Caramel has left us :(

Yet again we found another SCAMPS leaving us for the rainbow bridge.
Please find below Debbie account on Caramel leaving:

"It is with a heavy heart I must announce to my friends here that SCAMP Dolly Mixture, Caramel, went to The Rainbow Bridge last Friday. You may remember I posted about her having the dreaded bumblefoot a few months ago. A very kind member did point me in the direction of some special ointment which I could order online, but somehow I got confused and didn't realise I had to send a cheque for it up front, so there was a delay in it arriving, during which time the foot condition got a lot
worse. However, I don't think bumblefoot was her only problem. She became almost paralysed in her back legs, and liquid calcium, which had worked miraculously for my dear departed Cherry, didn't have any effect (although Caramel adored the taste), plus she had a hard lump at the base of her left front leg, which to me looked and felt like a tumour. During her last couple of weeks she could hardly walk, and some mornings I would find her stuck on her side, unable to right herself, which was very
distressing for her and for me. If I could have trusted my vet, I would have taken her for euthanasia then, but I cannot after the experience with Scrabble, so I put her on "hospice care" and kept her home until she slipped away. She was, happily, able to enjoy several sunny afternoons out on the lawn with her friends during her last week, where she chomped the grass with enthusiasm.

I would put her on her back to administer the ointment to her front paws, then keep her paws in the air whilst I fed her, so she didn't rub off the ointment straight away. I do think the ointment was working, more than anything I used on Scrabble. She ate and drank very well right until the end, and still wheeked for her food when anyone went near, as all the girls do. She loved dandelion flowers, and munched her way through quite a few in her final week. Sadly, I was in hospital myself the day she went to The Bridge, but her cagemate, Soulage, was with her, and Caramel was
never really a "people pig", she preferred the company of other pigs - although that did change towards the end, when she became dependent on me for food and for uprighting her, and she did seem to relate to humans a lot more. There are photos and a description of Caramel on the SCAMPS website. I got her on 8th May 2003, and she was probably about a month old then, so she would have been almost 6 years old.

It is strange having so few piggies, but as my health has been fragile it is probably not such a bad thing, and I have many happy memories and photographs of the time when there were more. Caramel will have been reunited with many Dolly Mixture friends at The Rainbow Bridge, and she is now free from discomfort and able to stay upright on her own. Run free, our little girl!

Debbie and the 7 Dolly Mixtures"