Morrissey and Polly

Today has been eventful.

Since yesterday, Morrissey (one of my degus) has been really lethargic and stuff. It was obvious that he was very ill. He barely moved at all and when he did he was slowly walking round in cirles. He wasn't himself at all and it was really worrying. I took him to the vets and they diagnosed him with pneumonia. I have to give him medicine from a syringe 4 times a day and it's not a very easy job! The stuff is called cefalexin and it's apparently the same stuff my grandmother had to take when she had pneumonia. It's weird how drugs that work on humans also work on rodents (degus need a much smaller dosage, obviously). The vet was great- he asked me how I knew he was sick, had a look at him, listened to his chest (the stethoscope was huge compared to him) and weighed him. He weighed 168g, which is really quite low (although I knew he didn't weigh much, because Miyavi weighs a lot more). I'm so glad I took him to see the vet when I did, judging by the way he was earlier, it seems likely that if I hadn't he might have died very soon. Hopefully this cefalexin stuff will fix him. He didn't seem to like the vet, he was trying to escape and stuff, but he was fine when the vet handed him to me. He's the only degu that's been to that vet place! Oh, and they put his name down as Mercy instead of Morrissey (seriously, those names sound nothing alike). I would have corrected them and stuff, but I was too worried about Morrissey to bother. Morrissey's health is much more important than his name! Hopefully he'll get better soon! Miyavi has become really overprotective of Morrissey. A couple of hours ago I was getting Morrissey out of the cage to give him his medicine and Miyavi actually bit me. He's never done that before (apart from the occasional affectionate nibble). It made me sad because they are intelligent creatures and should know I'd never hurt them or anything. Luckily Miyavi now seems to like me again!

On to more cheerful stuff...

It was Polly's 10th birthday (in human years) today. She had lots of presents and stuff. We even had a party for her this afternoon. Pictured below is a picture of me helping her blow out the candles on her birthday cake. I was going to make her a birthday cake that was suitable for doggies, but in the end I concluded that as she eats my leftovers all the time, one little bit of real birthday cake wouldn't harm her. I was just careful not to let her eat chocolate or raisins or anything too toxic. If you look at the picture, you can probably see her new collar (complete with a nice new shiny, bone shaped identity thingy) and her new pink cushiony thing. She got loads more presents, but I don't think they're in the picture. The party was great. We sat on the floor with a really low down table type thing. She really enjoyed it. =] Anyhow, I'm going to stop typing this now because I need to go see how Morrissey is doing and stuff. Hoobletoodledoo!