We adopted Critter and Skunky in December 2005 from Have a Heart Guinea Pig Rescue in New Jersey, when the two boys were six months old. They were supposed to be a surprise gift from me to my wife because my wife always loved small and furry animals. Unfortunately, my terrible attempt at hiding the cage on the day I built it (same day I went to pick the two up at the shelter) by simply placing a blanket over the cage on my side of the bed didn’t fool my wife. Regardless, she tried playing the part of a somewhat-surprised new mommy of two, but most importantly, I could see that she was definitely delighted to have them in our home.
Skunky, as the name suggests, was mostly black on his top half of the body including his head, with a white stripe right on top of his head. His bottom half was beige. It took both of them a couple of days of getting used to the new surroundings, but with hay, fresh veggies and lots of love, they started popcorning soon thereafter.
Skunky was always the more friendly one; not too shy around people. But in the cage, we can tell that Critter was the Big Boss. Skunky was okay with this. He continued to popcorn.
My fondest memory of Skunky is when I let him out in our bedroom once, and he kept running around and hopping, at one point hitting his body on the bedframe. OUCH. But then he would just bet back onto his running, and everything was fine in the world once again.
Right around the same time that my wife gave birth to our baby girl in April of last year, I thought that Skunky started getting more and more lethargic. He was very sick once with similar symptoms about six months ago, but antibiotics seemed to cure him. Unfortunately, this time around, the vet’s suggestion of putting him back on the same treatment just wasn’t enough. This past Sunday, we went out grocery shopping in the morning after we tried comforting, petting and feeding Skunky. I think we all knew that those may have been our last moments with him alive. Just less than two hours later, when we came home, I checked in the cage and Skunky had already started resting forever in peace. He was four years old.
The best lesson Skunky gave wasn’t for me, but for our daughter, who is now 15 months old. He put up with her until she figured out that she is supposed to pet animals; not to grab at them.
That somber evening, after we buried him and planted wildflower seeds above his burial site in the Palisades, we came home, played in the pool and came back up to play with Critter…just in time to avoid a rainstorm. My wife points to the outside and says, “Look at the rainbow.” How beautiful. And it was right above where we buried Skunky.
We now know that he safely made it up to piggie heaven.
Thanks for the memories, Skunky.
07-28-09, 06:18 am
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