R.I.P. Maizie

Today shouldn't really be a posting day, but I think the title makes it clear I have some important news to share, and what that news is. So I'm sure you'll understand the reason for an un-planned posting day.

On Thursday afternoon, our youngest chinchilla, Maizie, started seeming unwell. She'd been more cuddly recently, but otherwise seemed fine. I did think the cuddly behaviour was odd, but put it down to her having recently turned three. Mollie didn't change her behaviour on turning three, but the degus all mellowed out some when they turned three, including Joshua, who's almost six now. So, the possibility it was more than that didn't occur to me. In fact, I posted on Facebook only that morning how she was being extra cuddly and sweet, and how I hoped she kept wanting cuddles. However, by late afternoon, we realized there was something wrong, and our little girl needed a vet.

Though we spoke to the vets on the phone right away, we couldn't get her to a vet until Friday morning, partially because our own exotic vet had left the practice, so we had to find a new one on the spot. By the time we'd spoken to a couple of vets, and were able to get her seen, it was too late to do anything more than stop her suffering. Those of you who have owned small animals will know how they are for hiding that they aren't well until the last possible moment. Well, I guess that's what Maizie did.

Mollie is fine, by the way. Upset at being unable to locate her friend, of course. But otherwise fine. Let's hope she stays that way for a long time yet. Like Maizie, she only recently turned three. Although, in Mollie's case it was October she celebrated her third birthday, rather than just last month. Chinchillas can live a long time sometimes, assuming their health co-operates. Opinions differ as to exactly how long, though everyone gives numbers between 10 and 25 years, with most people saying about 15 years or so.

I'm sure you can imagine that it breaks my heart to lose Maizie so soon, though I'm glad it happened when it did, and not a week later, when I would have been in hospital. At least my being home still meant I could be with her at the end, and I could take her in to the vet myself, while Kelly stayed home with Lilie. He would have come too, but Lilie would have needed to come if Kelly did, and we didn't think it was fair on either of the girls to have us all go. Maizie more than anything, since Lilie adores vet trips so probably would have loved it, and it was Maizie's stress level we were really thinking of. Kelly going instead of me wasn't an option. We know rodents are tricky, and I wanted to be there with her if it was time to say, "Goodbye," and send her on that journey across the rainbow bridge. So I went on my own.

The vet practice was new to us. As I said, our usual one doesn't have an exotic pet vet at the moment, so we had to go elsewhere. They were great though... Both when it came to dealing with me, and - most importantly - with Maizie. So we've held on to their number in case we need them for Mollie (our remaining chinchilla) or Joshua (our remaining degu) at any point in the future. Mind you, it never hurts to have a second vet option for emergencies in general. As a rule though, we'll keep Lilie to her usual vet, since there's no reason to change her, what with her being a dog, and not an exotic pet. After all, the vets we'd been using are great too. Bearing in mind, we've been using our usual vet practice since we were using them for Kero when we first moved down here. That's close to seven and a half years ago now. Other than them suddenly not having an exotic vet, we've never had a problem with them in all that time, and the exotic pet vet thing isn't really a problem with them as such. A lot of vets don't train in exotic pets, and when they did have one who could deal with exotic pets, they were great with those too. Plus, when they realized we needed an exotic pet vet, they did give us a list of vets to try. Two of them were too far for us to get her to them, though one of them did try to help as much as was possible without seeing Maizie. One was extremely rude to me on the phone, and hung up on me, so they'd have to be the last vet option available for me to ever consider using them, since I'm not about to trust my furry babies to people who can't even be civil to other humans (our vet only gave us that number as an afterthought, in case we couldn't get her seen in the other three, since at least they do have an exotic pet vet there, and it was only their proximity to us that made us call them at all). The other vet our usual one told us to contact was the one we went to, and would willingly go to again, should we need to. Although, I'm hoping we won't need to any time soon, of course.

Anyway, I have some photos of Maizie, taken about a week ago, which I'd posted in the chinchillas' album on Facebook, but hadn't had a chance to post on here yet. So, I'm going to post them here.

Here she is perched on the edge of the sand bath:


Here she is coming out of the cage for a cuddle:


The chinchillas didn't chew on the purple bowl, but they kept tipping it over, and then getting upset because they didn't have any food. So, we got them a ceramic one. Here's Maizie trying it out:


"Do you mind? I'm eating!"


Rest in peace, Maizie Girl... We miss you already!

January 13th 2016 - February 1st 2019