We Lost One!

The day I chose to write the first post was also the day that we lost our first GP.  My eldest daughter went to one of our hutches with the intention of cuddling a piggy but came back to the house with a look of despair upon her face and cradling something very small.  Wooster, the Abyssinian we adopted alongside the Peruvian (Jeeves), was struggling.  It looked as though he was choking; his mouth was working as though to eject some foreign body from within, his head jerking back as though fighting for breath.  I took him and tried to the see if I could find the source of the problem but there was nothing immediately evident to blame.  The poor little guy was suffering and it was obvious that he needed a lot of help.

I tried to dislodge the thing that I believed was causing him to struggle for breath, massaging his neck and, as hard as I thought I could be without causing him additional discomfort, patting on his back to hopefully allow his lungs to take a full breath.  Unfortunately nothing was working so I passed the little guy to Cris and we rushed to the car.  Thankfully there's a vet only three minutes away so I pulled right up outside the door and Cris jumped out and went inside whilst I parked.  By the time I went inside he'd already been taken away by one of the receptionists and was receiving care.

We stayed in the waiting area until called into one of the treatment rooms by a veterinarian who informed us that he was receiving oxygen but that there was no improvement.  Apparently there was nothing that could be found that would constitute an obstruction and that this might be either the result of a neurological condition, i.e. seizure, or bacterial pneumonia.  We were given the option of either giving him a sedative which, if the cause was a seizure, might allow the body and brain to relax enough to bring him back, or euthanasia.  I confirmed with the vet that the sedative wouldn't cause him any more distress (it's pretty obvious now that it wouldn't as it's a sedative but I wanted to be sure) and then asked for them to try.  We both wanted to try everything but not at the expense of causing the poor little guy more suffering.  Apparently the sedative would take only a few minutes to work so we'd soon know if there was likely to be any improvement.  When I saw the vet come back into the room I knew the result; Wooster would have to be allowed to go on his way.

After signing a consent form the vet left and came back a few minutes later with a towel containing a little guy who didn't deserve to check-out so early.  Now, I'm a 38 year-old guy who could stand outside a nightclub as a bouncer but even I felt the loss of this little fella.  I've seen a lot of bad things in my time but losing a little guy like this didn't seem fair at all.  We took him back and have buried him in the garden.  The rest of the herd are being even more spoilt by Cris and I'm writing this with furry little creatures running around my ankles.