[Gpdd] [HEALTH] Update on The Prince and misc comments

[Annette Kobus]

Hello everyone and everypig,

I apologize for not posting a Prince Update sooner. I knew I needed to
write something, and a message from Alge (thank you!) kick-started me
into action. Our Furry One is alive and about as well as you can expect.
He's almost nine and a half now - we determined that his birthday was
likely around April 15, 1996. We got him in June 1996. Other than
needing a bit more frequent grease-gland cleaning (yuk), he seems happy
enough. His food bowl is on the opposite side of his cage from the water
bottle (I did it that way on purpose, so I could notice if he is not
able to make it from one side to the other) and he continues to partake
of both like a young piglet. He just had a nice long drink and wandered
to the other side for his Cavy Cuisine. 

I finally got around to ordering shilintong - I was surprised to find
that although here in Austin we have a pretty strong Chinese medicine
presence, the two places I went to never heard of shilintong. So I
ordered it online. Right now Prince is not taking any medicines. Since
we went to the vet a while back, I saved back a dose or two of the
metacam. It's nearly gone but I can probably get more if I need it.
Warning: gross description follows - I noticed that for a couple of
days, his little, well, male bit, was not 'retracting'. So I finally
filled up a bowl with warm water, got out some paper towels, and soaked
him. Some white substance seemed to be the culprit and once we got that
cleaned off, things went back to normal. He didn't cry about it though.
Since I've got the day off today, I should give him a bath and
"manicure" - those toenails are looking pretty long.

Also, although I do not know any residents of New Orleans personally,
some of them are about to become my neighbors if only for a short time.
Austin has several thousand Katrina survivors temporarily housed in our
convention center. I took my donation of bottled water, peanut butter
and tuna on my way to work Friday. I'll try to watch the digest closely
so I know what's going on with the rescue of pets.

Sorry for such a long post - I'll try to post sooner next time! Prince
says thank you to all his GPDD family for their concern!

-Annette