A Story of Loss
2008-05-10 6:33 AM PDT
(When I say "we", "our" or "us" the people involved in this are my sister, my girlfriend and myself.)
About a week ago our guinea pig Bob was looking a bit underweight so we took him down to the vets. They said that his glossy coat indicated he was in good health and he looked absolutely fine other than being a bit skinny and that perhaps our rabbit Wallace was eating the food too quickly so Bob was missing out and that we should feed him separate and see what happens.
We started feeding Bob separate but having him with the rabbit while he wasn't being fed. This seemed to be working and we think he was gaining back weight as he seemed more plump and in better shape.
Yesterday, the 9th of May 2008 my sister came home and thought that Bob was dead and she came running in saying that it "looks like Bob has broken his neck" although she said he was still moving. She brought him inside and he couldn't stand. He was kicking his legs around like he was running although we had him lying on his side. We anxiously called my Mum and told her to get home as soon as she could. While we were waiting for my mum we noticed that Bob was really really cold, this was a bad sign as when animals are losing their body heat you can tell they're close to death. Everyone was highly distraught as we waited.
As soon as she got home we went to the Bundoora vet. When we arrived they took Bob into the back room and put him on Oxygen. When we got taken into the examination room the vet said his heartbeat was slowing and that his temperature didn't even register on her thermometer. Everyone was in tears and we decided the best thing for Bob would be to have him euthanized. The vet injected it into his liver rather than his heart so he wouldn't have an instant death, that way we could be with him when he died. It only took about a minute for his heart to stop beating but it was extremely emotional, as is the death of any pet.
When we came home we buried him and said our final goodbyes, he was...
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