I got Mogwai three years ago as a baby pig and today I’m saying goodbye to him. It’s been a hard three years with lots of struggles. I didn’t know when I got him but he has a birth defect that resulted in his lower jaw being stunted. This short jaw makes it almost impossible for him to eat hay. This also means that his incisors grow very long very quickly and they have to be manually trimmed by his vet once a month. Earlier this year he was acting very strange so I took him in and we learned, very much to our dismay, that he has a disease that causes/caused bilateral (meaning both sides) bone degeneration in his back legs from his hips to his ankles, as well as his lower spine, and also lost 10% of his body weight (most likely all bone mass). This was something my vet has never before seen in a guinea pig. There was talk of doing a bone biopsy to see if she could determine what the cause is, but the fragile state of his legs made her feel like a biopsy would, in addition to being very painful on it’s own, more than likely break his leg. He’s been on daily pain medication for it but the maximum dosage only takes the edge off. Moving around is extremely difficult for him and too much results in him whimpering in pain. Last year his molars grew too fast for him to keep up with and he needed to be put under anesthesia and have them ground down by a vet who specializes in rodent dentistry. That was only six months ago and we found out that he needs it again.
Due to the massive bone loss in his legs and back we feel that the oral procedure would be too much for his body, physically.
Right now, all he does is eat his critical care (a hay replacement that I load with vitamin C and digestive supplements) and sleep. He’s in pain, daily, and with more pain on the horizon it is time to say goodbye.
Goodbye, sweet pig. We love you dearly.
