Rosie Winger

Rosie was a African Pygmy Hedgehog, she was rehomed to me thru the Welfare Society of Hedgehogs on September 9th, 2021. The people I met to pick her up called her Miss Rose, but I liked Rosie better and I’m sure she didn’t mind. When I first saw her I said “Wow shes a big one”, seems they fed her meal worms a lot, she was quite over weight. She was beautiful and so mellow, but quite huffy. I’m sure she enjoyed being with my other girls in their room.

One day I noticed blood in her urine so I brought her to the Vet and it was decided to get her spayed. She came thru that very well and was back to her mellow self quickly. She was doing very good but then I noticed she was scratching herself a lot. The Vet found she was infected with mites and had very dry skin. Meds help clear that up and she seemed much better.

But then in November I noticed she was having some problem walking, she would stumble and just stop moving. This got more serious and I feared the worst, I knew she had inherited the terrible Hedgehog disease – WHS (Wobbly Hedgehog Syndrome). My girl Violet had just gone thru this recently and I also had a Little boy (Oliver Jr.) who had it, so I was  familiar with the symptoms. She did eat and drink good, but I had to give her food and drink by hand. At first she tried crawling around and would just knock the water and food all over. I actually liked the time we had when I was doing this and I made sure she always had enough. There were some late nights and early mornings, but I didn’t mind since I was available for her all the time. Then she stopped doing her business and I wasn’t sure if she was in pain or not.

She wasn’t getting any better only worse, so I made the heart breaking decision to let her go. It was so hard, I really loved her so much. I’m sure she made it to the Rainbow Bridge and is having a good time with Violet and the boys, Whitey, Bear, Sammy, Piper, Oliver Jr. and Oliver Sr. I miss them all so much and think of them all the time.