Shawn M. Finch, DVM

Princess was the fifth of our five pets to pass away this past year.  I feel as though she has had to wait in a long cosmic line to be mourned (not that she even knows or would care - I assume she is dancing in heaven, eating sunflower seeds and such) as I am still processing the passing of the other pets.

No one died young, and none of the deaths were related.  We just had some pretty old pets (except Ebony Dog, who was only nine - I feel as though someone owes me five years of Ebony Dog time, which, of course, is not true.  Still…)  Four of the five pets who passed away were our rodents (Piggy, Princess, Fuzzy and Wuzzy), which, though they were all different ages (except Fuzzy and Wuzzy), were all very old as Small Fuzzies go.

That is all depressing background, to catch you up if you did not know and to explain my late memorial to Princess if you did know and were thinking “Hey!  Do not forget the goofy gerbil!”  Anyways, this is a HAPPY post, because she was a happy gerbil, and very silly.  I do not want you to miss out on “knowing” her!

Princess Gerbil

We adopted Princess Gerbil for our oldest daughter Amanda for Christmas 2007. I had always had friendly rodents as pets, so I scooped her right up to clean her home the first week we had her, without my usual veterinary guard up.  (Pet rodents at home are usually relaxed and very sweet.  Pet rodents at the veterinarian with a tummy ache or some other ailment can be super crabby and often blame me for their pain!  So I am careful to avoid the bitey parts.)  Anyways, I scooped Princess up and she chomped my hand hard!

When I came back from bandaging my hand (It was a pretty bad bite), I explained to her that she had hurt my feelings and I was only trying to clean her home.  She explained (I mean, I figured out, over the next several weeks) that being in a new place is scary and she did not know me yet and she was startled.  Also, she did not really like being held or pet.

Over the next several years, Princess and I developed a very close relationship - on her terms.   I cleaned her home in a less scary way, made sure she had snacks and toys, and kept the distance that she was comfortable with.  Just because I like snuggly pets does not mean Princess had to be one, and when I let her be herself, we became good friends.

When Princess was three years old, I taught her to ring a bell for a treat.  It was very cute when she would notice me in the room, hit her mouse-shaped toy bell and come to the door for a bit of seed or cracker.

She was the star subject of a very silly twitter conversation started by @FixItFish about gerbils wearing pants when they dance.  She was the star model for an article I wrote for Omaha.net, Long Live Your Pet.  (I mentioned her dancing in the article as an expression of my appreciation for @FixItFish’s silliness.)

For over three years, Princess was a constant, cute, fun member of our little living room rodent corner.  She was the last to go.  I still have not donated her home and mousie bell to Nebraska Humane Society or gotten rid of her treats.  I am not quite ready to let her and the rodent corner go completely, but telling you about her helps.

Rest in Peace Princess Gerbil

2007 - 2011

We loved you just as you were with all your quirks and silliness, and we sure miss having you around.

♥♥♥♥♥

April 21, 2011  Thank you Friends for all of your kind comments about Princess Gerbil.  From my computer, the website is “accepting” comments just fine but it will not show them today nor let ME comment to say how great you are!  Just didn’t want you to think I did not “hear” you!  I do, and I think you are all awesome.

I will do all I can to fix the problem (”All I can” = I turn my computer off and back on - you would be amazed at how often this works for all sorts of technical problems.) If needed, I will call in the super powers of SECRET PENGUIN.  There ought to be a bat signal for that too…

April 21, 2011, five minutes later…Hey it worked! : )

Learn as much as you can about <rabbits> before you adopt one.

Do not surprise the kids with a <holiday> <pet>.

Whenever possible, rescue your new pet!  You are saving two lives, that of your new pet, and the life of a pet who can use the resources that the rescue or shelter now has available.

I was going to go on and on about those three things, but you already know all of that!  And if you do not, you will after hopping around today’s awesome blog hops!  Instead, I will tell you about my favorite rescue organization, Nebraska Humane Society.

Sometimes the Nebraska Humane Society has super cute rabbits up for adoption.

OK, I didn’t have as much to say about that as I thought, either.  This is going to be a short post!

Happy Hopping!  Happy Easter!

Thank you Carrie for hosting today’s Easter Rabbit Adoptathon!  Visit Carrie’s awesome blog, All Things Dog to see some very cute bunnies up for adoption across the country as well as her own very cute bunny Robby.  Her Help Page has great rabbit information too!

Today I am hopping with the Always Awesome Saturday Pet Blogger’s Hop and the New-to-Me Easter Rabbit Adoptathon.  Feel free to join in both.  Thank you for stopping by!  And thank you Blog Hop Hosters!

Every once in a while, I post a list of posts (mine or other ones that I think are fun).  That way, you can click the ones that look interesting, then click links on those posts…until you are completely immersed in pet information and lost on the internet…you know, Bunny Trails.  Fun!  Today’s Bunny Trail is a list of posts on the veterinary website dvm360.

And speaking of bunnies, my Saturday’s Pet Blogger Hop post this week will be about rescue bunnies and whether it is a good idea to surprise kids with REAL bunnies on Easter and will be linked to a NEW blog hop on the All Things Dog Blog.  Thank you for the kind invite Carrie!  Click this super cute picture to learn more about All Things Dog Blog’s Easter Rabbit Adoptathon!

Along the bunny theme, here is a picture of one of my very favorite and cutest patients, Sophie Voss.  She is an English Angora Rabbit.  Her color pattern is called “broken.”  Isn’t she gorgeous?  And so soft!  She was the first bunny I ever spayed.  Thank you so much Stephanie for trusting me with that “first!”  What a trusting friend, huh??

I called my veterinary school classmate, Anne Belshan, DVM and Micah Kohles, DVM, Oxbow’s veterinarian and a small animal practitioner in Lincoln Nebraska, (who had both done more rabbit spays than zero) for words of wisdom, and they were both SO helpful and encouraging.  Sophie did wonderfully and everything went without a hitch!  As ovariohysterectomies go, rabbits are actually easier than dogs, cats, rats, hamsters and mice!

…and along the bunny trails theme, here is a list of posts on dvm360…

Twitter

Conflict Resolution

Season of Joy (the Puppy)

A Dramatic Wellness Exam

Do Pets Mourn?

And finally, along the Easter theme…Remember! You can have cats or Easter lilies, but not both! Lilies are very toxic to cats’ kidneys.

May you have a wonderful and blessed Easter season.  Send me pictures of your own gorgeous bunnies (and other pets!) and I will post them too!

I realize I may be creating a guinea pig vortex, with no opportunity for us to escape, by linking to a Piggy-post about a Piggy-post, but it is a risk I am willing to take to tell you what a nice thing Dr. Patrick Mahaney has done.  And really, would a guinea pig vortex be so bad?  I think it sounds kind of fun.

I also want to say how great you all have been in supporting us through the recent loss of Piggy the guinea pig.  I really appreciate the circle of veterinarians and Normal People I have been blessed to get to know here.

Dr. Mahaney has a great veterinary website that his dog Cardiff helps him with.  I will not tell you my favorite part, because I think you should go look around the entire website and not miss any of it.  (You are right!  My favorite part is Cardiff’s Blog.  That dog is super cute.)

Yesterday Dr. Mahaney dedicated a post to Piggy.  I realized things are turning a corner for me a bit when it made me smile and not cry.

Thank you Dr. Mahaney!  I think you are great.

Memorial for Piggy the Guinea Pig

Things that have cheered me this sad week…

You ALL showed up with hugs and encouraging words after Piggy passed away.  And some of you just sat with me and sighed.  You are all wonderful.

Wednesday I saw sixteen cats as patients, which I am pretty sure is an all time personal high.

My last two patients of the day Wednesday were two blond Pomeranian brothers, who took turns jumping onto my lap to get squoze then onto the floor to dance in happy circles then back onto my lap again.  One of them had tiny pom-sized sled dog boots.

My patients right before Happy Pom Kids were two of my favorite guinea pig patients.  Angela had to tell me to give them both back.  It was hard to let go.

The day Piggy died, the girls and I started a HUGE photo album project to cheer ourselves.  It is working.  Also, Russ found these pictures of Amanda (2) with Ebony…

and Abby (6 months) with Ebony…

who was just over one year old at the time.  Look how much she looked like Joy does now!  (I took this picture of Ebony (left) and Joy (right) today…

I don’t look for gorgeous black pets.  They just find me.

My friend started a blog that I absolutely love.

Long, rambling disclaimer:

If you let your kids read Riley and James for the guest posts written by kids, or the hamster pictures or other fun stuff, but you don’t want them to read the word BOOBS, have them skip this post.  The link isn’t kid-appropriate, but only because it is Things Grown-ups Struggle With That Kids Should Not Have To Yet, not because of inappropriate material or pictures.  We try to shield our kids from Almost Everything in the World.  I know I probably overstep, and I will pay for the therapy as they need it, but hilarious names for anatomical parts is one thing we definitely do not shield them from and even encourage them to learn.

That being said, here is a very thoughtful, sensitive, multi-layered new blog by one of my very favorite people in the Whole Wide World.  It is about Life, but it also has a Cat I Love and a Dog I Love.  In fact, I love the whole family.  You would too if you knew them, I just know it.  Thank you Friend, for starting this blog the week I needed something to take my mind off the sadness of losing Piggy and helping put things in perspective, as you also do so well in Real Life.

Boobs and Coffee

by

Vera Jo

And finally, this Christmas 2010 picture of Piggy that I forgot I had…

AND this picture of Piggy that Dave drew cheered me.  I put it as my phone screen background…

May you have pets in your life as wonderful as Piggy and Friends in your life as wonderful as mine, and may you find reasons to smile, even during the most difficult of weeks.

♥

Our guinea pig Piggy died Monday morning.  I held him on my lap and told Amanda and Abby Comforting Things I had very recently told them about Fuzzy and Wuzzy Rats, only this time it was Piggy.

Joy the Puppy walked up to us sideways, wagging her tail.  She kissed Abby on the arm, kissed Piggy on the head, kissed the DVD case next to Abby, kissed Abby again and settled in to be sad with us.  I would take Joy the Puppy over a smart dog any day.  She is one of a kind.

And I would take Piggy over a smart guinea pig any day.  He too was one of a kind.  (Are there smart guinea pigs?  Does anyone know?)  He was sweet and gentle, goofy and fun.  Piggy and I spent almost every morning together these past six plus years.

I found some of my favorite pictures of Piggy.  Some are photographs I took, and some are drawings given to me by the kids at Camp Kindness in the summer of 2008, when Piggy came to help Fuzzy and Wuzzy Rats and me.  A few have fun stories that go with them, and if so, I linked the stories to the photo captions.

Piggy Kissing a Purple Hippo

Piggy as the Zero-Zero Domino, Halloween 2010

(The three black dogs were all Dominoes too, but they were big enough for dots!)

Piggy Eating Cat Grass in the Garden He Shared with Max the Cat

My first (and still favorite) species-specific “pet care” article was inspired by Piggy:

Taking Care of Your Exotic Pet, For Example, Your Guinea Pig, Which is Not Really All That Exotic

We will miss you Piggy.  You were the sweetest, cutest guinea pig I have ever known.

Piggy Finch

May 1, 2004 - January 17, 2010

This is a card my brother Dave made for me several years ago, even after he said “But I don’t make greeting cards!”  Isn’t it awesome?  I still use it all the time when I want someone to know I am REALLY REALLY grateful.  I know some of you have gotten one from me! Dave included his Great Dane Riley (yup, same Riley), his cat Abaye and Piggy.

This next set is the pictures kids drew of Piggy when he went to Camp Kindness at Nebraska Humane Society with me.  How many ways are there to draw a black egg-shaped pet?  (Apparently, as many ways as there are great kids writing thank you cards.)  I like the green pig too - apparently drawing black pets is as difficult as photographing them…a box of crayons gives you more wiggle room than a camera.  Thank you kids…looking through these again cheered me a little.  And thank you Friends, for all of your kind words and love.  You have cheered me up quite a bit.

And one by Abby…

And one by Amanda…

And this last one did not include a drawing of Piggy, but it is my favorite thank you card I have ever received from Camp Kindness…

Piggy, you touched a lot of hearts, but you really got to mine.  We will miss you buddy.

Happy Weekend All!  I have been watching Two Little Cavaliers and their friends do the Saturday Blog Hop for a while and have been trying to figure it out.  I joined Dr. V’s Blog Hop when she suggested we all post our favorite blog posts of 2010, and that was fun.

The Saturday Blog Hop looks like a wonderful way to meet other pet lovers.  I thought I had met all of the Pet-Loving Awesomes out there, but apparently I have not yet found The End of The Internet.

So if you are visiting Riley and James from the Saturday Blog Hop, thank you for stopping by!  Nice to meet you!  And if you are already a friend of Riley and James, thank you too.  I think you are all great.

My favorite posts often contain pictures of Pets Being Cute, so I thought that would be a fun theme for today.  Here are the Finch pets…

Ebony Dog and Max the Cat

Noodle the Poodle

Joy the Puppy

Piggy the Guinea Pig

Princess the Gerbil

Fuzzy and Wuzzy Rats

OK, so Fuzzy and Wuzzy are not part of our current herd, but they JUST passed away, and I am not ready to take them out of the lineup yet.  That’s Wuzzy in the background and Fuzzy in the foreground, from July 2010.  Weren’t they gorgeous??  And so sweet too.  They are Hairless Dumbo Rex rats.

Nice to meet you all!  I will spend THIS week coming to see your pet blogs!

Shawn Finch, DVM

Finch93 on twitter : )

Coming Soon to Riley and James…

Monday, January 10, 2011 “Pet Blogger’s Challenge” from Edie of “Will My Dog Hate Me?” and Amy of “Go Pet Friendly” (both of whom are awesome and have been mentioned here before!)  I’m in - these group projects are fun!

This week, Ham-Rabbit reappeared, became more colorful and obtained all sorts of new friends.  Finally!  An answer to the question everyone has always asked:

“How do I make a costume for my hamster that is both cute and comfortable?”

The answer to the question

(as is true of many of life’s biggest queries)

is:

“Sharpie.”

Ham-Rabbit

Hamosaurus

The Very Scary Ham-Lion - “RAWR!”

Hamster Head Shark

Hamster Peacock

And perhaps my favorite of all…

Hamicorn!

If you send me hamster pictures, I will post them!  If you send me hamster costume ideas, I will meet with Hamlet and Sparks and their boys and see what we can do.  Then we will post those pictures too!

May your 2011 be fun and colorful and overflowing with friends, family and soft, cute pets.  And may those three categories overlap in every possible way.

Happy New Year!

*****

Thank you to my two favorite hamsters in the whole world, Hamlet and Sparks.  And thank you to Hamlet and Sparks’ boys, and Hamlet and Sparks’ boys’ brother and Hamlet and Sparks’ boys’ and Hamlet and Sparks’ boys’ brother’s cousins.

You are my very favorite big kids in the whole wide world.

A few years ago, I was bringing a Robo hamster back to her family after her veterinary visit.  Her cute little round face was peeking out from my closed fist.  I had a Sharpie in my lab coat pocket.  If you know me or have been around the Riley and James website, you probably know where this is going…

I drew bunny ears and whiskers on the hand I had around the hamster, and Ham-Rabbit (named by the beautiful and talented Pet Nurse Erika Workman) was born.  SO cute!  The hamster was returned to her family without incident.

However, the next day when I handed the next client’s hamster back, she immediately asked, ”Why do you have Sharpie on your hand?”  Wouldn’t you think her first question would be “Is my hamster going to be ok?” or “What medication do I need to give her?” or something like that?  No…she zeroed right in on my sharpied hand!  Some people are just obsessed with Sharpies!

Knowing she would either think it was as hilarious as I did, or completely unprofessional, like most grown-up clients (and doctors) probably should, I sheepishly asked to hold her hamster again, then hopped my hand towards her with her little hamster in it.  She could not stop laughing to say good-bye and was still giggling as she checked out.  *PHEW*

As we were driving home after visiting our family in Ohio last month, Russ said (after miles and miles of silence), “You know what would be REALLY cute?  Hamosaurus!”

We came up with all sorts of awesome hamster costume ideas that night, and this week we finally had Sharpies and hamsters and nephews who could give us permission all in one place at one time.  So now, I am proud to announce…

Ham-Rabbit.  And friends.

Coming to Riley and James New Year’s Eve.

You will love them.

Our hairless rats passed away recently.  I have had (and have) pets as wonderful as these two, but none better.  Goodbye Fuzzy and Wuzzy Rats.  We love you, and we will miss you very much.

Fuzzy (left) and Wuzzy (right), July 2010

My last story about Fuzzy and Wuzzy was just published on Omaha.net.  The link to the story is below.  Maybe I will write a remembering or looking back sort of story later (or a photo story - that would definitely be the cutest choice…)  But in Real Life, this is the last chapter.  I am really not ok with that.

Being a Vet and Coping With Loss