ANNIE
My
beloved Annie is no longer with me. Old age finally caught up and she
suddenly became quite ill in July 2001. After a week of nursing her I could
tell the end was near, and I had to make that terrible decision. We had a
lot of good cuddles the last couple of days, but I miss her very very
much. Annie shared seven wonderful years with me.
Rather than rewrite her story, the following is that spring's text:
Annie is the most beautiful g.p. I've ever had. She has gorgeous long gray hair with some white around her middle. I generally give her haircuts since she drags all that hair everywhere but it is truly beautiful when it's long, and when it's short it curls along her sides like it was styled that way. She does hate getting the haircuts though. She has HUGE brown eyes that just really make her profile even prettier.
The really weird thing about Annie is how we got her. Several summers ago my gramma kept saying she saw a guinea pig out her kitchen window. Supposedly it was living next to the neighbor's porch. We thought grandma was just getting old and that it was probably a squirrel. But we had dinner at her house one evening and sure enough, there was a very muddy guinea pig living behind some storm windows propped against the porch! She came out to eat grass in the yard. My brother and I caught her and took her home. We cleaned her up and gave her some real food (for which she was starving) and now Annie is the oldest of the three pigs I currently have. She just turned seven.
Annie lived with me in my dorm room at Smith for a semester
when she was young but she was so loud (whistling for snacks from the fridge) that I had to get a quieter pig
(Molly) who wouldn't give herself away.
A couple years later I brought her back to school... she had mellowed by
then. Annie must have a huge ego, we think, because she's got an attitude that's entirely "Me Me Me" and she acts like we should treat her as the queen. She has never really gotten along with
other pigs too well. Even her own babies seemed to exasperate her
sometimes. Annie and Peanut had three baby
pigs, Maynard, Chloe, and
P.J. (Peanut Junior), in March 95.
Annie is rather elderly now and is in kidney failure. Her eyesight is not so good and she has a lot of respiratory problems. Still, for seven years old, she's doing pretty darn well and is my bestest cuddler. Annie is very special and I would do anything to keep her happy.
Annie often comes on trips with me on weekends so I can keep a better eye on her. When I clean her cage she gets to play on the floor, which is Luke the bunny's territory. She usually tries to steal Luke's food and they spend a lot of time sniffing and goosing each other. The picture below shows Annie and Luke contemplating each other.
