Thomas was something of an “impulse purchase” for me. I’ve had guinea pigs on and off in the past, but over the last few years I’ve found myself moving house a lot and it just didn’t seem fair to either leave them with my parents to look after or subject them to endless changes in their living arrangements.

Most recently, I’d had Elwood and James (I don’t believe in silly names for pets. Why shouldn’t they be dignified? The fact I’d been naming them after characters and actors from the James Stewart film “Harvey” doesn’t matter.) but had to leave them with my parents briefly when I moved in with my ex. At the time he was living with his mother, and the plan was that we would get our own place and then they could rejoin me. That never happened. First he left me on the day we were scouting for a property, and then they both died within a few weeks of each other. Perhaps that was a premonition.

A couple more years passed and I first met Kaa. He came over on a semi-spontaneous holiday to London and I suggested that if he did that, I could take some time off work to meet up with him and show him around. For those who know me, you know how that turned out. Very well. He is now my husband. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

Kaa and I first met in April of 2018. Towards the end of the trip we both realised that there might be something there, but we knew it wouldn’t be easy given we lived around 4,000 miles apart. So we made the arrangement that next time, I’d go to his place in Denver, Colorado and see how we both felt then.

That happened in September that year. And yes, we decided it was worth sticking with. Kaa and I would see each other again in March of 2019. But only seeing each other twice a year for a week or so at a time wasn’t easy.

In the mean time, I returned to work. Despite living with my parents, I still felt rather lonely. This confirmed to me that the relationship was worth the effort, but it didn’t help the ennui I felt spending so much time alone.

2019

In July of 2019 I had a break during my work as a chauffeur, and decided to look around the pet store. This is where I encountered Thomas, or “Tom” as they called him. I made the impulsive decision to bring him home with me. Why him? Because out of all the guinea pigs they had available for adoption, he was the only one by himself, and when I approached he came to the front of the cage to see what I was doing. His natural curiosity was a massive appeal to me. I’ve had Abyssinians before, and they are generally more curious and engaging than straight-haired piggies so this didn’t surprise me.

I was concerned that he was alone though. I’d occasionally had solitary piggies, but as many people are aware, they are naturally herd animals so prefer having company. It isn’t exactly dangerous to keep them by themselves, but it’s not advised as it can require a lot more work to give them the attention they need to stay mentally active. When I asked the store why he was by himself, they said he had been separated from the rest of his herd because they were constantly bullying him.

So, I adopted him. And for the first time ever, I kept the name the pet store had given him. Kind of. I changed it from “Tom” to “Thomas”, breaking my convention of using Harvey character and actors. He came home with me, and spent a couple of days in his travel box while he acclimatised to the sounds and smells of his new home. Plus it gave me time to prepare his sleeping area. I knew we still had a cage somewhere from Elwood and James, though when I found it it was badly damaged. So I had to use the base from one and the top from the other. But…it worked.

The plan was to largely leave him to his own devices for the first few weeks to try and avoid scaring him and let him get used to us being around him. However he wasn’t happy with this arrangement, and within four days he was coming to the edge of the cage to watch what we were doing, and sitting by the cage door waiting for his food. This was definitely a piggie who was going to be comfortable around humans.

It was decided that since he didn’t have any herd-buddies that we would have to be his “herd”. So every meal time was done with him. He would sit on my knee, and I would pet him when he was eating. Whenever we passed by his cage, we would stop and say hello to him and make sure he knew we were there. This did have a slight side effect that meant he wouldn’t actually relax and start eating his vegetables unless we had our hand touching him. Cute, but not very practical. He also started purring whenever we stroked him. I’ve had guinea pigs purr before, but this was usually piggie-to-piggie interaction, not with their owners.

Since we wanted to maximise interaction and he was an only piggie, it was decided to put his cage on top of my chest-of-drawers in my study/bedroom. This meant that when I was at home there was almost always somebody nearby. And when I was away for work, my mum could easily come and tend to him. He quickly got used to this, and being so far off the ground didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest. In fact, he enjoyed listening to the birdsong from my window in the summer.

Kaa meanwhile was a little confused, but in a positive way. He’d never had a guinea pig before, so had neither a positive or negative attitude towards them. But he could see that I was happy with Thomas, so he was pleased. He naturally received regular updates and photographs, and this would continue for the next three years until he moved here.

One of the reasons the pet store gave for his adoption was that he was “too old”. Sadly the cliche is true – people only like baby animals. He wasn’t even fully grown when he was removed from the shop floor and sent for adoption. Thomas continued to grow as he lived with us, finally maxing out at around 1kg. Neither underweight nor a fat piggie. But as piggie puberty hit, he began to get restless. Several times a day he would bounce around his cage, rattling the bars, tearing up the newspaper and spilling his food everywhere. Clearly the time spent on the grass outside and on our laps was not enough. One cage could not contain him.

So the solution was “floor time”. Initially we planned to let him walk around the floor of my room for an hour or two each day, and then return to the cage. He was not keen on this, and since he became largely toilet-trained, “floor time” became the bulk of his day. Now he would leave the cage after breakfast, spend all day on the floor and then return to the cage at bed time. In the mean time was plenty of zoomies, snac, and of course….sleep. Thomas quickly developed a habit of sleeping anywhere and everywhere. He was so comfortable around us, he would fall asleep in the middle of the floor and we would have to step over him to get past. At best he’d look up to see what we were doing, then return to nap time.

He also started responding to his name. Or “piggie”. Both worked. Call him from outside the room and his head would go up…he would purr…and come running to the door to see us. I have never in my life had a guinea pig that not only recognised his name, but would come running when you called him. Was this a guinea pig or a dog?

Thomas and Freddie

Did I mention we also had a dog? Well, we did. Freddie was his name, and despite being a terrier he was practically perfect around Thomas. Naturally we didn’t ever leave them alone together and we were very careful in their initial interactions, but they quickly became used to each other. Well, to be more accurate Freddie tolerated Thomas’s presence…and Thomas had a new best friend. Every time Freddie made an appearance, Thomas would purr and go running towards him, before “investigating” his feet and tail, and then trying to reach up and grab his collar. Freddie in turn would stand absolutely motionless, perhaps out of fear of hurting him. He didn’t mind Thomas walking between his legs, but drew the line when he began nibbling his claws. Freddie’s response? He would lick Thomas across the face.

Thomas of course thought this was the best thing ever, and quickly became addicted. Now we had a small guinea pig…a prey animal…who would go running towards a predator animal baring his neck in the hope of another lick. Abnormal yes, but we already knew Thomas wasn’t ordinary. He had an almost obsessive love of tomato. We originally put a couple of tiny pieces in his breakfast salad, but quickly noticed that he would go for it first … often purring in delight when he found it.

This naturally lead to various games we would play with him. Sometimes we would hide the tomato in the bottom of the food bowl, causing him to root through in search of it. Sometimes we wouldn’t put any in at all..which caused him great distress. This was followed by an apology and a large consolation slice. Sometimes if one of us had a fast food burger then we would save the tomato piece for him to have. Giving him the slice in it’s original container would result in him eating the tomato, quickly followed by the piece of cardboard it was resting on, to ensure that none of the juicy goodness was wasted.

It is difficult to overstate just how much Thomas loved tomato. We’d never had a piggie that was even remotely interested, and here he was devouring half a raw tomato at a time. We joked once that it would be fun to give him a whole box and see just how far he got before giving up, but we feared the consequences. Kaa once made the mistake of taking a piece of tomato away from him mid-chew. The despondent “Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” that ensured could be heard in the next street. We quickly apologised and agreed never to do it again.

Freddie quickly accepted Thomas as part of the family, and would do absolutely everything he could to avoid confrontation. Sometimes Thomas would go to sleep in his dog bed. So he would just sleep on the floor next to him. He also seemed to be protective of him, recognising how small an defenseless he was. If he saw Thomas was in his ark eating grass in the garden, he would lie down next to him to keep an eye on him.

2021

In March 2021, Thomas got sick for the first time. It was only a minor blemish…these things happen. But he had a nasty thing growing on his lip. So we took him to the vet for the first time. The vet wasn’t sure what it was, but it was treated with iodine and slowly but surely it went away. We did express concern that it might have been caused by Thomas’s love of tomatoes. After all, highly acidic food surely wasn’t good for him? The vet just shrugged and said that animals, like humans, have their own individual tastes and as long as he had them in moderation then it wasn’t anything to worry about. Fair enough. It never came back.

In the meantime Thomas got into a routine. And he would NOT be happy if you didn’t stick to it. Want a sleep-in in the morning? Tough. At sunrise he would move to the corner of the cage overlooking the bed and watch you. If he saw you move, he would purr and move to the cage door in preparation for breakfast. But if you didn’t respond fast enough, he would start chomping at the cage bars producing a terrible racket. So he got a blanket to cover the cage so he couldn’t see me. This worked, but now he just worked on sound. If he heard you stir in your sleep…purr. If you lifted the blanket…purr.

He would anticipate events at different times of day. When my dad came home from work, one of the first things he would do is bring Thomas some supper. Which meant that it got the stage where Thomas, upon hearing the front door open, would purr in delight and run to the door awaiting his food. But ONLY if it was the right time of day. The door in the morning never got the same response. Who knew piggie body clocks were so accurate?

2021-2023

Kaa and I got married towards the end of 2021. Sadly, Thomas couldn’t be the ring-bearer as because of COVID and various bureaucratic nonsense we got married in Colorado. We quickly made plans to apply for his visa, and he moved over to the UK in May of 2022. Now, Thomas had two daddies. Though we decided that I would be “daddy” and Kaa would be “papa”. So as not to confuse him, naturally.

Kaa and I lived at my parents’ place for just over a year – we both realised that it was going to be stressful and difficult enough navigating the visa application and moving his belongings over here….without also having to view and purchase a house at the same time. And Thomas was overjoyed. Now he had somebody to spend time with even when I was at work. Sure, in the past my mum would visit him from time to time during the day, but now he had somebody with him almost 24/7!

Thomas became closer to Kaa than he did to me. When we approached, he would run to Kaa. He responded more promptly to Kaa calling him. But I didn’t mind this. After all, Kaa was the one who was spending more time with him and feeding him so it was only natural. Plus Kaa taught him something wonderful. Remember how he would bare his neck to Freddie in the hope of getting a lick? Well, it turns out that stroking his neck with the back of your finger would produce a similar effect. Many many purrs. Over time, even just extending your finger and poking his cheek would result in a purr. This was one happy piggie.

There was one small downside. Guinea pigs are, of course, rodents. And as such they have a habit of chewing anything that looks edible. I read somewhere once that they have a fondness for hanging cables and that this might be an evolutionary thing. Being prey animals they need to have an escape path planned at all times, and a hanging cable is a potential obstacle so it must be removed for safety reasons. More than once my mum or I would hear the cry of “Piggie! No!” coming down the stairs, as another item was booked in to the repair shop. Thankfully he never got near a power cable. Electronics equipment could be replaced, but he couldn’t.

In August 2022, Kaa, Thomas and I moved into our new place together. Kaa was initially worried that Thomas would struggle to adapt but thankfully that was unwarranted. As long as we were there to provide for him, he was happy. Kaa justified this by saying that since he was so small and defenseless, he needed us..so it’s our obligation to take care of him. Fine by me. I also said to him “Some day, piggie … through no fault of your own…you’re going to make us very sad. And we don’t blame you for that.”. Piggies don’t live long, and even though he obviously didn’t speak English we wanted to make it clear to each other that we knew he wouldn’t be around forever, and we wouldn’t blame him when he felt it was time to move on.

To begin with, since we had more space we decided to give Thomas freedom of the spare room to play in. On the surface this seems to make sense, but of course this isn’t a normal guinea pig. We missed his company, and he sulked in the corner. So we soon adapted the study to be safe for him and once again he was running around out feet and begging us for attention.

And attention he craved. We often used to bring him to the bed when it was breakfast time…he was our “companion” after all. However he quickly learned that our food was far more interesting than his own. He often wouldn’t even start looking at his breakfast (yes, even the tomato) until he’d had a piece of our bagel, pancake or toast. Don’t worry – he never had any dairy or meat products.

2024-2025

By 2024, Kaa and I had begun to notice that Thomas was starting to show signs of aging. This was unusual to me…I’ve never known a guinea pig to do this. But he was going visibly grey. How strange. We discussed the fact that since guinea pigs are prey animals, they tend to hide signs of weakness or injury so as not to draw attention from predators. This sadly means that piggie pets can appear fine right up until they suddenly aren’t. Every piggie I’ve had in the past has passed away in the night and we’d find them in the morning. Discreet, but sad. And very unpredictable. So…signs of aging were a little troubling. This was not an animal who was going to go quietly into that good night. At this point Thomas was about 5 and a half, and the average lifespan of guinea pigs is said to be between 4 and 6. Perhaps it was time to be prepared for the inevitable?

Don’t get me wrong. Except for his greying hair, Thomas appeared fine. Personality wise he was still fine, his appetite was still there and he was still a happy little piggie. Sure he was no longer doing zoomies, but that was a young piggie’s game. Not a senior like him.

By “being prepared”, we had a think, and came to the conclusion that the best course of action might be to have another piggie pet or two. We both wanted to keep piggies for some time to come, and perhaps having others to dote on meant that when the time came it would soften the impact. Plus who knows? Maybe the new guys would give Thomas a new lease of life and they could all life happily together?

Cue Winston and Edgar in March 2025.

We planned to do the typical introduction process…have them be aware of each other to begin with…then have them occasionally spend time together and gradually increase their time together.

Unfortunately things didn’t work out that way. Whilst Edgar was curious about Thomas…and Thomas was largely indifferent to the new guys….Winston immediately tried to dominate and subjugate him. And when we removed Thomas from the situation, Winston would bully and attack Edgar in retaliation. Despite trying for some time, it became clear it wasn’t going to work. So we had to give Thomas his own daytime area away from the new guys. Not ideal, but if they couldn’t be together then we couldn’t force it. Even putting a “sub-pen” in the study didn’t work – if Winston knew Thomas was there, he would spend his entire time rubbing up against the wall trying to get to him.

Something Terrible

About six weeks later, something terrible happened. We don’t know what, but one morning we woke up to find that Thomas hadn’t touched his hay overnight. This was very unusual – he was known to empty the hay rack in just a few hours. He also had fecal impaction which we took care of ourselves. His digestive system was still behaving normally though so we kept a close eye on him. After a week or so when his appetite still hadn’t returned we took him to the vet for a check-up. They said he was fine. But we weren’t convinced.

His pellet production swung wildly from one extreme to the other. Sometimes it would be watery, sometimes it would be just a couple of hard, dry pellets. It was very difficult to predict. Strange. But digestive problems can kill piggies very quickly, so we had to be prepared for the worst.

We never did find out what the problem was. If it was a gradual shift then I would have just put it down to the effects of aging. But it literally happened overnight. My mum thought he might have had some kind of aneurysm, like a piggie stroke. No idea. Stranger things have happened. But it obviously wasn’t a digestive issue as things were still passing through, however unpredictably, and he was still eating even though he was now incredibly picky.

He lost interest in his normal dry food and we had to switch to a different brand that he was…sort of…interested in. He lost interest in lettuce. He lost interest in bell peppers. He lost interest in cucumber. He lost interest in carrots. We tried around six different types of hay, all of which he would nibble at before losing interest. He was still interested in tomato, though he ate much, much slower than before. Now it would take him several hours to eat his breakfast. After just a week, he’d lost about 10% of his body weight. Not disastrous, but worrying.

The vet was stumped too. There was nothing in his mouth and his teeth were fine. He didn’t squeal when his belly was poked so it wasn’t impaction or appendicitis or something like that….the only way to be really sure was to perform either an endoscopy or an X-ray. Both of these would have required either sedation or a general anaesthetic … and given Thomas’s age both were very risky and it was likely he wouldn’t survive the procedure. Kaa and I discussed what to do. The vet had an unhealthy obsession with euthanasia – both times we visited her she recommended it as an option as “we shouldn’t let him suffer”. But he still seemed fine. Wandering around the place, purring when we touched him….he was happy and didn’t seem to be in any kind of pain. Killing a piggie just because we couldn’t find out what was wrong didn’t seem fair. So we changed vets and continued regular check-ups.

The first vet provided us with a tiny bottle of something called Metacam, which is the only painkiller on the market for guinea pigs. They said that since they were considered an ‘exotic’ pet there wasn’t much information out there about treatment or even suitable doses. We weren’t sure what was going on with Thomas, but figured a small regular dose of painkiller wouldn’t hurt, just in case he was in any kind of pain.

In the meantime, Kaa and I decided that because of Thomas’s age, we weren’t going to do any kind of invasive operation. After all, if we did put him through the procedure and they found something…what exactly could we do about it? If even the diagnostic was touch and go, invasive surgery clearly wasn’t an option. So we’d just monitor him.

My mum and the second vet found something curious … Thomas’s feet were very VERY red. Apparently he was suffering from a foot condition called Pododermatitis. Painful, but could be treated. This involved a lengthy procedure involving ear buds (Q-tips), cotton swaps, a topical cream called Isaderm, bandages and sticky tape…on a regular basis. There was no guarantee this was the cause of his situation, especially since it came on so suddenly, but apparently it could be EXTREMELY painful, and after all would you want to eat if you were in incredible pain?

The vet recommended we increase the dosage of Metacam to more than double what we were giving him, but this resulted in a condition we called “zombie pig”. He would just stand and stare at the walls, unresponsive. This was very disturbing, so we lowered the dose until we found a reasonable compromise.

This treatment continued for a month or so, but we weren’t sure what effect we were having, if anything. Thomas was still losing weight. By now he was down to around 800g. He’d lost almost 20% of his body weight. So we thought we’d try lowering the dose of Metacam briefly, to see if was having any notable effect.

This was a disaster. After just 48 hours Thomas spent most of his time curled into a ball and barely moving….clearly in incredible pain. The plan was abandoned and the regular dosing resumed.

I’m sorry for causing you such pain, Thomas. I only wish you could have told us what was wrong.

The small dry pellets had stopped completely by this point, and he was producing nothing but liquid. We didn’t object to the extra cleaning, but we were upset that it was obviously causing him some distress….we had to clean him multiple times every day to keep him clean and free of infection. Plus since guinea pigs normally recycle their pellets, we chose to give him a vitamin B and C supplement to make up for this.

By June he still wasn’t any better. Another trip to the vet. Who simply said that we should stop offering him treats…this would encourage him to eat his hay and dry food. Yeah, thanks for nothing. I understand he would prefer the treats, but why would he starve himself into losing 20% of his body weight? I was also baffled. As I said before, piggies normally keep up their appearance until the last possible minute. The idea of a piggie slowly declining over three months was completely new to me.

Time passed and nothing improved……by August he was down to a very worrying 680g. I expressed concern that he was going to give himself organ failure – losing 30% of your body weight is not healthy! But we had no other option. All we could do was do our best to keep him safe, clean, warm and comfortable.

The End

On August 24th we knew something was wrong. He was now reduced to taking water from a syringe, as he’d almost completely given up on eating vegetables. He would investigate the food tray, spread them around and then go back to sleep as nothing interested him.

On August 26th, I went to work at 11am. His behaviour was normal – at the cage door begging for our breakfast so he had a little piece of pancake. Before I left I gave Thomas a syringe of water (just the one – he wouldn’t take any more) and a tickle under the chin. A little purr. Not very strong but a purr nonetheless.

When I got home at 7pm everybody was there. It was the day we’d been dreading. Turns out he’d gone while I was at work, about an hour earlier. At around 5-5:30pm, Kaa had found him in the corner of the cage, lying on his side, unresponsive. He was still breathing, but prodding him didn’t result in any movement. So Kaa called my mother as I suggested he should do if the inevitable happened and I wasn’t at home…picked Thomas up (small wheek) and wrapped him in a blanket, then carried him downstairs and sat on the sofa with him in his lap.

Within an hour he was gone. One final breath, and then he was gone. I missed him by less than an hour.

Being the kind of person that I am, I realised that it was important to do the practical stuff first. I dug a grave in the back garden where we’d always planned to put him, placed him in a cardboard box with a fresh tomato, and then buried him. The plaque we ordered is coming next week.

I’d prepared a eulogy video for Thomas back in April when he first became ill. Honestly, at the time I didn’t think he’d last the week, and wanted to do it then because I knew when the time came I wouldn’t be in the right frame of mind to do it. So after filling the grave and saying a few words, we went back inside to watch it.

And just like that, he was gone. We knew the day would come eventually…doubly so after he first got sick in April, but it was still difficult. It’s normal to feel guilt in these situations, isn’t it? A kind of relief that finally it’s all over, but then you worry that you’re being selfish.

At the time of writing it’s only been three days, but it feels like much longer, like a bad dream. Some people cremate their pets and keep their ashes on display. Personally I think that’s a bit creepy (for humans too, but if it brings you closure then go ahead). It’s sad enough looking out the kitchen window towards the bottom of the garden and thinking “Thomas is right there. But he’s not, is he?”

I know it’s a cliche to say that he wasn’t just a pet, he was one of the family. But Thomas was even more than that. He’s been with me through some of the most important events of my life, and gave me far more than I ever gave back to him. I’m just grateful that he chose to spend his sadly short life with us. “Piggie! No!” has become “No piggie.”

Thank you for everything, Thomas. We’ll miss you terribly.