A Sweet Little Pig Story

I was going to tell you about how I am making great progress on my lace. It's Evenstar by the way, for those who care about such things.

Instead I'm going to tell you a story.

Once upon a time there was a guinea pig. Her name was Nellie and she was in her late middle years (which is 5 or 6 for a guinea pig.) She was passed from a boyfriend/girlfriend who broke up and no longer wanted her, to a nice lady with other guinea pigs but really, it was too much for this lady to take care of another one and so when the opportunity came up, Nellie went to live with another family. This family lengthened her name to Nellie Kellie so it was more like her new guinea pig sister Henny Penny and tried to do what was best for her. They tried to give her a bigger, more open pen so she would have room to run. Nellie was set in her ways though and she hated it. They tried to get her to be friends with her piggy sister and live in the same pen, nope not up for that either.


Eventually this new family decided to let her be what she wanted to be and allowed her to stay in the pen she were used to, with her aqua pigloo and live her little guinea pig life.

Occassionally she got a bath because let's face it, she was a pig and then she had to tolerate being snuggled.

She put up with it pretty well, but she didn't love it. Not like her piggy sister loves to be snuggled.

One day, a few months ago, it occurred to her human mama, who she had been living with for over a year, that she was getting on in piggy years. She didn't move quite so fast, she didn't flip her pigloo quite so much and there were a few days where she slowed down a great deal. Her family was worried about her so they watched her really close but she still ate and drank and pooped, the greatest measures of guinea pig health so they just kept a close eye on her and fed her a few more treats to keep her eating.

She seemed to perk up and act like her old self a lot more so the worry mostly passed, although her human mama kept it in the back of her mind.


As hard as it is to remember, our pets are only on loan to us and eventually they must cross the Rainbow Bridge. Last night, Nellie crossed the rainbow bridge.

Today I will be snuggling with her Piggy sister and trying to remind myself that we did the best we could for her but I have to say, I don't think I'll be doing too much knitting.