Yesterday, I wrote the check to pay off the remainder of our balance to our contractor. It's dropped our bank balance lower than I'd like, but we're still plenty secure. So, of course we have an unexpected expense crop up. Never fails, right?
We have two guinea pigs, a long-hair and a short-hair, both boars. Bonded brothers, one a year older than the other. The oldest is six. He's a pretty healthy piig (yes, the "ii" is intentional - it's how we refer to our boys) overall. But, it seems he's chipped a tooth. We saw he was eating his lettuce a little strangely last night, but kind of chalked it up to the leaf being big and new, since I'd just bought a fresh head of romaine for them. Nope! When I fed him his afternoon treat today, he had trouble holding it in his mouth. I tried holding it up for him, but he wasn't a fan of that. He got about 3/4 of the way through it before deciding nope, he wanted to get some hay back in his cage. We have a penned in area of the room where they live currently, so they get daily "yard time" outside of their cage. I picked him up a "flower" of hay - not sure what they're actually called, but it's the long fluffy bit on a thin stalk - to feed him, since it's one of his favorite treats, and when he tried to take it, I noticed the missing bit. He's broken off part of his right tooth. Again.
He did this twice last summer, and we have yet to figure out how. He doesn't seem to be in pain from it, since he's doing everything he usually does. He just has to eat more slowly and carefully. Even so, once I saw it was indeed broken off, I called the vet so we can get him checked out. It's almost time for his annual checkup anyway, but I'd budgeted that for August. The vet we use has two people who deal with small animals, so they're usually easy to schedule, but one's on vacation this week. Fortunately, there was an opening tomorrow afternoon. I booked that, and maybe an hour later the vet's office called to say someone had canceled a late morning appointment, if we wanted it. Why yes, yes we do. We're going to have his long hair trimmed/shaved at the back while he's there, since he will not tolerate a comb, and cutting it ourselves leads to lots of nips on shirts, and probably clean his sac as well.
I love our vet. We've been going to them since we adopted the piigs, and the office is lovely to work with. They call our boys by name, and refer to us as their people. They've also been super-convenient for us in our condo, since their primary office is right across the street, and the secondary office is up the road just about 10 minutes. That is the one thing I'm going to miss about moving into town, is the convenience of the vet. We'll still bring the piigs back to them - my students have complained about a lack of small animal or "exotic" vets in town - but they'll have to be in the carrier longer, which won't be fun for them.
Based on last year's tooth issues, we're gonna pay a couple hundred dollars for this vet visit. Again, we can afford it, but there's way, way less of a cushion than I'm used to seeing in the ledger. But while I'll put off a dental visit for myself (I apparently need a crown), I will not make my boys wait on care.
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