RIP Kipley

January 30th, 2008 by lynnylchan under My Life and Pets

My mouse Kipley died on Tuesday morning at around 3.15am, following surgery to remove a tumour.

This was her 3rd time going under, I guess this time she just didn’t wake up from the anaesthetic.

I just got back from the vet’s clinic, where I settled the bill for her surgery and cremation. It amused me slightly to see the itemised charge for the cremation as ‘exotic’. Perhaps she was considered an exotic pet, but to me she was just a mouse. Although it was pretty fun to see the people at the vet going wide-eyed at the sight of a pet mouse.

Tomorrow I’m going to get another mouse to keep Darcy company. Female mice don’t do the solitary life very well. In Kip’s absence, Darcy piled up her bedding in one corner and slept there, since there’s no more Kip to snuggle up to. No more Kip to snatch food from.

Kipley was my first mouse, and she had to come home in a small box while Darcy had a shoebox. Kip had to put up with getting jostled around in said box while I shopped for her new home. She loved the run-about wheel because she could go sniffing around my room, but she never went into it again after I negligently let her roll off the bed. -_-;;;

She was surprisingly tolerant of Darcy’s food-snatching habits, and she was adventurous while Darcy is timid. She routinely climbed up my hands and even made the summit of Mount Shoulder several times, as well as a few ticklish expeditions down my leg.

She lived to be slightly over a year old - a short life even by mouse standards. The 5 months I spent with her started with a lot of trial and error on everything from bedding to food, and it ended with me a lot sadder, and wiser.

Goodbye Kip. You will be missed.