Meet Bugsy

I always end up with the strangest animals.....I had a cat that I could not teach to potty in the litter box;  a cat that went to the litter box but winkled right where the top and bottom of the box came together thus making a mess that would drip out the back of the box (grossed out yet?).  I had  a dog that was so allergic that the vet said he won the award for the most allergic animal he had ever seen (in an allergy test he tested positive to 31 different allergens!).  After a year of giving him desensitization injections, he was no better off and he was on steroids daily for most of his life just to keep him somewhat comfortable.  Now I have a guinea pig that has had respiratory problems for over six months.  I took him to the vet around the end of April, because he seemed to be getting worse.  We have been back to the vet about every two weeks since then, changing up medications and doses trying to cure this little guy.  We have done x rays and lung aspirates-yes, you heard that right.  It was not cheap and it came back negative for any bacterial growth.  This pig is worth a couple of hundred dollars at this point and he is not much better than when we started.  The vet we have been seeing now wants me to take Bugsy to the vet school in Gainesville (three hours away) to see what they have to say.  Okay.....I don't have time to take a day off and drive up there and back, and I really don't want to pay for more tests that will possibly tell me nothing.  But after investing so much already, I hate to stop now.  The poor little guy seems to get worse when he is off the antibiotics, even though they don't get rid of the congestion.  Sometimes he seems pretty uncomfortable and there have been times that I thought he might not make it to the next day.  Today, I decided to try one more thing.  I have taken out all of the paper bedding that we have been using and replaced it with a fleece material to try to eliminate as much dust as possible from his environment.  We will see how that goes. 

Here is Bugsy getting one of his respiratory treatments.  He gets these twice a day and it takes about twenty minutes.  Fortunately,  he is a sweet little guy and sits nice and still for them.  He also takes his two oral medications very well. 

During Bugsy's treatments, Conan likes to try to get into the guinea pig cage.  One night, I decided to let him and see how far he would go.

Turns out he wanted to get in the cage to eat the timothy hay.  It made him sick so he is not allowed to do that anymore.  You might think that the guinea pigs would be afraid of the cat, but they aren't.  Actually they are very curious and often try to touch noses with him when he comes up to the cage to see them. What is even more funnier is that if the pigs are out of the cage, the cat will run from them!