Did we not clean the cage often enough? I don’t think so the The list of things we should have done differently I shut the phone off to save what little battery was leftĪnd spent the last twenty minutes of the ride talking to Smoky, petting her,Īnd feeling like a complete and utter failure as a human companion. “It doesn’t look good,” I texted my daughter. I kept stroking Smoky’s fur and trying to elicit some reaction from What was supposed to be a twenty minute trip stretched There pretty quickly and were sitting in the lobby waiting for us. My daughter texted me to say that she and my son arrived I called a taxi service and piled into it with Smoky. I told my daughter to go the soccer field and fetch her brother, then meet meĪt the pet hospital. Kind of care she required was something that we couldn’t realistically do at home. They said that the best strategy would be to take her to anĪnimal hospital where she could stay overnight for observation, because the Was she eating and drinkingĪs usual? Yes. They didn’t know what, exactly, was causing her decline, but it wasĬlear from her condition that she was on the edge. The vet said Smoky had only a small chance of pulling Her in the towel and tried to raise her body temperature with a hair dryer. They took her into a back room and gave her intravenous fluids and vitamins, wrapped Her heart rate was slow and her body temperature was below normal. The vet said Smoky’s vital signs were weak and that she felt He liked to bring her into my bedroom and sort of sneak upīehind me and position Smoky right behind my ear so that I’d see her out of theĬorner of one eye then my son would say, “Writing pig. Hours (less of a problem that it had been when there were two guinea pigs) and Missed a feeding, rarely let the water bottle go unfilled for more than a few I could tell, my son had been diligent about taking care of Smoky. I wasn’t sure what that was, though, because from everything Have a family meeting to assess everything we’d done wrong that might have My next thought was that if Smoky made it through this, we were going to I hoped that she was staring up at the trees and the sunlight andīecoming interested in the world again after spending the last few weeks in one I stroked her head and throat as we walked and started Ones in my life, humans and animals, I’ve never actually witnessed the moment Then I realized that even though I’ve lost a lot of loved Her enough love? Was she sick from loneliness, missing her old friend Scully? The water bottle in her cage to run dry and stay that way? Did we fail to show Moment, but I felt sure that it was our fault collectively, and my fault specifically,Īs a parent and the head of the household, for not paying closer attention toĪll of our pets, Smoky in particular. I didn’t know what the problem was at that I made a mental list of everything that we should have done to Pig in the crook of my arms, I started blaming myself for not being on top of Take extra good care of Smoky during this interim period while we figured outįast-walking down 3 rd Avenue in Brooklyn with the I agreed, but cautioned him, his sister and myself to Raise a couple for who knew how many more years. Told my son we needed to get another guinea pig because (or so I’ve read) theyĭo better with companions, but he was torn he loved Smoky but was slightly overwhelmedīy all the other pets in the house (a large tropical fish tank and two kittens heįeeds them all every day, solo or with me or his sister) and he thought it would beīest if we gave Smoky to somebody who keeps guinea pigs instead of committing to My friend found her dead one afternoon a couple of days after we moved in. In 21 years-and I think the stress might have pushed Smoky’s cage-mate, Scully-anĮight-year old, plump, fairly sluggish female guinea pig-over the edge. Late April-a difficult move, and I say that as a person who’s moved nine times How difficult the past six weeks had been. Walking Smoky to the vet, cradling her like a baby, I thought about Island College Hospital, complete with train delays, was the longest two hours Newsroom in Newark, and the approximately two hours it took me to get to Long I heard she’d collapsed in Brooklyn when I was working in a On the way I experienced mild flashbacks to the day of my Wrapped her up in a brown towel and walked her to the veterinary clinic about She'd seemed a bit slow or depressed in the past week, but just a day earlier she’d She didn’t react to my touching her paws or her teeth, and she barely squirmedĪt all when I reached my hand under her belly and raised her up a bit.
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