Here Lies Poggy

Today marks the end of three and a half beautiful years with Poggles.  He passed away early morning. 

 He did not heal properly after the foot injury and the wound kept getting worse.  Despite our best efforts, he was suffering.  He could not walk anymore, he was weak, and he lost weight.  I fed him with a spoon for his last two days and he ate readily.  I had hope that he would recover.  

 Last night he appeared to be in pain or to be having seizures.  I gave him one last dose of pain medication and he settled down.  He licked towards me over and over again like he was thankful or giving me kisses and then settled down looking at me from the opening in his pouch.  

This morning, he was still in the same position looking out.  He didn't answer when I called.  He wasn't alive anymore.  I cried and cried all day long and wondered about all the things I might have done for him to save him.  

In the end, I am just thankful that he waited for me and that I was with him in his last moments.  He was a very good hedgehog and the best study buddy ever.  He was a great source of comfort to me all throughout nursing school.  

I wrapped him in thick paper towel and made him a nice biodegradable coffin out of layers of newspaper.  

Coincidentally, it says, "above & beyond" on the lid.  I thought that was kind of nice.  Like he's gone to heaven or somewhere in the sky.  I can't explain the red seedless grapes though.

We buried him in a lovely plot of the garden where English Mint and Lemon Balm grows.  I think he would have liked the smell.  My sweetheart sang a song and I said a speech for him.  We gathered little flowers from my garden and put them all about his grave.

Rest in peace, my little hedgehog.  I will love you and miss you always.  You will forever be in my heart.  Good bye, Master Pogglebee.

New Puzzle Ball Completed

It has been a while, but I finally finished a new puzzle ball.  This one is meant for my niece.  I planned to give it to her for her first birthday, but that came and went and all the wedges of the ball were just lying around on my desk at home. 

Today I cleared off my very messy desk to dig out my hidden sewing machine and discovered all these sad, neglected pieces of her puzzle ball.  I stuffed the remaining pieces, sewed up the remaining edge, and joined the pieces to form this lovely new puzzle ball.

I think it turned out rather cute  :)  There is one ring of racoons, one ring of foxes, and one of moose.  I probably wasted a lot of fabric centering the images onto these little critters, but it was well worth it.  I chose to use flannel fabric and to skip the cotton batting to create a softer, baby-friendly ball.

If you would like to make a puzzle ball of your own.  The pattern can be found here in my store or using the Paypal link on this post.  This is a 6-inch ball, but I also have a pattern available for a larger 9-inch ball.

Have a great day!

Poggy is Better

Poggy went to the vet on the weekend and he got the A-Okay from the vet.  Yay!

The vet says the tongue is healing well and it was not cancer-related.  I'm supposed to keep giving him the chlorhexidine mouthwash for 4 more days and then I can stop giving it.  He can also resume regular cat food.

 Poggy also gained weight!  The vet was sure he would lose weight from his liquid diet, but the vet was surprised to find that Poggles had gained 36 grams.  He went from 304 grams to 340 grams.  The vet says that this is a good new weight for Poggles and that I should aim to keep him around this weight.

So since he loves the baby food and cooked egg yolk mixed with water, I will continue to give it to him along with his regular kibble.  I mixed his kibble with the baby food last night so that it would soften and Poggles ate about half of the kibbles.   I tried to give him one dried kibble, but I noticed that he takes a very long time to eat just one.  Sort of messes it around his mouth over and over and spitting it out and eating it again.  Doesn't seem right.

 Today he is very tired.  He has started wheeling at night again.  Maybe he felt that he needed to work out after I told him that he gained weight (actually I called him a fatso... and then fed him some croissant).  He looks super cute with the extra weight.  When you look down from top view, he actually has some roundness instead of being sucked in on the sides.  Sucked in on the sides means he is malnourished.  And when I pick him up, he has some weight to him instead of being light.  It is very nice.

On the flipside, he was so heavy that he tipped over his food bowl when he put his paws on the ledge of the bowl.  I had to right it for him and clean up the mess.  Poor fellow.

I am very happy that Poggy is okay now.

Have a happy week!

Poggy And The Baby Food

Poggy has been happily eating a mixture of chicken and pea baby food, cooked egg yolk, lizard powdered food (from the vet), and congee.

 At first I had each item on a spoon in his cage so he could pick his favourite, but I soon discovered that I could just mix them all together.  The key is that there has to be a good portion of chicken baby food.  That stuff smells really good!  My dad says it actually smells a bit like spam.  If you know what spam tastes like, well this chicken baby food is equally tasty (but without the super dose of salt).

You can see that Poggy approves of this mixture.

 He happily laps it up.  Due to the depth of the bowl, his front feet end up in his food too.  He tries very hard not to get his feet in, but he inevitably tumbles forward from the bowl ledge and just keeps on eating.  He gets about four teaspoons of food plus water (to make it soup-like) twice per day.  It seems comparable to the tablespoon of kibble he used to eat per day, but I am not sure if this is sufficient for him as he finishes all of the food completely.  Either that or he finds it irresistibly tasty.

Every day, I give him a little bit extra than the day before, but he eats that too.

Here he is escaping to his toilet. 

Once he finds a good spot, he settles down to lick his little hands clean. You can see how his fingers are all wet now.

 He spends a very long time doing this.  I guess he must be cleaning very thoroughly.  Good boy!

 He lacks some skills/ability in cleaning his face though.

 I am very tempted to give him a bath again soon, but I'm holding off for a few more days.  His house, however, got a very good cleaning.  His food-coated feet make his carpeting very messy.

 I cleaned his litter pan today so he has resumed his bulldozing activities.  As you can see, something is caught in his quills now.

 "Poggy?  Um, Poggy... there's something in your quills."

 "Where?"

 "I don't see anything in my quills."

 "Where is this something?"

 It is a lot of fun watching him play in the litter and push it around.

 I am still giving him the chlorhexidine mouthwash twice a day.  He isn't drooling like his did before, but he does smack his lips a lot.  His poop is also still almost black.  Poggy has another vet visit due this week so he can get his second antibiotic shot and have a follow-up check up.  Fingers crossed that it will go smoothly.  

Have a happy day!

Goldfish Babies One Month Old And More Eggs

The gold fish babies are now 1 month old

 

They look a lot more like fish, but they still have no goldfish colour aside from the greenish brown coloration and pale belly.

 Sadly, only 4 babies remain.  There are two big, fat ones and two skinny, small ones.  I refer to them as clones since the pairs look eerily similar to each other.  Perhaps the Matrix felt sorry for me when all the babies started to die and they create two copies of the last two fish for me to stare at every day.

 It seems that the toxicity of the water was building up rapidly as the drops of raw egg yolk began to decompose in the water.  I suddenly noticed at least 8 baby fish dead one day and I immediately changed the water.

I thought maybe I could save a couple goldfish babies from the toxic water by moving them to the guppy tank, but it was a bad idea.

I discovered that the baby goldfish don't swim very well since the baby tank has no real current.  So they kind of half swim, half float in the guppy tank.  Also, they are very pale coloured compared to the guppy babies so they stand out.  Within minutes, a fat momma guppy spotted the goldfish baby and chased it.  The baby's swimming skills were sadly lacking and she swallowed him down in three gulps.  It was horrifying.

 By that time, only five babies were still remaining.  My brother tested the chemical balance of the water and found that the ammonia level was still too high, so he has since changed an even larger proportion of the water.  Now four babies remain. 

 Meanwhile, the parent goldfish tank also benefited from double water changes.  I also planted new artificial plants since they had demolished the original live plants.

This prompted some mating behaviour and we were shocked to discover a new batch of eggs on Sunday morning.

 I knew they could lay eggs twice a year, but I didn't expect it so soon.

 There were eggs everywhere!  Not as many probably as the first time, but still a plentiful amount.

I moved any plants with eggs into the goldfish baby tank, and my brother vacuumed any visible eggs up and transferred them as well.

 You can see that the baby goldfish is wondering what all the small round balls are.

I pushed the contrast of the image so that you can see the eyeballs of the babies and their curved bodies.  The white egg is an unfertilized egg.

There are quite a few unfertilized eggs noticeable as they start to turn whiter.

Even so, there are so many eggs that there will definitely be lots of babies.

This egg is stuck to a plant, but the floor of the baby tank is actually covered with lots of loose eggs that we vacuumed off the plastic plants, gravel, and filter from the parent tank.

Meanwhile, Frog the Goldfish doesn't care.  These are not his kids.  He is just taking a nap by the new plants while he waits for his next meal.

Have a great day!