[Gpdd] [Announcement] Happy Belated Dilly & Donnie Day (and Happy Birthday Reese)!

[scalabro3 at cfl.rr.com]

Happy Belated Dilly & Donnie Day (and Happy Birthday Reese)!

Dilly and Donnie Day is a holiday that we invented to celebrate our piggies. We celebrate it on June 12th each year to commemorate the day that our dear Dillon and Donovan joined our family. While Dillon now celebrates with us from over the rainbow, we are very happy to now have Dilly Jr. and six other furry friends to help us celebrate with Donovan.  Because Dillon and Donovan were at least a year old when they came to live with us, and they joined our family in 2008, Donovan is now at least four years old!

Until recently, Donovan was our “big pig” who weighed 3.2 lbs. His weight has started to fluctuate lately, and it seems to be settling in at 2.9 lbs. So, I guess he’s transitioning from a LAPS pig to a SCAMPS pig.

Dilly and Donnie joined our family right after I returned from an annual work trip. Because of this, the timing worked out so that I was out of town for D & D Day this year.  It looks like there was still a lot of celebration while I was gone because everyone’s a bit overweight right now (except for dear Donovan).  I was very worried when I put Reese on the scale and saw that he weighs 3.24 lbs. You might remember that he’s our miracle pig who battled Lymphoma in February, and seems to have beaten it.  I was very concerned that he was filling back up with fluid until I put Dilly Jr. on the scale and found that he weighed 3.23 lbs.  The diet and exercise program starts on Monday (right now we are still celebrating)!

Also a belated Happy Birthday to Reese!  He is either a year old, or a year and a half old depending on whether you believe the shelter where he came from or my vet. When he first came to live with us, he was so hyper; we couldn’t imagine that he wasn’t still a puppy, so we estimated his age at 6 months instead of the 13 months the shelter told us.  Since he’s still the crazy puppy he was when he first got here (just a few grams heavier), he may actually be older.  Either way, we celebrated his birthday on June 8th, which is six months after the day that he joined our family.  Age is just a number anyway, and we’re so happy that he’s still here after the year that we’ve had so far.

Everyone else is doing well at the moment. Chakalaka (aka Boop Boop) hasn’t had any more medical problems since we found the right antibiotic and he finally started to feel better and start eating again. He’s still a bit skinnier than he was before he got sick, but he’s still around 3 lbs.   He and Dilly Jr. are no longer roommates. Chakalaka seems very happy to be alone in a pen next to the girls. Dilly Jr. is sad to be alone even though he is living next to Donovan.  We tried pairing him with Reese, but Dilly was very aggressive towards Reese, so that pairing doesn’t seem promising.  

We’ve tried putting Donovan and Reese back together, but when we do, Donovan stops eating and retreats to his pigloo and will not come out. We’ve watched the two of them, and Reese doesn’t seem to be doing anything to hurt Donovan, but we’re not fluent in piggie, so we’re not sure if he’s saying bad things to Donovan.  Because of Donovan’s recent weight loss, we don’t want to risk his health by putting them together, so I’m back to eight pigs and six pens.

Thank God, the girls and the Puffs are still getting along. We’re running out of space!

I hope that you all had a Happy D & D Day and that you and your piggies are doing well.

Hope you all have a very Happy Father’s Day weekend!

Best wishes,

ME in New Smyrna Beach with Dilly Jr., Donovan, Reese, Chakalaka, Puffy, Cocoa Puff, Twinkie, and Ghirardelli in our home, and Dillon Forever in our Hearts