Hello, Today has been terrible we lost both our guinea pigs to heatstroke we suspect. This morning was crazy we have an 8 year old girl who I was getting ready for club and nervous about it and running late. The weather was overcast with showers, so thought I’d leave the cover on the cage so they don’t get wet. This has happened before with no issues and the cover has holes in and they both had water in the cage and it was a cover we got for them for pets.
In the afternoon of that day I was at work the weather was intermittent cloud. I got a call from my wife crying her eyes out when she found them lying in the cage not moving. I left work quickly to come home and console my wife and work out a way forward with the piggies sat in the cage passed away. I’ve never had to deal with this before as the last pet died when I was 14 years old, so 25 years give or take and at that ages it’s your parents who handle it (I’m now that parent)
Ultimately we feel like bad pet owners but like ready at of these posts it happens. But it’s a bitter pill to swallow and I love those little things. My wife and I can’t sleep and my daughter is devastated it’s a real mess. What an impact those little piggies have brought to our lives. I cried at the vets and I was embarrassed but they impact your life. Part of the family! Precious and Treasure never forgot
BIG HUGS
Thank you for sharing your tragedy with us. That takes courage and also speaks of the depth of your love and care.
I am so very sorry to hear this. It is one of those brutal life lessons where you aren't seeing the puddle until you land in it hard face first and no chance to brace. It is always obvious in hindsight but you cannot foresee them and therefore not prevent them.
What counts most is how you get up from those falls - i.e. how constructive you deal with them and what you take on board for the future. You can sadly not bring back Precious and Treasure but there are ways you can honour their memory in a good and constructive way other than defining their lives by their death only.
Please keep in mind that you have made your mistake out of your commitment to care, and not because of neglect. Most owners underestimate how just quickly heat can build up in a hutch or under a cover even in moderate temperatures and without blazing sunshine. We have a whole chapter devoted to this problem in our own comprehensive hot weather guide as well as a chapter on heat stroke.
Here is the link:
Hot Weather Management, Heat Strokes and Fly Strike
Would you like me to add a link to this thread here in the relevant chapter in order to show that this can really happen even at moderate temperatures and what devastation it can cause - and also as a reminder that heat stroke is not necessarily caused by neglectful owners but that it can happen to anybody? This would be a way for you as a family and for Precious and Treasure to hopefully help save other piggies' lifes. Climate change is sadly a fact, and keeping guinea pigs outside is becoming more of a challenge these days - even in the UK. Having personal first-hand experiences to back up our information and recommendations can help to persuade others.
Please seek help for yourselves after this traumatising event; it is not one you can walk away easily but there are hopefully things you can do that can ease the devastation and help you to start processing in a constructive way. Especially seek help if you struggle to sleep and function for days on end (acute trauma response).
I am moving this thread to our dedicated End of Life & Bereavement Support Corner for this reason. Since we are not part of social media we can let this your dedicated support thread run on for as long as needed. It would help you to pick your thread up again easily by bookmarking your thread. In order to provide personal support of longer periods, it helps both sides if we kept everything to just one thread and one section. If you would like me to link this thread into the guide but keep your further grieving suppiort separate, please open a new thread in our Bereavement section. We provide understanding community support on here but are not trained.
You may want to read these helpful guides here:
This one is for yourself and your wife:
Human Bereavement: Grieving, Processing and Support Links for Guinea Pig Owners and Their Children
The Blue Cross (UK animal charity) also runs several platforms for pet bereavement
This is for your daughter. It features helpful material for how you as parents can work with your children through a loss at different ages but it also contains links to charities that deal specifically with pet bereavement in children. Your daughter (in fact, all of you) may also find the little video song at the start soothing and uplifting.
Pet Death: How To Tell The Children? (Tips and Resources)
If you would find it helpful, you are also welcome to post a tribute to Precious and Treasure with pictures that celebrate their lives rather than the shock of their death in our Rainbow Bridge section in order to help you get past the shock and the PTSD once you feel ready for that step so you can reconnect with your beloved piggies as they were and do not lose all that because it is hidden behind your shock and guilt - that would ultimately not be fair to them and it would cripple you further in the long term. But only do it when you as a family feel up to it as another step in your grieving and healing process.
If you can, please ask your daughter to help with choosing the pictures and write about Precious and Treasure as well and include it in your tribute so they are not forgotten, and neither is your love thrown away. Your daughter is not allowed to post directly but you can post for her and she can see the tribute.
Here is the link to our Rainbow Bridge:
Rainbow Bridge Pets
I sincerely hope that this helps you. I have my own little box of eternal regrets for the piggies who have become victims of hard lessons of mine over the last half century but I have changed the lock to it: by helping others on this forum and with my guides for over 15 years now, I have likely saved hundreds if not thousands of lives or at least eased their deaths. Yes, cannot go back to change the past and change my piggies' fates but I can always pay forward. That is why I am offering you the option to include this thread in our hot weather guide.
My heart is going out to you.
I know it’s hard but it was a tragic accident so please try and not beat yourself up.
It's so sad.
