Monday, April 07, 2008

Bye Bye baby...



We lost a beloved pet this weekend.

One of our female gerbils died sometime on Saturday. (This photo is her with her family when she was a newborn. She is the baby on top with the white spot on her head)
I gave them all treats on Friday evening, and they all seemed fine, but on Sunday we noticed that we had not seen her since then. She went into her little house and passed away. There was nothing obviously wrong with her, so it must have been something internal. Poor little girl. Now her sister is alone. They are social animals, so I don’t think she is going to like being alone very much, she is too old for a new cage mate. Lonely gerbils tend to die soon after their cage mates. Usually from broken hearts. When they are alone they lose the will to live.

I think losing her lead me to having uneasy feelings and uneasy dreams. All night I dreamt about pets that I’ve lost along the way. In my dream they were all living at my parents house and I went to visit and told them I was bringing them all home with me. I woke up sad because for a few minutes I forgot they were many years gone.

Over the years I’ve lost as many humans as animal friends to death. Honestly, both things hurt me equally. I know some people would think that is wrong or shallow, but I don’t. Pets give nothing but unconditional love to the families that adopt them. I can’t say that same thing about all of the people that I’ve come across over the years.

In other pet news, it is so weird that our gerbil died. She was young and seemed so healthy. We have actually been bracing ourselves for our little hamster, Wasabi to pass away as he is looking very much like a Grandpa recently.
The weird thing is, he has made a complete turn around! He has been running in his wheel like he has not done in ages and his fur is looking all bright and healthy!

He started to look really skinny and was sleeping a lot about a month ago. I was starting to get very worried about him because I am told that Dwarf Hamsters don't live more than 1.5 years usually, and he is right at that age right now. He was not eating as much as he used to either, so I decided to try something out to get him to eat better. I thought that old people need soft food, maybe geriatric hamsters do too?
I bought a few different types of high end baby food and a block of tofu. 2-3 times a day I've been feeding him a small dish of baby food and a square of tofu with a thin all natural peanut butter spread on it. (I started out spoon feeding him for the first week when he was weaker, but now the dish is fine.) He has been going CRAZY for it and totally got his wee appetite back. It has been amazing!! Within a week, he was sleeping less and running in his wheel and begging to get out to play. He is a young hammie again!

I mean, I know he is at that age, and I should not get my hopes up too much, but at least I know that if he does go soon, his last days will have been happy.

5 comments:

Deb Hardman said...

Wow, maybe you've discovered the fountain of youth!

Sorry about the gerbil. I dreamed about George the other day. I always felt extra sad about him. Bosco was very human too. Sometimes I think the animal souls are wiser than we humans.

Snotty McSnotterson said...

What a weird and wonderful dream; I cringe at how many pets I've forgotten about from my childhood. Sorry about the baby, though. :( I hope the other one stays strong!

Unknown said...

tear.

FreNeTic said...

Sorry for your loss...

But your dream - I would imagine it is one of those that seem depressing when you wake up, because you feel that sense of loss when it isn't true - but I can't help thinking of how nice it would be to have that dream!

Michelle Auer said...

Thank you all for your kind words! xoxo

 

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