My daughter drew this as a companion piece to my short story, “Grasshopper Tale.” It’s more colorful than her usual line of work; her comics and drawings are usually in black and white, with the occasional splash of red.
My daughter has been drawing and uploading her artwork to Tumblr and Deviantart for years, and she has kindly agreed to share her genius with my humble little blog. Enjoy.
My kids’ five year old guinea pig Wilbur woke up Monday with a wheeze. I called four different vets before I could find one who could squeeze him in. He was diagnosed with an upper respiratory infection and given antibiotics, but then on Tuesday he stopped eating. Back to the vet we went. More medication–eye drops this time, SUPER fun to administer–and instructions on how to force feed a guinea pig. He started eating on his own Tuesday night after an afternoon of syringed baby green beans, but I’m still feeding him in the morning and at night as a precaution. He needs the extra calories and vitamin C anyway.
Usually by the time a pocket pet is showing signs of illness they’ve been sick for weeks and it’s already too late, but this time we were able to save him. Prey animals instinctively hide their symptoms, so when they finally start to show that means the little guy is running out of energy and is almost at the end of his rope. But thanks to a very kind vet who was able squeeze us in between appointments we were able to pull him back from the brink.
Dawn Napier 