[Gpdd] [RAINBOW BRIDGE] SCAMP Dolly Mixture Caramel

[Debbie Jones]

It is with a heavy heart I must announce to my friends here that SCAMP
Dolly Mixture, Caramel, went to The Rainbow Bridge last Friday. You may
remember I posted about her having the dreaded bumblefoot a few months
ago. A very kind member did point me in the direction of some special
ointment which I could order online, but somehow I got confused and
didn't realise I had to send a cheque for it up front, so there was a
delay in it arriving, during which time the foot condition got a lot
worse. However, I don't think bumblefoot was her only problem. She became
almost paralysed in her back legs, and liquid calcium, which had worked
miraculously for my dear departed Cherry, didn't have any effect
(although Caramel adored the taste), plus she had a hard lump at the base
of her left front leg, which to me looked and felt like a tumour. During
her last couple of weeks she could hardly walk, and some mornings I would
find her stuck on her side, unable to right herself, which was very
distressing for her and for me. If I could have trusted my vet, I would
have taken her for euthanasia then, but I cannot after the experience
with Scrabble, so I put her on "hospice care" and kept her home until she
slipped away. She was, happily, able to enjoy several sunny afternoons
out on the lawn with her friends during her last week, where she chomped
the grass with enthusiasm.

I would put her on her back to administer the ointment to her front paws,
then keep her paws in the air whilst I fed her, so she didn't rub off the
ointment straight away. I do think the ointment was working, more than
anything I used on Scrabble. She ate and drank very well right until the
end, and still wheeked for her food when anyone went near, as all the
girls do. She loved dandelion flowers, and munched her way through quite
a few in her final week. Sadly, I was in hospital myself the day she went
to The Bridge, but her cagemate, Soulage, was with her, and Caramel was
never really a "people pig", she preferred the company of other pigs -
although that did change towards the end, when she became dependent on me
for food and for uprighting her, and she did seem to relate to humans a
lot more. There are photos and a description of Caramel on the SCAMPS
website. I got her on 8th May 2003, and she was probably about a month
old then, so she would have been almost 6 years old.

I only have 7 Dolly Mixtures left now, and one of them, Scoot, is still
in the UK, at Cavies Castle, where he has been treated for anaemia but
still needs syringe feeding. So there are just 6 here at Serendipity,
that after originally starting off with 22. I have moved Soulage in with
the other 3 SCAMP girls, who share a big wooden hutch. This is in the
porch at present, but yesterday I had a big iron "dog run" delivered, and
the hutch will be moved out into that when the weather gets warmer, so
they can have access to grass whenever they want it, and I will be able
to go in too; their previous runs have had low roofs so I couldn't go in.
The two boys will have an older run - I am still hoping they may agree to
share.

It is strange having so few piggies, but as my health has been fragile it
is probably not such a bad thing, and I have many happy memories and
photographs of the time when there were more. Caramel will have been
reunited with many Dolly Mixture friends at The Rainbow Bridge, and she
is now free from discomfort and able to stay upright on her own. Run
free, our little girl!

Debbie and the 7 Dolly Mixtures

"We patronize them for their incompleteness, 
for their tragic fate of having taken a form so far below ourselves. 
And therein we err, and greatly err. 
For the animal shall not be measured by man. 
In a world older and more complete than ours 
they move finished and complete, gifted 
with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, 
living by voices we shall never hear. 
They are not brethren, they are not underlings; 
they are other nations, caught with ourselves 
in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners 
of the splendour and travail of the earth". 
Henry Beston

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