Updates on Missy & Caramel...

You make recall the pregnancy scare with one of our Guinea pigs that I posted about last week... Well, there's been a strange twist.

We were leaning towards preemptive spaying... But so far Missy doesn't appear to be pregnant. (She's only gained 10 grams since we adopted her.) Because of her small size, our vet thinks that the surgery would be very high risk for her even though it wouldn't have been when she was younger because she would have healed faster then. But an alternate has appeared in the form of a silver lining to a *different* storm cloud.

Friday, Caramel started grunting when urinating and his urine contained blood. After a long (and anxious) day at the vet yesterday (Saturday) the vet found he had stones in his bladder. Her thought is that if we have them removed surgically, then there is little additional risk or cost in having him neutered at the same time since he'll already be anesthetized and will require virtually the same post-op care. The other option is to put him on a long term daily regimen of painkillers and antibiotics, there's a lot less risk for him but that has to be balanced against the impact to his quality of life.

We're aware of the risk that Missy may be pregnant and may yet require surgery, but we have to balance that unknown against what is certain. It's life threatening and risky for either to go under the knife - but it seems to us that its better overall if it's Caramel because it solves two known problems at once. We can then put them back together without worrying about accidental pregnancy and won't have to worry about whether or not future sows in the cage are spayed or not. (And we do intend to get at least one more piggie in the future. Caramel is five and Missy is three, so there is a very high chance of her becoming widowed.) We also know to pay a hell of a lot more attention to any future boars.

Two views of Godzilla!

(Ignore the first 25 seconds of the one below.