R.I.P. Pepper

Pepper didn’t get any better yesterday, she was still in a bad condition and the vets said that she was still not responding. As a family we decided that it was best to put her to sleep. She had a good life with us, and we didn’t want her to suffer anymore.

We’ll all miss her very much, she was such a cuddly cat and always wanted our attention. Ginger was looking around for her yesterday, I hope he doesn’t get too lonely. We’re planning on bringing her back and showing her to Ginger, just so that he knows what happened. We’re having a burial for her sometime afterwards, next to Koko’s area.

We are also planning on getting a new friend for Ginger in the future, to keep him company. It’ll be an adopted one, that needs a home. Hopefully Ginger will end up liking him or her. 🙂

R.I.P. Pepper

I’ll miss you Pepper, Rest In Peace.

 

Sad News

Lately, Pepper hasn’t been doing well. When we got back from our vacation trip, we found out that she had a weird coughing noise coming from her throat. When she breathed, there was almost a crackling noise inside. We were a bit concerned and planned a trip to vet the next Tuesday. Later, her nose started bleeding. That’s when we got really scared. She just didn’t look good at all. She stopped grooming herself, and had scraggly fur because of it.

When we brought her to the animal clinic, the vet checked her out and gave her two shots and some medicine for us to give to her. Pepper had a bit of a fever, so she got a shot for that. She also got another shot to last her the day for medicine. The next couple of days didn’t go well either. She seemed to stop eating, and refused to take her medicine. We only managed to get one more pill into her, but couldn’t give her any more. We had to force feed her it too.

We kept Pepper inside more often so that we could keep a better eye on her, only giving her small breaks to go outside. The next couple of nights, I kept her with me in my room to make her comfortable. She kept getting worse and weaker. Yesterday morning, she woke me up because she was meowing very loudly.

She was meowing so loudly that she woke up my parents when I brought her upstairs. I couldn’t get her to stop, and she was sort of staring around. While I was holding her, she accidentally urinated on my shirt. I felt so sorry for her, she couldn’t hold it in. When I put her down to clean up, she just sort of flopped down on the ground and stared. Her pupils were very wide and she didn’t move much. I was so scared.

I made up a little box for her to lay in, and put in a few layers of towels for her to be comfortable in it. She wouldn’t move,  so I picked her up and had to put her in myself. The poor thing just kept staring, but I sat with her for a little bit to comfort her and petted her head and back. My parents meanwhile got a hold of an emergency vet nearby, and he said he would be coming through our way soon so he would stop in to check Pepper out.

When he arrived, it was around 11:30 AM. Pepper was still staring around, but she was purring more and looked less alarmed. The vet said that she could have tumors in her throat, so we decided to ask him to take her with him to the animal hospital overnight. Pepper left with him not too long after that, and said he would call the next day to tell us how Pepper was doing.

My Dad got a call about her this afternoon, and he said it didn’t look too good. The vets said that she wasn’t responding well, and they found out that she was blind, couldn’t smell and couldn’t hear either. They tested her reactions to different things, and that was what they said. They said it was likely caused by brain damage from what they could tell, but they don’t know how that happened.

I feel so sorry for her right now, I can’t stop thinking about her. They said that they would keep her overnight again and do the best they can, but if she doesn’t show any changes or improvement by tomorrow then we decided that it would be best to put her to sleep. I’m hoping and praying now that she makes it through alright, but I can only hope for the best.

A Millet Surprise

In my post “Gone On Vacation” I remember posting about the gifts that I purchased for my pets while I was away. I never really got around to posting about it, but here is a picture of the millet I got for the budgies.

Millet Galore!

I finally opened the bag last night and discovered that it was really light to hold. The piece of millet I took out didn’t seem really full and fluffy, but the budgies really enjoyed it. 🙂 I’ll be checking through the bag later on to see if all the pieces are the same, or if it was just that one.

The other gifts I bought were a pair of squeaking tennis balls, and a sort of tug-of-war teddy bear for Rocky and the other dogs. They were both a huge hit, and the teddy bear suffered because of it. Rocky loved it so much that he tore of one of its ears and pulled some stuffing out. I’m thinking next time I’ll be getting a more durable chew toy.

August 2011!

Yeah! Yet another month has arrived, and now it’s August! August makes me a bit sad because it just reminds me that we only have a whole month left of summer break, and everyone will be back to school or work again! I’m planning on trying to do a bunch of new things this month before my summer break ends so that I won’t have to worry about missing out on any chances to do them.

One thing that I really want to try this month is bringing the budgie boys outside for some sunshine and fresh air. They never really get to go outside, so I’m planning on getting them used being in their travel cage for outside time. I’ll be taking any chance I get to bring them out, especially when it’s nice and warm outside. Hopefully it will be warm enough for me to give them a little mist bath. 🙂

I’m planning on getting another entry done by this Friday for the Healthy Foods for Birds page, and this time it is going to be  Broccoli! Someone I know requested that I do Broccoli next just for fun, so I’ll be working on that throughout the week.

I still have to get those pictures up of the gifts I got for the budgies when I was away, but never got a chance yet. I’m also planning on giving them a nice fresh food supper tomorrow with a few new foods in it, so hopefully that will end up working out.

Healthy Foods for Birds: Aloe Vera

The first thing on my list was Aloe Vera, so I started straight away on working on its description, properties and the like to make it my first entry in the Healthy Foods for Birds glossary. I just finished my ‘rough’ draft of it, so I updated the page with the entry. I hope it turned out okay. 🙂 Here it is alone if you don’t feel like going through to the actual page.

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√  Aloe Vera – ♥♥♥♥♥ – Has very useful healing properties.

This plant, also known as the medicinal aloe or burn plant, can be found growing in arid (lacking sufficient water or rainfall) climates. It can be used for a large variety of animal and human ailments, from skin to digestive problems. Just the gel alone from the inner leaf of an aloe plant can greatly enhance the healing process of a wound. It can also help prevent infection and even scars. The gel is able to soothe and relieve the pain from burns, cuts, bruises, insect bites, blisters and even blemishes. This is due to the painkilling properties of the magnesium, lupeol, and salicylic acid found in Aloe Vera plants.

In parrots, this natural healing agent is used to treat their skin problems. While some ointments may have toxic side effects after being used on our parrots, aloe is safe, natural and even hypoallergenic. Some evidence shows that it can even be effective if sprayed on some feather plucking parrots. This can be due to the soothing property in aloe gel that helps itchy skin, which may help prevent some parrots from plucking. Aloe Vera is also known to be used for digestive problems, and even to soothe the pains of arthritis.

Visit this website to read more about Aloe Vera: Parrot Pharmacy in a Leaf

Properties:

Amino Acids – contains 20 of the 22 amino acids that human bodies require, and it has 8 of the essential ones that the human body cannot create on its own. These 8 essential amino acids are Tryptophan, Isoleucine, Methionine, Leucine, Phenylalanine, Threonine, Lysine, and Valine.

Vitamins – A, B, C, E and Folic Acid. Aloe Vera is one of the very few plants that contain most of the B vitamins like B1, B2, B4, B6, and Vitamin B12.

Minerals – Magnesium, manganese, zinc, phosphorous copper, chromium, calcium, sodium, potassium and iron.

Read more about the properties of Aloe Vera here: Aloe Vera Properties

Preparation Methods and Ways to Serve:

Aloe Vera works best when used fresh and from the plant. It needs to be used straight after harvesting as it can break down within 20 minutes. Aloe Vera Gel comes in convenient forms these days however, and can be bought in stores all over the world. If you don’t have your own Aloe Vera plant at home, you may want to buy a bottle of some to keep handy just in case.

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So there you have it, my first entry in the Healthy Foods for Birds glossary.

On a side note: If you didn’t notice already, I finally figured out how to align the content of my posts in full mode. 😀

EDIT: Some moderations have been done to this entry, so to read the newest updates visit the main page of the glossary.