LuckySaffron
07-23-2014, 05:06 PM
Sadly, I lost my beloved syrian hamster Woolley this week.
She was a rescue hamster that I got from the RSPCA back in November 2012. I had started a college course that September and being around all the animals and others talking about their pets made me realize how much I missed having a pet of my own. I had kept hamsters between the ages of 12 - 24 and had loved 7 different syrians during this time, but then I took a 5 year break.
Influenced by my course, I decided to redo research on keeping hamsters and wanted to look up the best cages for them and everything, which is what led me here.
I learned so much that I didn't know about hamsters and keeping them before, so I used the information on posts here to get the best for my future new hammy. I bought an Alexander cage, got a large "rat" sized wheel and made sure I had a good amount of toys.
When everything was set up, I then just needed a hamster.
I didn't really want to have a pet shop ham, so I decided to see if I could rescue one and after searching on many sites, one of the RSPCA sites had this picture up in their small animal adoptions:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v142/PDUTogepi/Woolley/woolley-s_zps01395785.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/PDUTogepi/media/Woolley/woolley-s_zps01395785.jpg.html)
She was listed at 4 months old at the time of her listing (which was done in October) and was also listed as... male! (More on that later!)
There was sadly some issues at first with adopting her, as the centre wanted to see the cage in person, which was understandable, but due to the size of the cage we could not drive it up to them and my dad was adamant that he did not want someone he didn't know visiting the house, and sadly his house, his rules. I was about to give up on getting the hamster I had fallen in love with, but thankfully the RSPCA were very accommodating to the situation when I explained it and allowed me to send in photos of the cage and set up instead. They were happy with it and we arranged to pick her up.
There was some confusion when we arrived there, as they had gotten the paperwork ready for the other male syrian they had, but I explained that I wanted the black and white male. After a bit of searching, they found Woolley's documents and they revealed... she was a girl! Someone had typo'd her gender on the website! But it didn't matter, I'd already fallen for her and wanted to take her home.
The RSPCA prepared her paperwork and even gave me a small bag of dried banana chips, which she apparently loved a lot!
Woolley was an amazing hamster! Although she was in no way a cuddle hamster, her personality was amusing and often kept me on my toes. She was fast, like a little energizer bunny, and was often finding ways to climb on things she shouldn't. She often tried monkey barring in my early days of having her... but she was terrible at it.
She was feisty, quite stubborn and didn't like being kept in one place. She liked to try doing her own thing, so her playtimes were more "trying to run off to an adventure" times. I'd have her on my bed and she'd try and make a dive under the pillows! And when I was holding her, she often tried to worm her way out of my arms. She tolerated being handled, but always wanted to do her own thing.
I made her a massive playpen, hoping this would give her some out of cage freedom to do what she wanted and give her a large space to run around in, but it had walls, so it was just seen as another thing to try and escape from.
I called her my little minx as she was just so feisty and mischievous.
She also was an AMAZING nest builder. She would often dig up almost all her substrate (which was often fitch and sometimes carefresh) and pushed it into her nest corner, which was under a low shelf. She then made a burrow like home.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v142/PDUTogepi/Woolley/773858372_zps6fdfd5dc.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/PDUTogepi/media/Woolley/773858372_zps6fdfd5dc.jpg.html)
She also loved burying her wood chews in these epic nests.
Although there were times she acted in-different to me, she was my best friend when she knew I had food for her. That girl loved her food and was always excited for it. She would also run about the cage and sit on her favourite spot by one of the cage doors, or sometimes even follow me up and down. This was her way of saying "food/treat please!!"
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v142/PDUTogepi/Woolley/IMG_2266_zps2acabbdd.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/PDUTogepi/media/Woolley/IMG_2266_zps2acabbdd.jpg.html)
As you can see from the above picture, at one point her fur looked very patchy. It never seemed to bother her, it was never sore and she didn't scratch any more than usual, but when it wasn't improving, I took her for her first vet trip and was given some mite treatment to try for demodex mites.
I gave her the treatment, she lost a further two patches of fur on her rump during it, but then 3 weeks after the treatment ended, she miracously grew all her fur back and in the order the lost it!! She finally had back her full coat and I was so happy.
She remained happy and well though my remaining time at college, but sadly it was not meant to last.
I had noticed that during the last month or so, she did seem to be breathing heavier than normal, but again it never seemed to bother her and other than her slowing down a little and not running in her wheel as much, she seemed perfectly normal. I thought maybe I was mistaken.
Last Thursday was a rather humid day and I noticed Woolley was sleeping close to the mouth of her nest, usually a sign she was a bit warm, so I opened the windows and set a fan going, circulating the room. The breeze was not too much and was only catching the edge of the cage. I left the room for 10-20 minutes and when I came back, I noticed she had gotten out of her nest and climbed onto the low shelf to purposly lay where the fan was catching. Poor thing must of been warm, I thought, but it was then I noticed that her breathing was very erratic and she moved around often, as if uncomfortable. She also started gagging a little when she moved. She then tried to get off the shelf and fell off it (It was low, so no worries) went in her sandbox, then ran to one end of the cage to the other before climbing up onto her higher shelf. Here she really started gagging, as if she was struggling to breathe. I was scared that the heat was proving too much for her little old lady lungs to handle, so I called the vet and got her an appointment that day.
The vet listened to her chest and said she couldn't hear any fluid, but noticed her temperature was actually a bit low. Since she wasn't showing signs of an infection, she didn't want to medicate her and didn't really know what was wrong, so I was told to take her home, leave her to rest and to monitor her, if there is no improvement bring her back. So that is what I did.
While I left her to rest, I started searching about hamster breathing issues and found thyme could help, so I got some of that and sprinkled it around her nest. I had planned to make the tea too, but didn't want to disturb her as she needed her rest. (I found out she liked the thyme though, so it made a nice new treat for her!)
She continued eating, drinking and having interest in doing hamster things. Her temp seemed to go back to normal and slowly she seemed to improve. By Saturday night and Sunday, she was back to her old self, although her breathing was still heavier than I would of liked, it was no where near like it was before and she seemed to not be bothered by it.
Monday night, she was out, she came over to me all excited for food, so I gave her some treats and a little stroke on the back, before she took the treats back to her nest to eat them. Sadly, an hour later was a different story. I heard her go into her sandbox, so I went to look at her and she had her head rested on the side like she was exhausted and her breathing was once again erratic. It was late, so I had no choice but to see how she was in the morning.
I checked on her Tuesday morning. She hadn't been out all night as she'd not taken the piece of red pepper I left her in her bowl. I saw her trying to sleep in her nest, but as she breathed, I could hear clicking. It was on and off, but it was there. My poor baby had fluid in her lungs.
I had to wait until after 12pm to get her to the vets, as my only ride there at the time, my mum, worked nights, but I rang her in as an emergency and they told me to bring her straight in.
As soon as the vet picked her up, Woolley coughed up a pink looking liquid, which the vet knew was not a good sign. It was then I asked the vet about something I had started to wonder about, since the previous Thursday.
Was Woolley suffering from heart failure?
The vet told me that with her age and the type of fluid she had brought up, it was common with conditions such as that. She was sure that Woolley was not suffering from an infection, which I felt was right and that she more than likely had fluid on her lungs from an incurable condition. The vet said that her heart was going very fast, but there was no obvious murmur, but that didn't mean that she wasn't suffering from a failing heart, it was possible.
The vet gave me two options: Try medication to get the fluid out of her lungs and see how she goes, or euthanize her.
At first I wanted to try the medication because she was still putting up a fight against us, but when the vet went to see what medication Woolley could have, I placed her back in her carrier and looked at her. She was breathing so fast, her eyes were half closed, the vet trip alone had taken a lot out of her.
I was also worried about causing her too much stress by giving her the medication.
I talked to the vet about it and she left me to think it over. In the end, I decided medication was just not worth it. Her condition was incurable, the medication would only serve to make her more comfortable, but giving the medication would probably cause her a lot of stress, meaning that she wouldn't really be comfortable at all.
In the end, I decided the best thing to do for my little girl was to end her suffering then and there. I knew she was stubborn and I felt she would just hang on for longer than she really should if any other choice was taken.
I signed the consent form for euthanasia with a heavy heart and the vet assured me that she would be put to sleep as humanely as possible.
When her body was brought back to me, the vet explained that when she was put under with the gas to start the process, she expelled a lot of fluid from her lungs, more than we expected, so the vet explained that it was possible she had been suffering from it for a while and that my choice had been the best choice for her.
She looked really peaceful and no longer in distress or pain.
Today we buried her in the garden in a beautiful gold box that my mum gave me, with all her favourite treats, a heart-shaped wood chew and a small note from me. She joins my other previous hamsters, who are also buried in the same garden.
My heart is aching and I miss her so very much. I knew there was every possibility I would lose her this year, but I didn't think it would be so soon and I didn't think it would be in this way, it was the first time I had to face choosing to euthanize one of my hamsters, but I am glad that she is no longer suffering. She reached around the age of two, so she lived a good long life.
Goodbye, my little sweetheart. I'm happy I was able to give you the second chance you deserved in life.
She was a rescue hamster that I got from the RSPCA back in November 2012. I had started a college course that September and being around all the animals and others talking about their pets made me realize how much I missed having a pet of my own. I had kept hamsters between the ages of 12 - 24 and had loved 7 different syrians during this time, but then I took a 5 year break.
Influenced by my course, I decided to redo research on keeping hamsters and wanted to look up the best cages for them and everything, which is what led me here.
I learned so much that I didn't know about hamsters and keeping them before, so I used the information on posts here to get the best for my future new hammy. I bought an Alexander cage, got a large "rat" sized wheel and made sure I had a good amount of toys.
When everything was set up, I then just needed a hamster.
I didn't really want to have a pet shop ham, so I decided to see if I could rescue one and after searching on many sites, one of the RSPCA sites had this picture up in their small animal adoptions:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v142/PDUTogepi/Woolley/woolley-s_zps01395785.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/PDUTogepi/media/Woolley/woolley-s_zps01395785.jpg.html)
She was listed at 4 months old at the time of her listing (which was done in October) and was also listed as... male! (More on that later!)
There was sadly some issues at first with adopting her, as the centre wanted to see the cage in person, which was understandable, but due to the size of the cage we could not drive it up to them and my dad was adamant that he did not want someone he didn't know visiting the house, and sadly his house, his rules. I was about to give up on getting the hamster I had fallen in love with, but thankfully the RSPCA were very accommodating to the situation when I explained it and allowed me to send in photos of the cage and set up instead. They were happy with it and we arranged to pick her up.
There was some confusion when we arrived there, as they had gotten the paperwork ready for the other male syrian they had, but I explained that I wanted the black and white male. After a bit of searching, they found Woolley's documents and they revealed... she was a girl! Someone had typo'd her gender on the website! But it didn't matter, I'd already fallen for her and wanted to take her home.
The RSPCA prepared her paperwork and even gave me a small bag of dried banana chips, which she apparently loved a lot!
Woolley was an amazing hamster! Although she was in no way a cuddle hamster, her personality was amusing and often kept me on my toes. She was fast, like a little energizer bunny, and was often finding ways to climb on things she shouldn't. She often tried monkey barring in my early days of having her... but she was terrible at it.
She was feisty, quite stubborn and didn't like being kept in one place. She liked to try doing her own thing, so her playtimes were more "trying to run off to an adventure" times. I'd have her on my bed and she'd try and make a dive under the pillows! And when I was holding her, she often tried to worm her way out of my arms. She tolerated being handled, but always wanted to do her own thing.
I made her a massive playpen, hoping this would give her some out of cage freedom to do what she wanted and give her a large space to run around in, but it had walls, so it was just seen as another thing to try and escape from.
I called her my little minx as she was just so feisty and mischievous.
She also was an AMAZING nest builder. She would often dig up almost all her substrate (which was often fitch and sometimes carefresh) and pushed it into her nest corner, which was under a low shelf. She then made a burrow like home.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v142/PDUTogepi/Woolley/773858372_zps6fdfd5dc.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/PDUTogepi/media/Woolley/773858372_zps6fdfd5dc.jpg.html)
She also loved burying her wood chews in these epic nests.
Although there were times she acted in-different to me, she was my best friend when she knew I had food for her. That girl loved her food and was always excited for it. She would also run about the cage and sit on her favourite spot by one of the cage doors, or sometimes even follow me up and down. This was her way of saying "food/treat please!!"
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v142/PDUTogepi/Woolley/IMG_2266_zps2acabbdd.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/PDUTogepi/media/Woolley/IMG_2266_zps2acabbdd.jpg.html)
As you can see from the above picture, at one point her fur looked very patchy. It never seemed to bother her, it was never sore and she didn't scratch any more than usual, but when it wasn't improving, I took her for her first vet trip and was given some mite treatment to try for demodex mites.
I gave her the treatment, she lost a further two patches of fur on her rump during it, but then 3 weeks after the treatment ended, she miracously grew all her fur back and in the order the lost it!! She finally had back her full coat and I was so happy.
She remained happy and well though my remaining time at college, but sadly it was not meant to last.
I had noticed that during the last month or so, she did seem to be breathing heavier than normal, but again it never seemed to bother her and other than her slowing down a little and not running in her wheel as much, she seemed perfectly normal. I thought maybe I was mistaken.
Last Thursday was a rather humid day and I noticed Woolley was sleeping close to the mouth of her nest, usually a sign she was a bit warm, so I opened the windows and set a fan going, circulating the room. The breeze was not too much and was only catching the edge of the cage. I left the room for 10-20 minutes and when I came back, I noticed she had gotten out of her nest and climbed onto the low shelf to purposly lay where the fan was catching. Poor thing must of been warm, I thought, but it was then I noticed that her breathing was very erratic and she moved around often, as if uncomfortable. She also started gagging a little when she moved. She then tried to get off the shelf and fell off it (It was low, so no worries) went in her sandbox, then ran to one end of the cage to the other before climbing up onto her higher shelf. Here she really started gagging, as if she was struggling to breathe. I was scared that the heat was proving too much for her little old lady lungs to handle, so I called the vet and got her an appointment that day.
The vet listened to her chest and said she couldn't hear any fluid, but noticed her temperature was actually a bit low. Since she wasn't showing signs of an infection, she didn't want to medicate her and didn't really know what was wrong, so I was told to take her home, leave her to rest and to monitor her, if there is no improvement bring her back. So that is what I did.
While I left her to rest, I started searching about hamster breathing issues and found thyme could help, so I got some of that and sprinkled it around her nest. I had planned to make the tea too, but didn't want to disturb her as she needed her rest. (I found out she liked the thyme though, so it made a nice new treat for her!)
She continued eating, drinking and having interest in doing hamster things. Her temp seemed to go back to normal and slowly she seemed to improve. By Saturday night and Sunday, she was back to her old self, although her breathing was still heavier than I would of liked, it was no where near like it was before and she seemed to not be bothered by it.
Monday night, she was out, she came over to me all excited for food, so I gave her some treats and a little stroke on the back, before she took the treats back to her nest to eat them. Sadly, an hour later was a different story. I heard her go into her sandbox, so I went to look at her and she had her head rested on the side like she was exhausted and her breathing was once again erratic. It was late, so I had no choice but to see how she was in the morning.
I checked on her Tuesday morning. She hadn't been out all night as she'd not taken the piece of red pepper I left her in her bowl. I saw her trying to sleep in her nest, but as she breathed, I could hear clicking. It was on and off, but it was there. My poor baby had fluid in her lungs.
I had to wait until after 12pm to get her to the vets, as my only ride there at the time, my mum, worked nights, but I rang her in as an emergency and they told me to bring her straight in.
As soon as the vet picked her up, Woolley coughed up a pink looking liquid, which the vet knew was not a good sign. It was then I asked the vet about something I had started to wonder about, since the previous Thursday.
Was Woolley suffering from heart failure?
The vet told me that with her age and the type of fluid she had brought up, it was common with conditions such as that. She was sure that Woolley was not suffering from an infection, which I felt was right and that she more than likely had fluid on her lungs from an incurable condition. The vet said that her heart was going very fast, but there was no obvious murmur, but that didn't mean that she wasn't suffering from a failing heart, it was possible.
The vet gave me two options: Try medication to get the fluid out of her lungs and see how she goes, or euthanize her.
At first I wanted to try the medication because she was still putting up a fight against us, but when the vet went to see what medication Woolley could have, I placed her back in her carrier and looked at her. She was breathing so fast, her eyes were half closed, the vet trip alone had taken a lot out of her.
I was also worried about causing her too much stress by giving her the medication.
I talked to the vet about it and she left me to think it over. In the end, I decided medication was just not worth it. Her condition was incurable, the medication would only serve to make her more comfortable, but giving the medication would probably cause her a lot of stress, meaning that she wouldn't really be comfortable at all.
In the end, I decided the best thing to do for my little girl was to end her suffering then and there. I knew she was stubborn and I felt she would just hang on for longer than she really should if any other choice was taken.
I signed the consent form for euthanasia with a heavy heart and the vet assured me that she would be put to sleep as humanely as possible.
When her body was brought back to me, the vet explained that when she was put under with the gas to start the process, she expelled a lot of fluid from her lungs, more than we expected, so the vet explained that it was possible she had been suffering from it for a while and that my choice had been the best choice for her.
She looked really peaceful and no longer in distress or pain.
Today we buried her in the garden in a beautiful gold box that my mum gave me, with all her favourite treats, a heart-shaped wood chew and a small note from me. She joins my other previous hamsters, who are also buried in the same garden.
My heart is aching and I miss her so very much. I knew there was every possibility I would lose her this year, but I didn't think it would be so soon and I didn't think it would be in this way, it was the first time I had to face choosing to euthanize one of my hamsters, but I am glad that she is no longer suffering. She reached around the age of two, so she lived a good long life.
Goodbye, my little sweetheart. I'm happy I was able to give you the second chance you deserved in life.