Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[narachoucho]

I would like to introduce my chinchilla Joby. She is a rescue pet I adopted when she was 8 months old back in April. Her previous owners had severely abused her, resulting to an amputated hind leg, a slightly warped spine, and a pelvic bone with fractures all over that's slowly calcifying. The calcification is pushing her other hind leg out of the socket, so the vet does not know how many years she can continue. Nonetheless, she's still the sweetest chinchilla I've ever seen and I'm determined to give her a good life, however short it may be.

Over the past few months, she's been adapting fairly well to her missing leg. However, she's been trying to balance by moving her remaining leg into the center of her body - which the vet says it's a good thing because she doesn't lean on the "stump" on her other side. The unfortunate thing is, when she urinates, it goes all over her hind leg. Then she gets irritated and does all sorts of rubbing and struggling to get rid of the gunk. She doesn't like it when I give her leg a wash too often, so I want to try and limit the times I have to put water on her.

Should I try to put a diaper on her? How would I make one? Does anyone have any other suggestions that I can try?

Thanks!

[GrayRodent]

I'm afraid making a diaper will cause the urine to irritate the area between the legs which could cause an infection there which could be very dangerous. If it ever turns to pyometra that will be fatal so a simple diaper won't work. So if you really want to do that you're going to need a well designed harness of some kind like they use for birds that keeps the diaper part away from the body. Because of the spinal and pelvic injuries though I am not sure any kind of strap on devices can be safe since if they slip down and cause your pet to struggle it can cause more damage plus the risk of using a harness in general.

What I do recommend though is to regularly shave the leg where the urine gets onto it and that should make cleaning go faster. I also recommend you handle the leg between cleanings (just pet it and play with it on occasion) while you are socializing with your chinchilla and that might make her more tolerant of being cleaned and shaved there.

Perhaps you can contact a vet that does animal rehabilitation and see if they might have experience like that. I used to have a three legged cat with one hind leg but she rarely urinated on it. Perhaps the other injuries are causing the leg to get in the way.

[narachoucho]

Hi Gray,

I've taken her to 3 different vets around the city and none of them can do much. It's mostly because of her other injuries too.
I think why she hates the cleaning so much is because her hind quarters are super sensitive after all the complications. When we pet her, she growls if our hands get too close to her bottom.

I agree that a diaper isn't the best idea. I want to avoid it too.
I thought that maybe I can put a thicker layer in her cage so that the urine is caught immediately as it leaves her instead of trickling on her leg. The only problem is she trips quite a lot when there's too much soft surface... is this perhaps too dangerous?

[GrayRodent]

I don't see anything with trying that to see how well it works. Just make sure the urine doesn't get into the fur higher up or you'll have to clean there.
As far as tripping and issues with mobility that's a different problem that you'll have to gauge. I'm sure you don't want her straining too hard to move around and dislocating that hip.

[Jasonred79]

Rather than a diaper which covers her privates, maybe wrap her leg to cover the leg instead?