Our sweet Sherman needed to be put down on Wednesday evening.
Let me preface this by saying, my family and I never owned piggies previous to this and adopted our little guy from a woman who could no longer give him the care we deserved - he was just about a year old last November when we took him in.
I myself am vegan, an animal activist and an absolute animal lover - but never did I ever think this sweet little soul would have such profound affect and cause such grief with loss.
Wednesday early evening I arrived home from work and not even ten minutes into sitting down my son started yelling that Sherman was out of his cage, Sherman jumped out of his cage. I came running into the kitchen to see our little Sherman seated on the floor by the doorway to the living room so I picked him up and put him in his cage - I proceeded back to the kitchen to grab his nightly veggie dinner and brought it back into my sons room to the cage, I could notice he wasn?t using his leg properly and thought ?oh my gosh he?s broken his leg? I put the food in and went to grab a towel so I could pick him up properly but when I returned again he was smashing and pushing his face into the food but wasn?t opening his mouth to chew it - it was then I noticed he couldn?t lift his head up either - he was dragging it through his bedding (almost in a sniffing position) I brought him out of the cage immediately where I had to keep directing him because he kept trying to almost wander out of my arms.
I knew right then and there something was terribly wrong. Sherman would always open the door to his own cage ( which was sitting atop one of those small children?s ikea tables) but he never ever jumped out and I would close it everytime I went in but I had not been home all day. I called around to about 7 different vets before finding one out of town that would take him in as an emergency.
By now our little Sherman was declining - he kept trying to walk but would fall onto his side and twitch, he was continually pushing his mouth into things and I feared the worst.
Got into the car with him in a blanket in a basket and off we drove. Sadly when we arrived at the vets after a quick examination they realized that this was definitely a severe brain injury. His blood sugar level was almost non existent. His temperature had dropped almost 7 degrees and his heart rate had completely slowed down.
The vet basically stated that there was nothing they could do except keep him on an IV but predicted that the shape he was in - he would not be making it through the night.
I wanted to wnd his suffering - I didn?t want him to be in pain, confused, lost or hurting for another second so I decided to euthanize ASAP.
We said our our goodbyes to our sweet boy. And to sleep he went.
i don?t think I will ever forgive myself for preventing him to open his cage. For not being home. And for such a great loss of life with still so much left to live. Such a small little soul has caused me such great loss. I miss his little wheeks every morning, when I would arrive home, when he would hear veggies being chopped in the kitchen. He deserved more time.
We love you to the moon and back little Sherm.
Let me preface this by saying, my family and I never owned piggies previous to this and adopted our little guy from a woman who could no longer give him the care we deserved - he was just about a year old last November when we took him in.
I myself am vegan, an animal activist and an absolute animal lover - but never did I ever think this sweet little soul would have such profound affect and cause such grief with loss.
Wednesday early evening I arrived home from work and not even ten minutes into sitting down my son started yelling that Sherman was out of his cage, Sherman jumped out of his cage. I came running into the kitchen to see our little Sherman seated on the floor by the doorway to the living room so I picked him up and put him in his cage - I proceeded back to the kitchen to grab his nightly veggie dinner and brought it back into my sons room to the cage, I could notice he wasn?t using his leg properly and thought ?oh my gosh he?s broken his leg? I put the food in and went to grab a towel so I could pick him up properly but when I returned again he was smashing and pushing his face into the food but wasn?t opening his mouth to chew it - it was then I noticed he couldn?t lift his head up either - he was dragging it through his bedding (almost in a sniffing position) I brought him out of the cage immediately where I had to keep directing him because he kept trying to almost wander out of my arms.
I knew right then and there something was terribly wrong. Sherman would always open the door to his own cage ( which was sitting atop one of those small children?s ikea tables) but he never ever jumped out and I would close it everytime I went in but I had not been home all day. I called around to about 7 different vets before finding one out of town that would take him in as an emergency.
By now our little Sherman was declining - he kept trying to walk but would fall onto his side and twitch, he was continually pushing his mouth into things and I feared the worst.
Got into the car with him in a blanket in a basket and off we drove. Sadly when we arrived at the vets after a quick examination they realized that this was definitely a severe brain injury. His blood sugar level was almost non existent. His temperature had dropped almost 7 degrees and his heart rate had completely slowed down.
The vet basically stated that there was nothing they could do except keep him on an IV but predicted that the shape he was in - he would not be making it through the night.
I wanted to wnd his suffering - I didn?t want him to be in pain, confused, lost or hurting for another second so I decided to euthanize ASAP.
We said our our goodbyes to our sweet boy. And to sleep he went.
i don?t think I will ever forgive myself for preventing him to open his cage. For not being home. And for such a great loss of life with still so much left to live. Such a small little soul has caused me such great loss. I miss his little wheeks every morning, when I would arrive home, when he would hear veggies being chopped in the kitchen. He deserved more time.
We love you to the moon and back little Sherm.