This is the story of how we found room on the broom for our latest adoptee Cavy (rhymes with gravy.) He's a pure white Abyssinian Guinea Pig with only one eye, but I'm getting a little ahead of myself...
The story starts this past Memorial Day weekend with me, DH & DD's 1,2 & 3 doing our annual camping trip in the back yard. DH & DD1 left camp early on Saturday morning to hit the farmers market & as they drove by the neighbors house DD1 saw something move in a little cage in the neighbors driveway. She told DH that there was an animal out there & he did the classic, parental blow off, "No way. There's no animal out there. That cage has been out there for at least a month." She was pretty adamant about it, so later that evening when they walked down to get the mail, they wandered into the neighbors driveway. Sure enough, inside a flimsy little wire cage with no bottom was a mangled, mangy, terrified guinea pig. DH said it was in pretty bad shape & when I went down to see for myself, I almost threw up. I came back to my house sick to my stomach. Our house is really, REALLY small & we have a lot of animals crammed in here already, but I could not leave it out there dying. The whole family stopped what we were doing and suddenly 'Operation Guinea Pig Rescue' was ON. It was almost dark at this point & we started scrambling. We searched thru old pet supplies & cleared off dresser space, trying to set up temporary housing for him. I also took a moment to text the neighbor. I was mad to the core, but being the neighborhood diplomat, I put my customer service persona on & I wrote, "Dear Richard, (not his real name) I see you have a guinea pig in your driveway. If you don't mind, I'm just gonna take it home with me." Of course it didn't matter if he minded or not, I was getting that pig outta there no matter what. Fortunately for him, he texted back, "That would be gr8 thx." What a jerk.
Richard was just getting home when we came down to commandeer his pig. I wanted to kill him, but I kept my customer service face on. I smiled, put the pig in a box and asked what happened to its face. Richard said that he didn't know. He said that he'd had two pigs but his dog had killed one of them. After the attack he put the remaining pig out in the driveway & put adds on CL to sell it. Apparently after a month or so of living in full exposure, something finally tipped the cage up & attacked it. (A miracle he lasted that long out there.) Damaged and bleeding, but still alive, the guinea pig somehow got away from the predator. Richard found it hiding under a drainpipe in this yard, saw it was hurt, but figured it would heal & put him back in the flimsy cage with no bottom in the driveway.
It apparently stayed out there for three or four more days before DD1 found it.
So... We were now the reluctant owners of a severely wounded, totally freaked out guinea pig. We renamed him Cavy, but I told the kids not to get attached to him. It seemed obvious that he was not going to survive & that we were just giving him a safe place to die. We put him in a small aquarium with a hidey hut where he'd be forced to relax. We immediately gave him some fresh greens & that poor pig ate for an hour & a half straight. When the bowl would empty we'd fill it back up. He was so excited. He'd clearly never had fresh food before.
Being that it was a long weekend, it was the following Wednesday before an exotic vet could see him. Even though it was clear that the one eye was beyond saving, it was also clear that this little guinea pig was a survivor. He plowed through bowls of fruit & greens everyday, as well as eating his pellets & an ton of orchard grass. The vet agreed the eye could not be saved & opted to do an intraocular injection into the damaged eye. This apparently shuts off what's left of the eye without the stress of removing it completely. They put him on a six week antibiotic regimen that had to be given x2 daily both orally & optically, plus oral pain meds & anti-inflammatories. It was pretty clear that we wouldn't be paying a few of our bills that month, but it was also pretty clear that with some TLC the little guy was going to survive...
I've got to run. I'll finish this later. Until then, here's some pix (Sorry the first two are a little graphic.)
Cavy's near death experience.
Looking pretty bad.
Cavy getting his meds & on the road to recovery.
The story starts this past Memorial Day weekend with me, DH & DD's 1,2 & 3 doing our annual camping trip in the back yard. DH & DD1 left camp early on Saturday morning to hit the farmers market & as they drove by the neighbors house DD1 saw something move in a little cage in the neighbors driveway. She told DH that there was an animal out there & he did the classic, parental blow off, "No way. There's no animal out there. That cage has been out there for at least a month." She was pretty adamant about it, so later that evening when they walked down to get the mail, they wandered into the neighbors driveway. Sure enough, inside a flimsy little wire cage with no bottom was a mangled, mangy, terrified guinea pig. DH said it was in pretty bad shape & when I went down to see for myself, I almost threw up. I came back to my house sick to my stomach. Our house is really, REALLY small & we have a lot of animals crammed in here already, but I could not leave it out there dying. The whole family stopped what we were doing and suddenly 'Operation Guinea Pig Rescue' was ON. It was almost dark at this point & we started scrambling. We searched thru old pet supplies & cleared off dresser space, trying to set up temporary housing for him. I also took a moment to text the neighbor. I was mad to the core, but being the neighborhood diplomat, I put my customer service persona on & I wrote, "Dear Richard, (not his real name) I see you have a guinea pig in your driveway. If you don't mind, I'm just gonna take it home with me." Of course it didn't matter if he minded or not, I was getting that pig outta there no matter what. Fortunately for him, he texted back, "That would be gr8 thx." What a jerk.
Richard was just getting home when we came down to commandeer his pig. I wanted to kill him, but I kept my customer service face on. I smiled, put the pig in a box and asked what happened to its face. Richard said that he didn't know. He said that he'd had two pigs but his dog had killed one of them. After the attack he put the remaining pig out in the driveway & put adds on CL to sell it. Apparently after a month or so of living in full exposure, something finally tipped the cage up & attacked it. (A miracle he lasted that long out there.) Damaged and bleeding, but still alive, the guinea pig somehow got away from the predator. Richard found it hiding under a drainpipe in this yard, saw it was hurt, but figured it would heal & put him back in the flimsy cage with no bottom in the driveway.
So... We were now the reluctant owners of a severely wounded, totally freaked out guinea pig. We renamed him Cavy, but I told the kids not to get attached to him. It seemed obvious that he was not going to survive & that we were just giving him a safe place to die. We put him in a small aquarium with a hidey hut where he'd be forced to relax. We immediately gave him some fresh greens & that poor pig ate for an hour & a half straight. When the bowl would empty we'd fill it back up. He was so excited. He'd clearly never had fresh food before.
Being that it was a long weekend, it was the following Wednesday before an exotic vet could see him. Even though it was clear that the one eye was beyond saving, it was also clear that this little guinea pig was a survivor. He plowed through bowls of fruit & greens everyday, as well as eating his pellets & an ton of orchard grass. The vet agreed the eye could not be saved & opted to do an intraocular injection into the damaged eye. This apparently shuts off what's left of the eye without the stress of removing it completely. They put him on a six week antibiotic regimen that had to be given x2 daily both orally & optically, plus oral pain meds & anti-inflammatories. It was pretty clear that we wouldn't be paying a few of our bills that month, but it was also pretty clear that with some TLC the little guy was going to survive...
I've got to run. I'll finish this later. Until then, here's some pix (Sorry the first two are a little graphic.)
Cavy's near death experience.
Looking pretty bad.
Cavy getting his meds & on the road to recovery.
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