Not a bad pet owner, just tough luck.

[prisskitty]

This year has been tough. With the loss of Chico my lovely chinnie boy and a lot of my other family members..

My cousins snake that I bought and took care of passed away, she was only 4 months old but she couldn't keep food down due to internal damage from parasites - her name was Snowflake.

One of my geckos escaped last year, her name Kimchi, and we found her too late.

One of my geckos smashed her head into the screen door and cracked her neck, quite a freak incident but Ruby will be missed. She was a beautiful red crested gecko.

Two of my snakes escaped, just never rely on duct tape again. Ever. I use extremely strong packing tape now. They both have been gone too long to make it. But, I can only pray they got outside and survived seeing how they are native breeds.

One of my frogs passed away, not to mention about four fish. I no longer attempt fish except for a betta.

So with all of theses losses I am feeling like I am a bad pet owner but then I remember, I am not. I always, always do my best to take care of my animals. I always get them the most that I can. I spent $501 to try and save my chinchilla, I was willing to go further than that if needed. I buy the best foods for my geckos, I buy the top gut-load for their crickets, and decorate their tanks extensively and safely. I clean my fish and frogs water once a week. I never ignore my chinchillas...chinchilla. I make sure that he has attention and exercise either by my doing or my moms.

My cats get ample play time and tons of toys, tons of attention, and tons of care.

I just think this was a bad-luck streak and I won't be intentionally obtaining anymore animals.

 

[Snickers]

Sorry for all your bad luck. I feel the same way as you I had 2 chins that died. One which cost me $1000 because of a kidney stone they couldn't get to. 1 baby that had a freak accident. Even if I had other chins that passed away these 2 meant a lot to me. Right now I spent $225.00 on 1 chin yesterday for teeth x-rays & blood test work. Teeth are fine just waiting for blood test work. She's drools since last year and not eating much. I been feeding her what baby kits eat with lifeline & cuttlebone mixed into it now she's not eating that.

All the animals here get the best of care, food, etc so I'm debating with myself about breeding chins.

 

[TillyChinchilla]

That is exactly what it is... bad luck. It sounds like you take great care of your pets. I've been fortunate with how few I've lost.

I had a friends who's rodents would just "drop dead" and I never understood why until I visited her house. The smell itself was enough to make ME drop dead!

 

[keninphilly]

Things happen and no matter how good you take care of your animals sometimes it is just out of your control. When Eli passed I blamed myself. The vet believed he had bled internally. I didn't even notice anything was wrong. He slept all day, but that is what the chins always do, by evening, when he should have been awake, he was still sleeping and THEN I had suspected something was wrong and it was too late.