REST IN PEACE BRUNO

Today was the farewell of our little spiny friend, Brunelleschi the hedgehog (Bruno). He’s been a really great pet. He was interesting, adorable and incredibly low maintenance. Unfortunately because of inbreeding, pet hedgies are prone to cancer and tumors. The little guy got a really nasty tumor on his tail a month ago and had surgery. We thought he was going to be alright and was doing really well with recovery. I kept him really clean and came home on lunch breaks to check on him and give  him medicine.

But then only two weeks later he had another tumor develop in his stomach. He lost a lot of weight and wasn’t interested in eating. Today we went to check on him and he refused to eat/drink entirely and was shuddering from the pain. It had grown almost overnight and was the same size as his  head. His doctor was out of town but we knew  scheduled surgery for Wednesday was out of question. Thankfully Charley had today off and we could talk to our other doctor together. Since he was in so much pain and there was no hope for successful surgery, we put him down. It was really sad to see him suffering so much in his final hour.

He lived a pretty long life for a hedgehog and while he wasn’t particularly affectionate, he liked Charley a lot. He would uncurl and be comfortable with him whereas he was rather grumpy and unforgiving to the rest of the human race. He brought many smiles to some of the kids he’s met when I brought him to work. He was little man’s favorite thing to ask about and look at on my phone (the kiddo I nannied).

We will miss him a lot…as our house is pretty full of Bruno. There’s the giant poster print of him in our living room and a lovely little print from yellow brick home in our bookcase. He is even the opening photo for my photography webpage. He was our “first child” as married people and definitely a part of our little family.