Hi everyone, welcome back to Animal Wonders. I’m Jessi,
and this is Ginger the green-cheeked conure.
I absolutely love caring for animals. It was my dream to be able to rescue displaced animals in
need, and decades later it’s still my number one passion. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t some
downsides. Definitely, the hardest part about caring for animals is when they pass away.
[CHEERY INTRO MUSIC]
There’s no way around it, death is a hard topic to talk about. Unfortunately,
death is a part of life and every one of us will encounter more or less of
it in our lifetimes. And I have some sad news to share about some of our animals.
We had the pleasure of meeting Ophelia the opossum in 2019, and I fell totally head
over heels for her adorable face and gentle personality. Ophelia was found orphaned in
her mother’s pouch with her sibling after her mother was hit by a car. Ophelia’s leg was so
badly damaged in the accident that it needed to be removed. Her brain also sustained damage,
and together the two injuries made it so she could not be returned to the wild.
I loved getting to care for Ophelia. I loved our walks outside.
I loved how much she loved having her ear scratched.
I loved how many people fell in love with her, too.
I love the impact she made for her species
helping to dispel the negative views opossums can sometimes get.
I love that I simply got to meet her and have her in my life.
Ophelia was showing us signs that she was getting to the end of her life.
She was less active and became more picky with what she would eat.
She spent more time sleeping and less time grooming herself. And when she started to lose
weight and muscle mass, we knew the time was coming soon to say goodbye.
Ophelia passed away in her sleep after one last visit with her veterinarian,
who confirmed her body was no longer able to support her. Opossums naturally live
1-3 years, and Ophelia was almost 3 years old when she died.
It took me a while to process my grief after her passing. While I knew what I was getting into,
it’s still hard to love an animal that only lives 3 years so much.
I’m thankful for the time that I had with her,
and I’m thankful she was able to live a comfortable life while she was here.
I’m also thankful that we were able to honor her memory
by sharing her space with a new animal that needed a safe home and good food to eat.
When we knew Ophelia wasn’t going to be with us much longer,
we were able to offer Inky the opossum a home at Animal Wonders.
He’s now living in Ophelia’s old home and while it’s hard not to see Ophelia there,
it sure is nice to see an opossum using the space.
Now, do you remember Willow and Kia, the wonderful ringneck doves?
Willow and Kia were a bonded pair of doves who were just the sweetest.
When they first met, Willow would dance and coo for Kia,
and we assumed Willow was a male because that's what normal male behavior was.
But after they built a nest and proceeded to lay 4 eggs instead of the normal 2 eggs,
we realized both Kia and Willow were female.
These two gals were wonderful ambassadors for their species,
teaching about doves, how invasive species can become established, and showing off
their special adaptations for survival. I loved hearing Willow make her courtship coos to Kia
and seeing them both attempt to incubate their infertile eggs at the same time.
We don’t know how old Kia was, but she came in with neurological damage and was always a bit off balance.
When her balance became worse and worse and she could no longer perch or feed herself,
Dr. Card, our veterinarian, recommended that Kia be humanely euthanized.
We knew that Willow would need a new companion
since doves don’t thrive alone. So we set about trying to find her a friend.
A couple weeks went by and we found a lead to a possible match.
Unfortunately, Willow didn’t stick around to let us introduce her to another companion.
Willow passed away overnight and there was no obvious physical reason,
so we don’t have a medical explanation for her passing.
Not a day goes by that I don’t miss hearing Willow’s sweet cooing,
knowing she’s singing her song for Kia.
[WILLOW COOING]
We also had a really hard loss when our wonderful tortoise Waffle passed away.
Her loss was unexpected, and we’re missing her a ton.
Waffle had many issues with her health and suffered from metabolic bone disease
due to not getting the proper lighting and diet throughout her life.
She came to Animal Wonders in her teens, and we worked really hard to get her back to health.
We did everything we could for her, and she seemed to be thriving. My favorite memories with Waffle
are watching her thoroughly enjoy her food, because I knew she didn’t get access to good food
before coming to live with us. Her favorite food was softened tortoise pellets. And it was cute because
she would choose the nutrition packed pellet option over the juiciest of fruits or fresh
crunchy greens. She was a wonderful companion to Yucca and we all just really miss her.
We still have Yucca and Titus who are both healthy and doing well. Waffle’s loss has left us not
only with achy hearts, but also a complicated situation with the companions she left behind.
As a healthy and active male, Titus does push Yucca around a bit. We do provide Yucca places where
she can get some alone time away from Titus when they’re inside during the cold months, but having
another gal will help split his attention and the whole situation will be much more harmonious.
So, not only do we miss Waffle, we also miss how well she completed the tortoise trio.
So we have been on the lookout for another female red-footed tortoise
that needs a home to come join the crew.
Along with Ophelia, Willow and Kia, and Waffle, we're also grieving the loss of
two of our little mammal friends, Tickles and Gadget, both of whom developed terminal cancer
and were humanely euthanized. Euthanisia is always such a hard choice to make,
but when you know there’s only more suffering to be had and it’s not going to get better,
I believe it’s the kindest gift that you can give.
Gadget the sugar glider was only about 7 years old,
and his quick decline in health took us all by surprise. Dr. Card was surprised
by how quickly the cancer spread and helped us navigate his end of life care.
Gadget came to Animal Wonders as an unwanted pet when he was about a year old. He became
the companion to our older male, Gizmo, and the two were fast friends. It was
such a joy to see two solo sugar gliders find companionship with each other and be
able to fulfill that need for socialization that these little guys must have in order to thrive.
When Gizmo passed away from terminal cancer at about 15 years old, Gadget joined up with
PingPong and Boomerang, a pair of boys that had been abandoned in an apartment. We weren’t
sure how three males would do together, but the two boys accepted Gadget, and the three of them
got up to so much mischief together! Gadget’s loss is felt by us more than PingPong and Boomerang,
since they still have each other for company. I’m still quite sad about Gadget since he was
so young when he developed cancer. Dr. Card shared that Gadget was otherwise
healthy, and the cancer was unusually aggressive. I know that there was nothing that
we could have done differently to keep him with us longer, but my heart still hurts.
Now, Tickles the hedgehog lived a very full life, and while losing her is hard,
it’s easier to know that she lived out a normal lifespan. She was loved, she was comfortable,
and she had everything she needed to live a long and healthy life. She was such an
amazing ambassador for her species! She visited thousands of people and was able to share her story of how
she was passed around from home to home to home, because none of them knew how to properly care
for a hedgehog. She was being fed the wrong kind of food which gave her diarrhea, and she
was being kept in too small of an enclosure. So when you combine diarrhea and a tiny space, well,
you can imagine the results. Tickles was calm and friendly with everyone, so when people met her
in person, they could feel how prickly hedgehog quills can be. Together we were able to educate people
about proper hedgehog care and help prevent a repeat of her story with other hedgehogs.
Tickles also famously dealt a death blow to our second ever livestream on the channel.
Just stomped her little paw right on the button and shut the whole thing down. What a riot!
Tickles developed brain cancer and slowly declined in her abilities.
When she was no longer able to stand and eat,
we knew it was time for us to help her pass away peacefully, and Dr. Card helped us lay her to rest.
Again, the hardest part of caring for animals isn’t the long hours, or the endless physical
labor, or even the accidental bumps, bruises, and scratches. The hardest part is feeling the absence
of those that leave us behind. When you pour your heart into loving and caring for another being,
it hurts to lose them. Sometimes it takes longer than other times to recover from that hurt. But
if there’s one thing that I’ve learned about loss and death, it's that it hurts the most when
you’ve loved the most. And knowing how much love I’ve given helps me through the hurt.
Thank you for letting me share these wonderful animals with you. I wish I could tell you that
every animal you meet on our channel will live forever! Believe me, I wish so bad that I could.
But that’s not possible, and being able to share the wonders of animals with you
comes with some grief as well as joy. I hope you are able to continue sharing
your love with those around you as we do at Animal Wonders. And if you’d like to help us continue to
care for these amazing souls through all stages of their lives, you can join us over on Patreon.
I’ve put the link in the description.
And I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. Bye!
[BOLD OUTRO MUSIC]