The Hedgehog Welfare Society - European Hedgehog Month

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HWS European Hedgehog Month - June 2003

Jeannie Lockwood's European Adoption Story:

Jeannie Lockwood’s European Hedgehog, Beauty, at Hedgehog Friends of Denmark.

June 6th, 2003

Here is the story of the female hedgehog that I have adopted from Kis! I have paraphrased Kis' story about this wonderful little girl.

This girl has a pretty long story. She came to Kis in Fall 2002. She was only a "kid" without her mom then. She grew up with Kis, with a difficult childhood since she got mange and an inner ear infection. BUT she made it.

She became a big lovely girl and went hibernating. She had a loooong and good sleep, woke up and ate, ate and ate. That's always a good sign! When she was a big healthy girl of around 1,100 grams, Kis found a good place for her to be released. Kis went to visit the place - far away from cars, lots of good places to build a nest, lots of food. On May 3 2003, she was released there. Unfortunately the people forgot to tell Kis that their neighbour had two VERY agressive Doberman dogs!

On May 5, Kis got our girl back, and she says she could hardly recognize her. She had deep dogbites all over. The big beautiful girl now looked terrible and was in HUGE pain. The girl that was so easy to handle was now scared, frustrated, and very huffy.

Kis had to sedate her when she cleaned her wounds, and putting antibiotic in one wound made it pop out from another hole. After 3 weeks her wounds started looking quite good. The inflammation was gone. But then she started loosing her quills/hair where she had the bites. She developed a kind of wound on her nose that would heal, fall off, and then came back. You can see that wound in her picture.

It is so sad to see, but even though she is not "cute-looking" at the moment, she has the most wonderful personality you can imagine. Kis now has her on an intensive vitamin cure (she says she really feels like a witch when she is mixing all the herbs in a syringe for her). The hedgie still gets antibiotics and prednisolon.

Her weight has been slowly dropping down :-( BUT on June 4 and 5, she maintained her weight ( 707 grams). Kis says that she just can NOT give up on her. Then I cried when I read: So I wanted her fosterparent to be someone very special. Because she is so special. In spite of all odds: She is still alive ;-)

I am greatly honored by being able to help Kis in this small way, and I am so proud of this little girl who is fighting to stay well and alive for those who love her so much.

I will give you more updates as I get them,
Jeannie

June 17th, 2003

She is not doing that great. She seems to have a very weak system after she got the nasty dog bites, and is still losing quills and weight. Somehow she has lost interest in life. But since she was very small she only had TWO days in freedom (sigh)...that makes me so sad. I stimulate her by putting herbs, Lavender and exciting smells down to her. And give a lot of vitamins.

June 24th, 2003

Pictures attached of your girl.

She is a HUGE puzzle to me. As you can see she has lost even more quills and doesn't look good at all. BUT I will not give up yet. She is still getting a lot of different vitamins and get spoiled with turkey and avocado (that is the only thing she will eat). But her weight is still dropping :-(

June 26th, 2003

She is NOT well at all. Kis will have to make the hard descision within the next few days. Weight is dropping...skin looks terrible, no new quills, and she isn't eating. BUT she did have enough strengh to BITE another rescuer this afternoon...so she didn't give up herself...then...how can I?

July 1st, 2003

I have delayed writing this for so long, in the hopes that if I didn't tell people, it wouldn't be true. I finally have to face it, that the sweet girl I adopted from Kis is gone. But I console myself knowing she left the world when she was surrounded by love, in Kis' garden, with Kis to help her go. Here is the message Paul, Kis' husband wrote to me:

Sometimes rehabbing is no fun. This is not Kis writing, but Paul.

After your girl has been treated with every posible kind of medicine, vitamins and so on, we gave her a last chance. After a week there is still no result. She's eating and drinking, pooping and peeing and behaving almost like a normal hedgie (well - she's very aggressive to all people but Kis - and that's understandable), but has hardly any quills left. Her skin looks terrible and she loses weight. She'll NEVER get a normal wild-hedgehog life. Therefore we took the hard decision to help her cross. As I write this, Kis is sitting in the garden with her, so she can smell nature, but Kis will help her cross in 5 minutes. Kis is soooo sad about this.... this hedgie has such a long history - has even been released to the wild - and Kis has used much of her time and energy to help her, but it was no use. It's hard to make the decision, but the decision is made. Kis will NOT let a vet help her cross, but Kis will help your girl herself. She feels she owes this to your girl.

Love,
Kis and Paul

I had delayed naming my girl because I wanted to see some of her character once she got well and name her based on that. Sadly, that was not to be. And all along, she has been losing weight and quills, so she was quite bald at the end, and covered with scabs, and I gather some thought she did not look too well at the end. But to me she was gorgeous and brave, just beautiful and completely loveable. So through my selfish denial of her death, through many sobs and tears at losing a creature I had never met but had come to know and love so well, I knew that her name must be Beauty, for how beautiful she was, even at the end. Bye, Beauty, when we meet in the next life I will love you still.