Backlog Post: Kopi to the vet

20 July 2013

It was Kopi's 6th birthday,
and yet we were taking her to the vet.

For quite a while there was a lump growing at one of her teats.

She was eating fine, running and all that so we didn't do anything about it.

And from what we knew, operations were bad for guinea pigs.

They were too small to take such operations.


But a few days before, the swollen teat started leaking some blood.

After some discussion we decided to take her to our longtime vet Dr Vanessa.
Basically we had been stalking her whichever vet clinic she was at.

The diagnosis was mastitis, which is abit similar to breast tumour in humans.
We were quite surprised to learn that we could actually have prevented this
by taking Kopi for sterilisation when she was younger.
(Once again due to a belief that guinea pigs will actually die from sterilisation surgeries)

So the lesson is, whether you have a dog or cat or guinea pig or rabbit,
it is always better to sterilise them to prevent such illnesses from occuring.

Dr Vanessa told us the best thing would be to excise this growth,
however she allowed us to go home and mull over our decision.

2 days later Ougwee bought her in for the surgery,
and she whatsapped me the photo of the excised growth
(which I shall not post her)

For these few days Kopi's right leg is a little shorter than the other
due to the stitches holding the wound together,
but after a while it will be even out when the tissues start growing back.

Backlog Post: RIP Beanbean :(

15 July 2013, 3am


We all know it was time for her to go soon.

Her so-called age at adoption was 3 month, but it was certainly much more.
So probably when she went she was about 7-years old.

A few months before she started getting old:
fur loss, getting slow and lethargic, a bit of eyesight problem.

The few days before she went,
she lost so much weight that her hip joint could be seen under her furless skin.

She left in the middle of the night and Popo helped cleaned up,
and left a note: ben ben 走了 (Beanbean has left)

We all wondered if Kopi knew her companion had passed away,
and how she felt.

After a while we thought that she might not really have felt anything, or realised anything.

Then when we were talking to Popo,
she told us that night when Beanbean became motionless,
Kopi was nudging her with her nose.

So she knew.
That felt abit sad.