[Gpdd] RAINBOW BRIDGE: Joey G. is gone
Cindy
calliope at geeksnet.com
Sun Jun 19 14:41:41 EDT 2005
My sweet gentlepig Joey G. passed on to the Bridge Thursday afternoon. He
was four years old, much too young for such a journey. He passed away at
the vet's office, just as I was waiting to pick him up. I can't begin to
say how terrible it was to think I would see him looking up at me from his
carrier and then learn that he was gone! It was his third vet visit in
four days.
I met Joey at our Humane Society in October 2001. He had been found
abandoned, with sarcoptic mange and no hair. He underwent many, many
treatments for the mange before the Humane Society put him up for
adoption. When I saw him I could tell he would be hard to place; he was
impossible to pick up. There was no type of bond between us, and I could
tell that as far as he was concerned, I didn't exist. Of course I went
home and told my husband that there was a piggie who needed us.
After his adoption, Joey hated to be touched. There were days that I
wondered if he would ever come around. My vet pronounced him
wild. Slowly, though, he began to accept our presence, and our totally
unsocialized piggie became a lap pig. He enjoyed being brushed, massaged,
and generally "fussed over." He even liked lying on his back in my arms
and having his tummy rubbed. Somewhere along the way his acceptance had
become love.
Joey's fur was odd-looking at first, and we had no idea what type of guinea
pig he was. His fur was too long for him to be a Teddy and not quite the
right texture for an Aby. The "G." in his name stood for Gryphon, after
the mythical beast, because we weren't sure quite what he was. His hair
grew and grew, until finally we realized he was a Texel.
Joey shared his room, though not his cage, with Buttercup, and when she
passed away in 2003, he mourned. His new friend was Remie, another male,
and they quickly bonded; sadly Remie passed away last year. Then Sunshine
and Tumbleweed, two of the Maryland rescue piggies, came into his
life. When they met on the kitchen floor after a few weeks, I was
nervous. I'd never tried to bond three piggies, let alone three
males. There was very little smelling and no arguing at all. Joey the
gentlepig immediately accepted his new friends into his world, and they
accepted him.
We had no indication that Joey was ill until he refused his carrot Monday
morning. I took him to the vet that afternoon (after attending a funeral
-- a terrible week) and discovered that although I'd been checking and
cleaning him every day for impaction, he had some impaction that I hadn't
seen was there. My vet cleaned him out, showed me how to be more
aggressive in my cleaning, and sent us home. Joey seemed to feel better,
but his appetite didn't totally improve, and we were back at the vet's the
next day. Of course, Joey decided to perk up as he was being examined. He
ate some of the hay I'd brought and looked much more lively and alert. We
went home again and decided to feed him Critical Care and Pedialyte to
strengthen him. Thursday he wouldn't eat his breakfast at all, and we went
to the vet's for an X-ray. Later that day he left us. We don't know why.
Joey, I miss your unfailingly sweet nature, the way you would let me wiggle
your feet, the kindness you showed to all new piggies in the house -- and a
thousand other things. Thank you for coming into our lives. Rest well, my
sweet boy. We love you.
Oh, so very sadly,
Cindy, Sunshine, and Tumbleweed
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