Fluffy the Guinea Pig

Fluffy (on the left) is my slightly over weight guinea pig.

I love her to bits! She has a friend/sister called Fizzy (on the right) who is my sister’s. Any way quite a while ago Fluffy had an accident where she jumped from my hands to try to get into her cage but she was unsuccessful and she fell about 30-40cm… She squeaked very loudly! From then on her back legs didn’t move and she dragged her self around. I felt awful! I think it is called paralysis.

The next thing I knew we were taking Fluffy in to the vet to get her checked out, I was fearing for the worst. The vet was quite willing to have her put down but my Dad and I decided to let her have a try at getting better as she wasn’t in any obvious pain. So the vet gave her a steroid injection into her back (if I remember rightly).

At home I found some information on the Internet about doing hydrotherapy with guinea pigs who have paralysis. Apparently back injuries and paralysis of the back legs is not that uncommon. So my Mum and I found a big bowl and filled it 6-7cm deep with lukewarm water, every day or so we would hold Fluffy in the water, being careful to keep her head above the water, and one of us would massage her back and legs gently. After a week or so we noticed that she started to move her back legs ever so slightly. It took a couple of months for her to be able to move her legs quite a lot.

Now, about a year on, Fluffy is happily walking around her home. I’m glad we didn’t let the vet put her down. It would probably have been curtains for Fizzy as well as I understand that they don’t like living alone.