More baby pics...

Welcome babies!

On Tuesday 9/18/07 Mimi brought 4 beautiful healthy baby piggies into the world. They are just precious. Check back for more pics & names when we figure out who are boys & who are girls!

NEW ADDITION...

We have a houseguest right now. Her name is Mimi and she is an mommy in waiting! We are fostering her for the Humane League & she is certainly a sweetheart. We anxiously await the arrival of her babies & will post more as soon as the big day arrives. Mimi asks everyone to please remember to seperate your male and female piggies to prevent pregnancies and help control the overpopulation of animals. If you can't tell what sex your piggie is, please take them to a vet to be sure. And always remember to OPT TO ADOPT!

MOLLY...4/17/06-8/20/07

It will be one month tomorrow that my beloved Molly passed away. She is missed so much, I still can't bring myself to write an appropriate tribute to her. She was with us only a mere 1 year and 4 months. I miss you sweetie and hope someday I'll be able to write your life story so everyone can know how special you were.

FOSTER PIGGERS!

We recently fostered a mama guinea pig & her 3 babies. They were abandoned at our local Humane League & since they already had 15 piggies, they called me. I have fostered animals for them before & was more then happy to foster a family of piggies in need. I LOVE PIGGIES! We had them a little over 2 weeks & they grew so fast! They are now up for adoption, except for mama who lost alot of weight & strength while nursing them. She will stay with us for at least 3 more weeks to get her strength back & get healthy enough to go up for adoption. PLEASE ALWAYS SPAY & NEUTER YOUR ANIMALS OF ALL KINDS! & OPT TO ADOPT!!! =)

From Top: Ginger, The whole gang playing with their toys, Ginger & Rusti her daughter, From left Ginger, Spunky, Rusti (standing on Spunky's head) & Casper, Piggie Train!

GOOD-BYE RADAR

GOOD-BYE RADAR
05-Apr-07
RADAR: 4/15/05-4/5/07
We'll miss you sweetie boy

Our Foster Family!

My husband & I are currently fostering a family of hamsters. Curly (the mommy) was abandoned outside our local humane league one night. A few days later, the staff came in to a surprise. She had had babies during the night. Since the humane league is very full, they were kept in a holdover room with cats & other animals, where Curly was feeling kind of stressed & having trouble taking care of her new babies. So we were called on to bring her home to our house, where she could raise her babies in peace & quiet. She has been an excellent little Mommy, considering she is only about 3 months old herself. She has raised 3 healthy little ones. 2 girls & a boy. Soon it will be time for them to go up for adoption & we will really miss them, but it will be worth it if they find loving forever homes.

From the top: Peanut & Spotty peaking, Peanut & Spotty napping together, Charcoal at 1 week old, Curly the mommy hamster

ALBERT'S STORY

ALBERT'S STORY
26-Apr-06
On March 15th, after a long & valiant struggle, our Little Albert passed over the rainbow bridge. It’s taken me this long to write a tribute, because I just don’t feel I can put into words what he meant to me. He was my first piggie, the one that started it all. I had always had pets, but never any piggies. One day when I had my job at the photo lab, we had a "pet photo day", where people could bring in their pets & get their pics taken & the one lady I worked with brought in her piggie. I knew what piggies were, but had no idea how sweet they could be. I held him & he peed on me & I didn’t even care! I fell in love! I knew I had to have one. I’m the kind of person who has to think everything to death though, & decided it wasn’t a good idea to go buy a piggie until I did a little research on their care. So, I bought a book & read & studied until I thought I was pretty educated on the subject of piggies. Well, right around that time my hamster died & after awhile I decided my next pet was going to be a piggie. So my hubbie & I set out on a piggie search. We checked shelters & pet stores & just couldn’t find any that we "clicked with" & I decided that maybe it just wasn’t meant to be that day. I had to make one more stop at our regular pet store to get fish food & thought I’d just check out their piggies real quick, after all we were already there, right? I had thought that I wanted to adopt from a shelter, but I looked down at an aquarium sitting on the floor in the corner & there I saw what was to be my destiny. A fat little piggie with a freckled nose that just begged to be petted! It was absolute love at first sight! I asked to hold him & he just snuggled into my chest & I knew it was meant to be. We took him home & the name came to us quick: "Fat Albert"! I decided that seemed a little rude though, & not wanting to give him a complex, decided just plain Albert would have to do. Later it became "Little Albert" as a kind of inside joke about his size! Well, it was good I got to hold him in the petstore, because that was to be the last he willingly let me hold him for quite some time! Albert seemed to hate everything about me & I was simply lost! Every footstep, every noise, & it seemed like every breath I took terrified him to no end! Everyday became an increasingly frustrating game of catch the piggie & I began to think he was never going to come around. I’m ashamed to admit it now, but I seriously considered taking him back. I know, I know that’s horrible, but I honestly thought if it was possible for a piggie to hate someone, he hated me. Weeks turned into months & I can’t tell you exactly when, but one day things just got ok between us & we never looked back! The terrified "running of the piggie" became less frequent, the snuggling became more frequent & our lives together became harmonious at last. We were inseparable & spent hours a day just playing & enjoying each others company. He was a small break of sunlight in my otherwise cloudy existence of ever increasing health problems & doctors appointments. And so life with Albert went on, with his quirky personality bringing happiness to all those around him. I loved having a piggie & my quest for "piggie knowledge" became insatiable! I immersed myself in books, magazines, websites, anything I could to learn more about my new friend.I had studied to be a veterinary assistant a couple years before & I couldn't believe as complex as piggies are, that there was less then 1 page about them in my studies.Fast forward 2 years to the fall of 2005. That's when I started to notice some changes in Albert's health. He began urinating more frequently. Instead of his usual "lake of urine"every 20 minutes, it came in tiny puddles every 5 minutes or so. Then one night I saw what appeared to be a tiny red spot in his puddle of pee. When I wiped it up my worst nightmares were confirmed, there was definite blood in his urine. I took him into the vets & they did an x-ray which confirmed the evil little stone that was the cause of all that was bad in our world. He needed surgery & he needed it fast, according to the vet. So on Wed. Nov. 16th Albert underwent surgery to remove his stone. Unfortunately, all was not so simple.Instead of being in the bladder like a normal stone, this was lodged in Albert’s ureter. The ureter (which is about the width of a strand of spaghetti) was too small to try & remove the stone, but if left in, it could completely block urine from passing & back up into the kidneys, causing kidney failure. It was the worst possible news I could have imagined. They suggested he spend the night, where he could be observed, & so I fell asleep crying, imagining my sweet little guy all alone & scared without his Mommy to comfort him. The next day I was there ASAP in the morning to be with him & the doctor brought in my sweet little piggie & handed him to me & he just clung to my chest & purred & purred. He looked so fragile & weak, it just broke my heart as the vet explained how in his 25 years of practice he had never seen a situation like this & the prognosis was not good. He could give him medicine that would maybe help to shrink the stone & possibly help him to pass it. He had consulted with another vet from Penn State vet school & it was a long shot at best. We could take him home, make him comfortable, try the meds & hope for the best, so that’s what we did. The day he came home was awful. He pulledone of his sutures out & cried. I took him back to the vet, but our normal vet wasn’t in, so he had to see his assistant. She said there are no e-collars for animals that small (which I know now is not true) & tried what she thought was a good idea. She wrapped gauze around his neck & ears so he couldn’t reach down to pull the sutures. When I questioned how he was to perform coprophagy she simply ignored me as though who was I to suggest she could possibly be wrong? I knew in my heart this was not a good idea, but desperate to keep him from hurting himself I took him home like that. I reluctantly went to the pizza shop with my Mom for supper, then came right home, not wanting Albert to be alone for even a minute. When I came home, I saw what was the most terrifying thing I could have imagined. Albert was laying on his side, limp, & gasping slowly for air. He had managed, in a fit of terror I imagine, to push the gauze down around his mouth & nose, where it was slowly cutting off his air. I grabbed him & ran for the scissors. I carefully cut off the bandage & held him to me as he sniffed & took in gasps of air & shook from fear. I held him crying & hating myself for putting him through this. I went through the phone book & called every pet store & vet that was still open that late on a Fri. night, looking for any answers. The last place I tried was the local store down the street. They were so small I never thought they would have anything like that, but they did. I loaded Alert in his carrier, not wanting him to out of my sight for even a second, & took him in. They cut & fitted an e-collar for him & even put it on him & rubbed his nose & told him it was going to be ok. Oddly enough, he never needed that e-collar. After that night, he never tried to pull the sutures again. The next week was a game of emotional roulette, as I watched Albert deteriorate & spent all my free time syringing him meds & food & water. Then on Mon. Nov.28th, I got him out for floortime while I cleaned his cage. I noticed he had peed & when I went to wipe it up, I saw something that made me do a double take. There, in his puddle or urine, lay a small, oval shaped object. I picked it up & wiped it off & immediately knew what I was looking at; Albert had passed his stone! I was in shock. He never so much as whimpered! It was as though he didn’t even know he had passed it. He just kept eating hay like nothing ever happened! Of course my husband was away, so I called everyone I knew to tell them the news. I just couldn’t keep this to myself! I was flabbergasted, to put it mildly!! The next day I took my new found object into the vets who confirmed it definitely was a stone. But was it THE stone? A couple days later the vet did an x-ray & miracle of all miracles, the stone was definitely gone! And so life went on, with good days & bad days, & Albert & I just trying to do the best we could. My day was a constant cycle of giving & keeping track of medications. He was on painkillers, antibiotics, probiotics, gas meds, & medicine to up the ph of his urine to try & prevent the urinary tract infections that seemed to plague him. I questioned myself 100 times a day if it was fair to put him through this, but he always kept trying & would purr & look up at my with so much love in those big, dark eyes, I knew he wasn’t ready to give up. Some days were good & some days not so good, but for a while the good days out numbered the bad. Then 1 night I got him out for floortime & he wouldn’t stop shaking. He strained to go to the bathroom & lay limp on his side. I knew we were going to loose him, so into the emergency vets we went, positive this was the end for my sweet baby. They diagnosed him with "gut stasis", a condition where the stomach is not moving the contents through properly. They gave him a dose of meds & rehydrated him & we went home again, dodging the bullet forone more day. When I took him to the regular vets the next day though, the prognosis was not good. Gut stasis is almost impossible for a piggie to recover from & he also had a very high white blood cell count in his urine, indicating yet another infection. I took him home with the intentions of making him as comfortable as possible, praying he would just go in his sleep. Every day I gave him all 5 of his meds plus syringes of extra water to keep him hydrated & Critical Care since he didn’t have much of an appetite. He had lost over half his body weight. All the time though, he snuggled & purred against me. He just seemed happy to be with us & I told him many times that when he was ready to cross the bridge to let me know. Then on the night of Mar. 15th he took a turn for the worse. I put him down for floortime & he peed a huge puddle of blood. His eyes were distant & far away from me & he didn’t seem to know where he was. For the next hour we sat together & with every poo he made he cried & he strained to pee. Ironically the next day he was to go to the vets to see if his kidneys were failing, but I knew he would never make it till then. I couldn’t stand the thought of him going on like that for 8 more hours & knew he was telling me it was time. We took him into the emergency vets & they let me spend as much time as I wanted with him. He even halfheartedly nibbled a piece of hay & looked at me with focus in his eyesone last time, then became glassy again. He was helped across the bridge at 11:45 PM on March 15th, 2006. I have alot of regrets about my time with Albert. I regret not feeding him the right things when wefirst got him. I regret waiting as long as I did at the end to help him across the bridge, & I regret not being there with him when the vet helped him cross. But, I know that we always did the best we could for him & I like to think we gave him a pretty good life. I miss the way he loved to have his freckled nose rubbed & how he purred at just about everything. He loved life & he will never know how much he enhanced mine. I miss you Albert & always will. Goodbye my friend, until we meet again somewhere across the bridge.