From:
larry shoup, jr
Date: 2002-06-23 11:24:00 UTC
Subject: Tigger was laid to rest
This morning I put Tigger to sleep. I woke up this morning and she was
breathing really heavy, she would not eat or drink anything at all. I saw
that she was really suffering bad. Against my wishes, I took her back to the
XXX [same place as last night] facility. There was a place in Columbus opened, but they wanted $70 and you could not be present during the process.
I went into the Animal Urgent Care facility, and the same doctor was there.
I may have misunderstood him or something last night, partly because he
pulled out a needle first and then I thought about what happened to Scooter
Butt.(Scooter Butt is a ferret whose owner is on MSN ferret realm. The vet
just picked up his ferret and stuck a syrringe in its heart). This morning,
however, the doctor explained to me exactly what was going to happen.
He was first going to give her an anesthetic to put her to sleep. He then
showed me the cardiac stick that they use, and it was no more than one inch
in length. He gave her the anesthetic in the exam room, patted her on the
head, and then said I can sit in the lobby and wait until she was asleep.
I saw her trying to fight it, but she finally went to sleep. He asked me to
come in with her, and I couldn't watch it - but they showed me exactly how
they were going to do it. Since I couldn't watch, the nurse held her gently
in her sleeping position, and the doctor administered the euthanasia drug.
I have to say that I was really upset, because I thought he was just going
to plunge a syrringe into her heart like Vivian described with Scooter Butt
Tigger might have been saved, but she would not have been a ferret any
longer. We noticed just last night that her kidneys may have been shutting
down. On top of that, she had insulinoma,. adrenal and anemia. She got the
best loving and the most attention for three weeks than any other ferret has
received.
Tigger : received December 1998 at around 3 years old; died June 23, 2002,
around 8 years old.
No other ferret can replace her at all. But we are thinking about getting
another panda that we saw at the pet store...male, about 2 months young. We
will have a cage ready for him until we can get blood tests and so forth on
him; then introduce him to the others. I think a fitting name for him would
be "Bifrost" or "Heimdall" - Bifrost is the Norse name for the Rainbow
Bridge, and Heimdall is the name of the guardian of the Rainbow Bridge.
Another name I thought of was Tyr (Norse god of war and sacrifice). He is a
panda, a beautiful panda...and I think Tami is allowing me to get him.
So there is both the sadness of loss and the joy of having another one of
these beautiful creatures in our lives. I want to thank everyone for their
support and their caring nature.
Larry
PS - the new ferret will be well taken care of. When I come home, Tami and I
will introduce him to the other ferrets. We will both be home if something
goes wrong (example: ECE - Shadow had it at 1 year old; and we waited about
a month after she was better to put Hooper and Misha in with them. They did
not contract ECE).