Hey guys,
Not sure how many of you know of or have been blessed to hold/pet/see a Chinchilla. My (ex)girlfriend and I have a family of Chins that we've accumulated throughout our relationship. I got her a female(August) for one of our aniversary's, and I got myself a female(Aspen) about 2 months later to keep hers company. Long story short, the one I got wasn't a female like I was told! So, we found out the hard way and in April of last year we had a little baby boy join Mommy and Daddy.
Not knowing how to care for the completely unexpected baby I jumped on the net to find out that breed back(mating RIGHT after pregnancy) is VERY common on Chins. Well....unfortionally we didn't seperate them in time because we didn't know she was going to have a baby. After months of my ex praying for a female(we had 2 boys so mommy needed someone) she had her baby on August 2nd of 2006. August(Mom) gave birth to a baby GIRL, YAY, who we named Phoenix. My ex was estatic, her prayers came true and wow was this little girl precious.
After the baby was born and mommy raised her for about a month, we took both boys(Dad and son) in for neutering so they could all be one big happy family again.
As Phoenix grew she had such a wonderful personality and she was like a godsend, she wasn't afraid, skittish, and would even come to you sometimes. She was a blast and she would run around and act like a little kid.
Well, about 2 months ago(she was 6 months old) she started acting funny at times. She was rubbing her nose a lot and would have eye boogers sometimes. We took her to the vet who diagnosed it as a cold at first and gave us antibiotics and told us to come back in a couple of days. After giving her meds for a week it didn't get better and we noticed that she started drooling a bit, my ex also noticed that she was loosing weight.
We took her in and the vet did an xray(hairballs are common) and found a small hairball, no biggy. They also looked at her teeth. At 6 months old her teeth were extremely overgrown and VERY abnormal. She was drooling because her bottom teeth were actually stabbing the roof of her mouth when she ate and the side teeth were stabbing the sides of her tongue. Their mouths are sooo small that we couldn't see anything wrong, and obviously they don't whine or make noises of pain like other animals so we were clueless until she started showing other symptoms.
So, to fix the problem they took her back and cut her teeth down and gave us pain medicine and antibiotics to help the ulcers on the roof of her mouth heal. Phoenix was so dehidrated from not being able to eat/drink because of the pain that they injected her with some water solution and gave us a powder formula of nutrients to hand feed her daily. After 2 months of feeding her with a big siringe she hasn't gained any weight and her teeth are growing at super speed.
We had two options....1)send her into surgery to grind down/remove her teeth which is VERY risky for small exotics and they said she probably wouldn't make it in her condition or 2)put her to sleep and end her suffering
Money wasn't an issue and for about a week we considered giving her to me for a week since I don't work and trying to feed her mass amounts(as perscribed by the vet) and get her back to her normal weight so she would have a better chance in surgery. The only problem with this was that for a week she'd be out of her normal surroundings, alone and probably scared. She would be suffering because she is in pain, and hungry, but also be suffering emotionally because they don't like change too much.
Option 2 is hard for the obvious reason that we don't want to give up on her, hoping and having faith that she'd pull through. After talking it over and thinking about her vs. our selfishness of trying to keep her around because we didn't want to give up hope, we decided that we should end her suffering and put her to sleep while she's still happy. We didn't want to lose her on the operation table without being able to say goodbye and that we love her. We also didn't want her to suffer AFTER the surgery, being miserable and in even more pain and wondering wtf her teeth went.
So...at 5:30pm, Cat and I took Phoenix into the vet for an appointment with the doctor to get her opinion, and preparing for the worse. We sat down in the exam room and let Phoenix run around...she seemed soooooo happy and excited to visit this new place. I was glad that she wasn't all moapy and that this distraction was keeping her mind off the pain and discomfort. The doctor pretty much felt the same as us and said that given her condition, she doesn't have a good chance for recovery from the surgery.
They gave us some time alone with her, there was a ton of crying, we told her that we're sorry things couldn't be different and that we love her and will miss her, than we handed Phoenix over to the angel of mercy. She is in a better place now where she isn't in pain, she isn't hungry and she is with all her friends to play forever.
Phoenix, we LOVE you! Rest In Peace!
8/3/2006-4/10/2007
Not sure how many of you know of or have been blessed to hold/pet/see a Chinchilla. My (ex)girlfriend and I have a family of Chins that we've accumulated throughout our relationship. I got her a female(August) for one of our aniversary's, and I got myself a female(Aspen) about 2 months later to keep hers company. Long story short, the one I got wasn't a female like I was told! So, we found out the hard way and in April of last year we had a little baby boy join Mommy and Daddy.
Not knowing how to care for the completely unexpected baby I jumped on the net to find out that breed back(mating RIGHT after pregnancy) is VERY common on Chins. Well....unfortionally we didn't seperate them in time because we didn't know she was going to have a baby. After months of my ex praying for a female(we had 2 boys so mommy needed someone) she had her baby on August 2nd of 2006. August(Mom) gave birth to a baby GIRL, YAY, who we named Phoenix. My ex was estatic, her prayers came true and wow was this little girl precious.
After the baby was born and mommy raised her for about a month, we took both boys(Dad and son) in for neutering so they could all be one big happy family again.
As Phoenix grew she had such a wonderful personality and she was like a godsend, she wasn't afraid, skittish, and would even come to you sometimes. She was a blast and she would run around and act like a little kid.
Well, about 2 months ago(she was 6 months old) she started acting funny at times. She was rubbing her nose a lot and would have eye boogers sometimes. We took her to the vet who diagnosed it as a cold at first and gave us antibiotics and told us to come back in a couple of days. After giving her meds for a week it didn't get better and we noticed that she started drooling a bit, my ex also noticed that she was loosing weight.
We took her in and the vet did an xray(hairballs are common) and found a small hairball, no biggy. They also looked at her teeth. At 6 months old her teeth were extremely overgrown and VERY abnormal. She was drooling because her bottom teeth were actually stabbing the roof of her mouth when she ate and the side teeth were stabbing the sides of her tongue. Their mouths are sooo small that we couldn't see anything wrong, and obviously they don't whine or make noises of pain like other animals so we were clueless until she started showing other symptoms.
So, to fix the problem they took her back and cut her teeth down and gave us pain medicine and antibiotics to help the ulcers on the roof of her mouth heal. Phoenix was so dehidrated from not being able to eat/drink because of the pain that they injected her with some water solution and gave us a powder formula of nutrients to hand feed her daily. After 2 months of feeding her with a big siringe she hasn't gained any weight and her teeth are growing at super speed.
We had two options....1)send her into surgery to grind down/remove her teeth which is VERY risky for small exotics and they said she probably wouldn't make it in her condition or 2)put her to sleep and end her suffering
Money wasn't an issue and for about a week we considered giving her to me for a week since I don't work and trying to feed her mass amounts(as perscribed by the vet) and get her back to her normal weight so she would have a better chance in surgery. The only problem with this was that for a week she'd be out of her normal surroundings, alone and probably scared. She would be suffering because she is in pain, and hungry, but also be suffering emotionally because they don't like change too much.
Option 2 is hard for the obvious reason that we don't want to give up on her, hoping and having faith that she'd pull through. After talking it over and thinking about her vs. our selfishness of trying to keep her around because we didn't want to give up hope, we decided that we should end her suffering and put her to sleep while she's still happy. We didn't want to lose her on the operation table without being able to say goodbye and that we love her. We also didn't want her to suffer AFTER the surgery, being miserable and in even more pain and wondering wtf her teeth went.
So...at 5:30pm, Cat and I took Phoenix into the vet for an appointment with the doctor to get her opinion, and preparing for the worse. We sat down in the exam room and let Phoenix run around...she seemed soooooo happy and excited to visit this new place. I was glad that she wasn't all moapy and that this distraction was keeping her mind off the pain and discomfort. The doctor pretty much felt the same as us and said that given her condition, she doesn't have a good chance for recovery from the surgery.
They gave us some time alone with her, there was a ton of crying, we told her that we're sorry things couldn't be different and that we love her and will miss her, than we handed Phoenix over to the angel of mercy. She is in a better place now where she isn't in pain, she isn't hungry and she is with all her friends to play forever.
Phoenix, we LOVE you! Rest In Peace!
8/3/2006-4/10/2007
