Goodbye Dallas & Dundee

In the space of just over a month I have lost two of my special guinea pigs.  I still can't quite believe it and feel pretty devastated.   They came to live with me in July last year and were such wonderful characters.  I had to make the heartbreaking decision to have Dallas put down at the beginning of October as he had a possible tumour behind his eye.  Surgery would have been at a great risk (and unfortunately expense with no guarantees of survival) and having put a guinea pig through surgery once before only to have them die afterwards I swore I would never do it again.  I just didn't want to put one through that kind of stress again.  This really upset me and I still feel bad about it.  Then yesterday I had to make the decision to have his mate Dundee put to sleep as he had developed some problem that was causing him a lot of pain.  He was a very unhappy guinea pig.  He went from me thinking he was just lonely on Friday as he was not eating like he usually does, to not being able to eat at all yesterday and he was crying and clenching his body frequently.  It was awful to see.  I suspect he had some kind of kidney/bladder problems as he had a 'smell' about him and was passing reddish urine and had a discharge.  I have owned guinea pigs for over 40 years and knew his prognosis wasn't good.  

I feel a bit 'cheated' that I didn't have them long enough, but not knowing their age when I got them I guess that is one of the hazards of 'rescue piggies'.  Just loved these two characters who used to make me smile and laugh.

Some photos of these two gorgeous boys.

RIP Dallas 4th October 2018 and Dundee 19th November 2018, I will really miss seeing your cheeky little faces each day.