It's been almost 18 months since I've had to post on this forum but it's become a sad tradition every time we lose a piggy that we give them a send off on here so...
Last night we sadly lost Alan Pig. Named after the characters from Boston Legal, Alan and his brother Denny were "rescued" from a woman selling a guinea pig hutch with "extras" on eBay by Julie and myself back in June 2008. They had been living together in a very small hutch outside but had fallen out after she unwittingly introduced females to them. Initially we weren't going to keep them, but find them a good home instead but they were so cute that they had to stay. Unfortunately we could never get them to properly bond again, they would happily play together for several hours but would eventually get bored and start bickering so they always had to be separated and so ended up living in cages next to each other, coming out for play time once or twice a week. Although he could at times be quite reserved, whenever they got back together Denny would start popcorning around the run and Alan would obviously find his brother's good mood infectious and join in. Seeing the pair of them popcorning around the run, banging in to each other was a sight to behold. He was often quite skittish, shirking away from any attempt to stroke him but he did seem to quite enjoy his chin being tickled, for short periods at least.
Sadly Denny passed away last year and unsurprisingly Alan's mood changed. He became a lot quieter and somewhat grumpier. We placed him in a cage next to Xander and although they seemed to get on ok with the separator between them, when we tried to bond them Alan got stressed out and stopped eating so we had to separate them. They were both just too old to start having to live with someone new.
He was an extremely handsome crested guinea pig whose colourings made him look like, according to my 4 year old niece at least, a small lion and was quite photogenic, when he'd let us take a picture of course. He drank like a fish, usually going through a large water bottle in 2 days and was quite a fussy eater, often randomly "going off" certain vegetables, and clearly hated the taste of peppers as he never ate it, no matter how many times we gave it too him. But apart from a large cyst that appeared on his back leg in later life (which didn't actually seem to cause him any discomfort) he never gave us any medical problems so it was a massive surprise when we got home from an evening out last night to find him stretched out in the corner of his cage clearly struggling to breath. We gave him some Metacam, popped him on a cushion and gently stroked him (the fact he allowed us to stroke him was clearly a sign he wasn't well) and within 45 minutes he had passed. Other than uncharacteristically sitting in his snuggle bed earlier in the day he had given no indication that anything was wrong as he had been eating and drinking as normal up to Friday night so we're assuming it was just old age that finally caught up with him as he was 6 and a quarter years old.
We will miss him terribly, as will Xander who is a little quiet today (but then he always is), but we know he is pain free and can meet up with all our other boys, Scampy, Blaze, Oscar, Boomer, Bear, Leo, Pepe, Dylan and his brother Denny at the Bridge where I'm sure he's already popcorning away to his heart's desire.
Run free little man, love you always
Martin & Julie x
With his brother:
Looking very regal:
Copyright © The Guinea Pig Forum. Content must not be reproduced without permission.
Last night we sadly lost Alan Pig. Named after the characters from Boston Legal, Alan and his brother Denny were "rescued" from a woman selling a guinea pig hutch with "extras" on eBay by Julie and myself back in June 2008. They had been living together in a very small hutch outside but had fallen out after she unwittingly introduced females to them. Initially we weren't going to keep them, but find them a good home instead but they were so cute that they had to stay. Unfortunately we could never get them to properly bond again, they would happily play together for several hours but would eventually get bored and start bickering so they always had to be separated and so ended up living in cages next to each other, coming out for play time once or twice a week. Although he could at times be quite reserved, whenever they got back together Denny would start popcorning around the run and Alan would obviously find his brother's good mood infectious and join in. Seeing the pair of them popcorning around the run, banging in to each other was a sight to behold. He was often quite skittish, shirking away from any attempt to stroke him but he did seem to quite enjoy his chin being tickled, for short periods at least.
Sadly Denny passed away last year and unsurprisingly Alan's mood changed. He became a lot quieter and somewhat grumpier. We placed him in a cage next to Xander and although they seemed to get on ok with the separator between them, when we tried to bond them Alan got stressed out and stopped eating so we had to separate them. They were both just too old to start having to live with someone new.
He was an extremely handsome crested guinea pig whose colourings made him look like, according to my 4 year old niece at least, a small lion and was quite photogenic, when he'd let us take a picture of course. He drank like a fish, usually going through a large water bottle in 2 days and was quite a fussy eater, often randomly "going off" certain vegetables, and clearly hated the taste of peppers as he never ate it, no matter how many times we gave it too him. But apart from a large cyst that appeared on his back leg in later life (which didn't actually seem to cause him any discomfort) he never gave us any medical problems so it was a massive surprise when we got home from an evening out last night to find him stretched out in the corner of his cage clearly struggling to breath. We gave him some Metacam, popped him on a cushion and gently stroked him (the fact he allowed us to stroke him was clearly a sign he wasn't well) and within 45 minutes he had passed. Other than uncharacteristically sitting in his snuggle bed earlier in the day he had given no indication that anything was wrong as he had been eating and drinking as normal up to Friday night so we're assuming it was just old age that finally caught up with him as he was 6 and a quarter years old.
We will miss him terribly, as will Xander who is a little quiet today (but then he always is), but we know he is pain free and can meet up with all our other boys, Scampy, Blaze, Oscar, Boomer, Bear, Leo, Pepe, Dylan and his brother Denny at the Bridge where I'm sure he's already popcorning away to his heart's desire.
Run free little man, love you always
Martin & Julie x
With his brother:
Looking very regal:
Copyright © The Guinea Pig Forum. Content must not be reproduced without permission.
