A reminder to please be careful with your guinea pigs!

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mdashwood

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My guinea pig passed on suddenly today having just recently turned one years old.

I had a boy piggy who was a little scaridy cat and who didn't much like being taken out of his cage for walks or even held for too long. Everything was fine in the morning today until we took him out of his cage to a more unfamiliar surroundings of another room to get his nails clipped. we held him carefully but unfortunately we have accidentally cut the quick on two of his fingers of his back leg, which has only ever happened once before. He was very worried during the nail clipping and while cutting the nails on his front paws he gave a loud quacking sound that we've never heard before. After the trimming was done we wrapped his foot in a paper towel and I held him close to let him calm down, but immediately noticed that his body has gone limp. I quickly took him back to his cage and laid him on his favourite pillow, but he started having seazures and his heartbeat slowed.

Rest In Peace my little guinea pig and all of the others that you or anybody else have lost.

Please take this as a reminder to be gentler and even more careful with your guinea pigs because they have very little and very fragile hearts that need looking after.
 
I’m so sorry for your loss. Sending you hugs. ❤️

Popcorn high over the rainbow bridge little piggy.
 
I am so sorry you have been through this. Take care of yourself as you grieve x
Rest peacefully little piggy 🌈
 
I'm sorry you lost your little piggy like this. Please be kind to yourself as you grieve.
Sleep tight little piggy at Rainbow Bridge 🌈
 
Hi and welcome

BIG HUGS

I am so very sorry that you have lost your little boy in such unfortunate circumstances. Please be aware that you have not killed him with your normal care, so be kind with yourself.

Unfortunately, some piggies are born with a faulty heart or a genetic disposition for a heart attack or sudden acute heart failure. They live seemingly healthily with a bomb in their body whose fuse can be lit either by a sudden stress situation or will just go off without warning at a young age. This is not your fault.

It was just his time but he could have equally died from a slamming door, a sudden car or house alarm going off; while you are racing him to the vets as an emergency or he could have keeled over on the vet's examination table like my 1 year old Ffion; or quite simply suddenly collapsed in the cage, like my Telyn (just days after her 2nd birthday, like most of her rescue-born generation of babies whose pregnant mothers had come out of the same breeding hellhole) - and died instantly or within a few minutes or hours. Or seemingly suddenly choked on some food... What sets off a lit congenital heart failure fuse can be totally random.

But you have not lit that fuse and you could not never have known that the bomb was there in the first place. It happens, and it is always such a massive shock for the unsuspecting owner.
It is NOT YOUR FAULT and you haven't done anything wrong. Your was born that way and it was quite simply his time.

Healthy piggies don't keel over like that. Full stop. Not from normal grooming care and handling, which is what you are describing. I have adopted nearly a hundred of often very skittish piggies from bad situations over more than two decades, and I can assure you on that point. Nor do we see any cases where piggies just die from normal nail cutting - not in 20 years of this forum running.

If you want to do something constructive, then please let the place you have got your piggy from know that they are selling genetically compromised piggies and if necessary also contact the local authorities over trading standards if you are being fobbed off by the seller.

Anyway, I hope that this helps you. You have to be aware that it is our human instinct to always seek fault with ourselves first and foremost at the start of every grieving process, even when it doesn't apply.
And that your strong feelings of guilt are partially the result of the traumatic circumstances under which you have lost him but that we all experience a more or less milder version of it with virtually every loss because it is actually an expression of how deeply we love and care. You are clearly a very caring owner, so the circumstances of your loss are going to catch you out even worse in terms of how bad and guilty it makes you feel.

If you have got something like that in Finland, please contact either a charity that offers support or advice with pet bereavement or a charity that offers support for mental health or trauma, which is what you currently are going through.

You can find some more helpful information in this link below. Grieving can take you to some very strange places; even more so a traumatic death - and what you have just experienced is sadly about every owner's worst nightmare. I cannot say how sorry I am that this has happened to you.
Human Bereavement: Grieving, Processing and Support Links for Guinea Pig Owners and Their Children

Please take care of yourself. We continue to be here for you for as long as you need to but what we can give you is only community support from people who understand from their own experiences what you are going through but none of us has any proper mental health or grieving support training.

PS: I am moving your thread to our End of Life and Bereavement Support Corner as your issue is not about bad care but about your grieving reaction to a traumatic loss.
 
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