[Gpdd] [ANNOUNCEMENT] Poivre crossed The Bridge

[DebJonSara at aol.com]

It is with deep sadness that I have to report that Poivre and I lost her 
battle against pneumonia on Easter Sunday, when she crossed The Rainbow Bridge to 
be reunited with her two daughters, Cherub (the paraplegic piglet that died at 
5 weeks) and Cayenne (one of 5 piggies massacred by dogs in an outdoor run, 
May 2003), plus an unknown number of other offspring, produced before I rescued 
her from freezing to death in the yard of an unscrupulous breeder, January 
2003. She is survived by her sons: Pickle, who was rehomed as a baby, Fidget, 
who was rehomed as a baby but comes back for holidays with his cagemate 
Scrabble, and happens to be here with us at present, and Red Dandy, who is also 
Sarah's piggie, and lives with us still.

I have no idea how old Poivre (known affectionately as "Pwiv") was when she 
passed away. She was the only one of my 27 rescued pigs that required 
veterinary treatment after she arrived, because she had what I identified as bumb
lefoot. A course of antibiotics reduced the swelling, but she always had very curly 
claws which were very difficult to trim, and it was a battle to keep them from 
digging into her footpads. She never showed any sign of pain from them - but 
then piggies don't, do they?

I weighed Poivre every month, and, like all my other piggies, she put on 
weight every month bar two; one was her last month, but the other was December 
2003. To be honest, I was quite pleased when she lost a bit of weight; it was 
only 30g, and it does worry me that all my piggies just seem to grow heavier and 
heavier. I fed her constant hay, a pelleted mix and lots of green and veggies. 
I put Vitamin C in her water. She actually officially belonged to my 
daughter, Sarah, who chose her out of the five pregnant piggies I rescued, and Sarah 
and I used to clean out her cage regularly. We used newspaper, not sawdust. She 
lived indoors, so was never really cold, and on fine, mild days she went out 
onto the lawn to bask in the sunshine and munch on the grass and dandelions - 
we always dug up all the buttercups first. 

She and the other two "mamans" were always our most timid pigs. They were the 
only two that survived the dog massacre, I'm sure because they were so timid 
and hid. We have always considered them to be in retirement, and have never 
imposed ourselves on them more than necessary, feeling they had no reason to 
trust humans after the way they had been treated by the breeder. They were 
extremely timid when they first arrived, but reached the stage where they could eat 
whilst being held, and came to the door of their cage when they hear us, 
instead of diving into their house.

Poivre had become less active over the past fortnight or so, but was still 
eating. Could I have saved her if I had taken her to the vet then? It is so, so 
hard when ones vet is not an exotics specialist. To my vet, she would exhibit 
no symptoms. At that time there were no odd breathing sounds or movements, and 
to anyone but me she would have seemed "normal".

When the odd breathing sounds began, I had no car at my disposal, so I 
crushed half a Marbocyl tablet (given to me for Bafreur, my piggie that died last 
June from pneumonia) and gave it her in banana. I made a vet's appointment for 
the next day, but gave her another half tablet next day, because the 
appointment wasn't until the afternoon. By the time we got to the vet, the odd breathing 
sounds had stopped, and when the vet listened to her chest, she said her 
lungs weren't congested, but she agreed with me that her chest was heaving and she 
was obviously struggling for breath - I had noted that her respiration rate 
was about twice that of my other pigs.

The vet said to continue with the tablets, and I did for one day, then Poivre 
refused to eat anything with crushed tablet on. So I rang and asked for the 
exact medication the CCT had advised for Bafreur; it hadn't saved him, but 
maybe, with catching Poivre earlier, it would save her. I had to inject her twice 
daily. She squealed when I did it, and struggled. After the injections the 
second day, she lay down on my lap and died. My daughter and I wept. She is 
buried beside her daughters near the run where she so enjoyed the fresh air and 
sunshine, and her tombstone says she will never be forgotten, which of course she 
won't.

This is the second guinea pig that has died literally "on me" with these same 
symptoms, and after I have tried to save it by administering painful 
injections. Am I selfish to try to save them? Should I just have let nature take its 
course? On both occasions, I really thought the injections would save them. I'm 
going to post separately under HEALTH with the medical details, because I 
feel people with more veterinary knowledge may not subscribe to the ANNOUNCEMENT 
digest. But are there people out there who have saved their piggies lives 
after they have exhibited pneumonia symptoms?? I would really like to hear from 
you. So often, I hear about piggies who have had these symptoms, and their 
owners administer all sorts of treatments under veterinary advice, but although the 
lives are prolonged, the piggies always seem to cross The Bridge anyway as a 
result. 

I still have 12 piggies. The manner of Bafreur's death will haunt me forever, 
as will Poivre's squeals in her final days, and the knowledge that, no matter 
how I had tried to recompense her for the terrible conditions humans had 
inflicted on her during the early part of her life, in the end, I probably just 
confirmed her conviction that humans were not to be trusted. I have this 
terrible fear that these 12 piggies are all going to present me with the same 
symptoms at some time in their lives, and my vet will be none the wiser, and I won't 
know what to do.

So what would all you guinea pig slaves out there do in my position? Joe, 
Leah, Alge, Dwanda, Liddlepaws, Mitty ....?? If you had no access to a 
guinea-pig-savvy vet, so the only diagnosis and treatment available was that you could 
access through the gpdd and telephone to the CCT, would you administer painful 
injections yourselves, and ignore the squeals? Or would you just make the 
piggy as comfortable as you could, stroke it and reassure it and tell it that it 
was okay to cross The Bridge, then let nature take its course - even though 
that involved increased struggling for breath?? Or would you take the piggie to 
the vet and have the vet "help it on its way" across The Bridge? Incidentally, 
that third option was not available to me over the Easter weekend.

Sorry, this is too long, but you are the only guinea-pig people I have with 
whom to "chew the fat". You can see photos of Poivre on the "Our Guinea Pigs" 
pages of our website - she is the pepper-coloured one with the really cute 
orange face, the smallest of the 3 "mamans". I will feature her on "The Sad Pages" 
when I can find the time and heart to do so.

Condolences to all whose piggies have recently joined Poivre

Debbie