that i could bury her in the backyard. on the drive home i am thinking where can i bury her that animals wont dig her up now but that i can easily dig up next year or later when riley dies, because he is already old by ferret standards. when i got home, i went down to give riley a hug, and upon hearing me, he immediately jumped into the litter box (his good boy nickname came from this behavior), but nothing happened, so he ran to the next litter box, then to another and finally just tried on the cage floor. i laughed at how hard he was trying to be a good boy and picked him up when i noticed that none of the boxes cleaned at 6am had been used. in 8 hours, he should easily have used each 1 at least once.

i'm not taking any chances this time and 15 minutes later we are in the emergency vet hospital. but it was already long too late. by then he was in so much pain and unable to move much. the vet tried to help him, but the tumor was too big and she said that only an operation on monday could save him but that he would have to stay there if he was to have any chance to survive until then. this would cost at least $2k with no assurances that it would be helpful. so i asked to hold him and tried to feed him a snack, but he knew not to eat any more, and i knew that i had to do the humane thing no matter how much it broke my heart. so tomorrow, i bury both my little friends.

i know many, if not most, will not care about any of this, but if just 1 of you ends up paying more attention to your pet, then its worth it.

RIP
Reese "daddy's little girl" 2007 - 4/28/10
Riley "good boy" 2001 - 5/1/10

[thewhyterabbit]

dang man... losing both only days apart... sorry to hear that... thanks for sharing...

[moneyballer]

My thoughts are with you and I truly wish you the best.

[Steelersfan]

Sorry to hear about your losses.