In Memoriam Chumley, aged 3

I am very sorry about the long delay since my last cartoon. As soon as I got back from break, we had to deal with a pretty serious illness in our oldest pig, Chumley. He developed a bladder stone, which was causing him a lot of discomfort and keeping him from eating. We tried everything we could to keep him fed and hydrated, feeding him with a syringe four times a day (a grueling process that must have been very distressing for the boy). Unfortunately, the stone descended into his urethra and blocked it. We consulted a veterinary surgeon to find out our options. Rather than forcing him to endure a painful surgery that may have only made it worse or just pushed the stone back up into his bladder to start all over again, Lyra and I decided to put him to sleep.

We held him until the very end and he died peacefully in his Mommy's arms yesterday afternoon. We buried him, wrapped in a towel that smelled like home, under a tree at Lyra's parents' house. He will be missed, and I guess that's one of the most important consolations about this -- how lucky could a little animal be out of the millions and millions of them in the world, to be so loved and well-cared for? He meant something to us and we were able to make his life better. That makes me feel good at least.

That, and his crazy brothers.

(the cartoon above is several years old, done when Chumley was almost one. Media is Adobe Photoshop, drawn freehand with a pen mouse.)