A capybara statue at the Summit Park Zoo in Panama

Owner’s blog:

Sorry it has taken me so long to write this post. I have been sick for the past week. Nothing serious, just a cold and a cough and complete lack of mental focus. [...]]]>

A capybara statue at the Summit Park Zoo in Panama

Owner’s blog:

Sorry it has taken me so long to write this post. I have been sick for the past week. Nothing serious, just a cold and a cough and complete lack of mental focus. In fact, I’m still a little sick so this is going to be a short post and it may not be as coherent as most.

As you may know, Coral, Sheldon, Stacy and I all went to Panama to see the elusive lesser capybaras in the wild. As far as I know, it is not possible to see lesser capybaras in captivity. I do not know of any zoos or breeders who have them. Unfortunately, this is still true even after our trip. Try as we might, Stacy and I could not find a zoo in Panama that has capybaras. The closest thing we found was a statue of a capybara (shown above) at the Summit Park Zoo. It is a pretty nice statue but wouldn’t a real capybara have been so much better?

Gamboa Rainforest Resort taken from near the capybara wetland

This is where we stayed, the Gamboa Rainforest Resort. This is the only place where we actually saw lesser capybaras. I’d like to say something nice about the resort but that would be misleading. Okay, there were some nice things. The rooms were very nice. There were some really nice touches in the decor.

One of the doors to a guest room

The view was spectacular

The pool was pretty nice, as you can see.

Caiman and crocodile statues in the pool

Coral, Sheldon and I spent some time at the in-pool bar.

The view from our room

The view from our room included the capybara wetland. Unfortunately, I somehow failed to get a photo that shows the whole wetland, tiny as it was. You can see its little offshoot at the bottom right in the photo above. There was a small trench leading to the larger area. This is apparently fed from a pipe that (hopefully) drains runoff from the plentiful rainfall.

I’m not going to dwell on why we were so displeased with the resort but given its obvious beauty I feel I have to say something least you come off thinking it couldn’t have been so bad. Firstly, the service was terrible. If you ordered an item off the menu rather than eating the rather expensive buffet, you can to reconcile yourself to a three hour meal. You would need to get your own coffee or water or wait an hour for that. Ordering a drink at the pool bar likewise meant spending at least another hour there. There were no educational materials about the wildlife. There were no naturalists present or at least we did not have access to them. You were not allowed to go out on the grounds at night (we got in trouble for this but wrangled it into a personal tour with one of the groundskeepers). If you look at the first photo of the hotel at the top of this post, our room was just off the frame to the left. In order to exit the hotel, we had to travel all the way to a point off the frame to the right. In case of a fire, this place would be a death trap. There was another exit that could have taken us out to the front about one building over from ours but the gate was always locked. And the prices for everything were at least as expensive as at a similar hotel in the US. If you want more information, you can email me.

How many capybaras do you see?

I took the above photo using my 280mm lens from the balcony of our room. How many capybaras do you see? None? Look harder.

Three

Here’s a cropped version of the same photo. Hopefully you can now see three capybaras. There is the obvious one toward the bottom right. One with just its nose sticking out just a little way above it. A third is to the left of the second one. (Remember you can click on the photo to see a larger version.)

To be honest, I only saw two capybaras when I took this photo. It wasn’t until I got home and was editing them that the one with the nose popped up. I have a series of photos that are almost identical but the capybaras shift around a little and in some you can see that capy’s nose and in some you can’t.

Three lucky people get close to a capybara

In general the capybaras were very shy, unlike the common capybaras I saw in Venezuela, but the people in the above photo were able to get fairly close to one as it went from the smaller wetland area I mentioned earlier to the larger area what you can see in the upper part of this photo.

Another thing I didn’t like about Gamboa was the manicured lawn. In some ways this is very good for the capybaras because that is pretty delicious looking grass. In another, it represents a virtual desert in what would otherwise be a rain forest. This area has obviously been cleared with very little of the natural vegetation left. Of course, you expect some of that but it would be nice if they made a few more concessions for the wildlife. As far as the capybaras are concerned, it would be great if they would create another wetland area like this (or two or three). They have the room for it. That would give a lot more habitat for the capybaras, which would seem like a good thing for the tourists too. As it is, the wetland supports a surprising amount of wildlife including at least eight capybaras, a paca and a small caiman.

Paca or conejo pintado at San Diego Wild Animal Park

In case you don’t know what a paca is I have included a photo of one that I took at the San Diego Wild Animal Park last October. They are large rodents, maybe 15 – 20 lbs. I saw one at night at the capybara wetland but was not able to get its photo. They are pretty adorable animals.

The manicured lawn does also seem to be good habitat for agoutis. They were pretty common most everywhere we went in Panama and most people referred to them as “conejos” or rabbits.

Agouti at Gamboa

Of course they are not rabbits, they are actually rodents related to capybaras. I’ll have a separate post on them later.

That’s it for now. If you have any questions you specifically want me to answer, leave a comment and I’ll try to address it in my next Panama post.

The Plushes head to the San Diego Zoo

Owner’s Blog:

I was out in California last week to visit my sister and I couldn’t pass up the chance to visit the world famous San Diego Zoo. Last time I was there, about five years ago, they [...]]]>  

The Plushes head to the San Diego Zoo

Owner’s Blog:

I was out in California last week to visit my sister and I couldn’t pass up the chance to visit the world famous San Diego Zoo. Last time I was there, about five years ago, they did not have capybaras but I knew that they had a band of them now and I couldn’t wait to see them. Of course, I brought my two plush capybaras, Capycoppy (left) and Super Capy (right) with me. I also brought Double Decoy, the guinea pig in the middle. There’s nothing like going around taking photos of plush animals in a crowded area to make you feel crazy.

Double Decoy, Capycoppy and Super Capy at a gorilla statue

My sister, whose birthday we were celebrating, wanted to see the gorillas. We spent a ridiculous amount of time there but all you’re going to see of them is this photo of the plushes with a gorilla bust. Why waste time on other animals when there are capybaras to see?

The capybara exhibit

The zoo is enormous and it will eat up your whole day before you even get to the capybaras if you are not careful. They are at the Elephant Odyssey which is way in the back of the park. It is not too far from the drop off point for the “sky buckets.” The best thing to do is probably to get on the sky tram near the zoo entrance as soon as you arrive, go see the capybaras first and if there is any time left over, you can glance at the rest of the zoo.

Info on capybaras

Do not be expecting to learn a lot about the capybaras — or any of the zoo’s animals — by reading the posted placards. They are not very informative. They don’t even have distribution maps. The zoo’s website has a pretty good entry on capybaras that you can read here.

Four capys resting

The keeper I talked to, Steve according to his name tag, said there are approximately seven capybara in the exhibit including one seven month old male who was born there. That struck me as curious since one is not the typical number of kittens in a capybara clutter. I asked if there had been others and, if so, what happened to them. Steve was evasive on this saying he was not authorized to discuss that. In the photo above, you can see the young male who displays the short, red fur typical of young capybaras.

A capybara with guanacos

There is actually a bigger mystery. In November 2008 the zoo acquired nine adult capybaras. Buddy, the young male, was born there, which should leave them with ten. Why are there only seven? Maybe the above photo provides a hint. I watched this capybara and it was clearly afraid of the guanacos. It should be, Capyboppy, the second most famous capybara, was killed by a guanaco not long after he went to live at the LA Zoo.

Click here to view the embedded video.

San Diego Zoo Capybaras video

In the video you can see that the capybara is nervous when the guanacos come near.

A fat capy is a healthy capy?

Another health issue for the capys might be their weight. Steve said the largest of them weighs 139 lbs, which is within the documented weight range of 120-140 lbs for capybaras…just barely. But you can see in the image above that they are not carrying that weight as muscle. This capybara has a waddle!

Indoor dining

I’m going to blame the guanacos for the capybaras’ weight problem. It is natural for capybara to move around a lot while they are grazing during the morning and evening hours, or the afternoon or even night depending on their mood and where they live. But the capys at the San Diego Zoo have to go through this little door and eat inside. I am assuming this is because the guanacos will beat them up and steal their food.

Chewing on a stick

You may notice that there is nothing growing in the enclosure. I am blaming the guanacos for that too. In the wild, capybara crop the grass so it looks like a golf course. They do not eat it down to nothing. The capy above is forced to chew on a stick rather than satisfying her natural desire to graze to wear down her teeth. Grass is very tough so that wild capybaras keep their teeth nicely worn. Grazing also gets the capybara up and moving, constantly searching for the perfect grass, even when they are not really hungry.

Capybara and tapir

Perhaps I am being unfair to the guanacos; it is possible that the tapir is to blame for some of the austerity of the enclosure.

That brings up another point. Capybaras and tapirs do share the same environment in the wild but what are those guanacos doing in there anyway? Guanacos are cold weather animals as evidenced by their thick coats. They live in the mountains not in the marshes and forest streams. It seems like “South American” is a good enough tag and the zoo just throws the animals in together without even explaining that in the wild these animals would never encounter each other.

The greenery in this photo is outside the enclosure

So what is my opinion of the San Diego Zoo? I could spend days there.

But I am a little tired of the reverence most people give zoos and the haughty attitude of zoos themselves. I think they could provide better information to their visitors using more informative signage and not lumping disparate animals together. I think that rodents, who make up 1/4 of all mammal species, are seriously underrepresented. I think that the zoo environment is not all that safe or healthy for the animals.

For the capybaras, seeing a few fat animals with no reason to move about in a completely unnatural environment does not do them justice. How can people see or understand anything of their natural behaviors and social interactions? How can they appreciate their intelligence and affectionate natures? They cannot even hear their beautiful voices.

There is a place for zoos and I enjoy them as much as the next person, but Garibaldi Rous is a better ambassador for capybaras than capybaras in a zoo.

Rick views Garibaldi on arrival at our house

This post is part of the BlogPaws and BISSELL Blog Carnival to raise money for the Petfinder.com Foundation. If you would like to participate, you still have a day left. Please visit Romeo the Cat for more information.

Owner’s blog:

Rick views Garibaldi on arrival at our house

This post is part of the BlogPaws and BISSELL Blog Carnival to raise money for the Petfinder.com Foundation. If you would like to participate, you still have a day left. Please visit Romeo the Cat for more information.

If a pet can save your life, Garibaldi Rous saved mine.

Me and Caplin Rous

For three and a half years, Caplin Rous, my beloved pet capybara, monopolized my life. He was with me every moment it was possible. He slept under the covers in my bed. He went out to lunch with me. We went on walks together. We did school visits to teach kids about capybara and other rodents. We appeared on TV. I even wrote a book about him (sort of). And then he was gone.

Suddenly there was a hole in my life that was much larger than a capybara. The hole seemed as large as life itself and I was falling into it. I talked to no one and I did nothing. At work I sat in my cube and stared at my computer. At home I cried.

Then I heard from Justin at Kapi’yva Exotics that one of his baby capybara, now ten months old, was looking to be re-homed. The capy was living in Ohio and had spent most of his life indoors. His owners no longer wanted him, saying he chewed their furniture, grabbed food out of their hands and was getting large enough to push down their four-year-old daughter. They’d been trying to sale him for a couple of months but no one was interested in a half-grown, untrained, indoor capybara. As a responsible breeder, Justin was willing to take Gary back but he would have to stay in a pen outside and would have little human interaction. Justin wanted to know if I would be willing to take Gary in.

The decision to take Gary, whom we renamed Garibaldi Rous, was not an easy one. How could I even think of replacing Caplin? And this capy would not be, could not be, him. He would only be a disappointment to me. And it wouldn’t be fair to him. But if I didn’t take him, what would his life be like at Justin’s? I’m not saying Justin isn’t good to his animals, I’m just saying they are not pets. What would the shock of loosing his people and being forced to live outside do to a capybara with Gari’s limited life experiences? He seemed as hopeless as I felt.

Rick and Gari on the couch

Proving my new axiom that there is no such thing as a free capybara, it cost $300 to have Gari shipped from Ohio back to his native Texas. I know I’m supposed to say that when Rick and I picked him up at the airport it was love at first sight, but it wasn’t. To others every capybara may look alike but to me Garibaldi differed from Caplin in a million little ways and each of those differences made me miss Caplin more.

Out of the crate at our house we finally got a good look at him. He was small, only 45 lbs when at his age Caplin had weighed 80 lbs. And he was crazy. We tried to pen him in the bathroom for the night thinking a small, non-threatening environment would make the transition easier. We turned off the light, leaving a small night light to allow him to see, and closed the door. It wasn’t long before the sounds of things crashing and his pitiful eeps made us open it again. The scene was a complete disaster. He’d knocked his crate over, spilled all of his food, tossed the bath mats around and gnawed big gouges into the door frame. We stared over the gate we had blocking the doorway in amazement. Caplin would never have done this.

Another thing Caplin wouldn’t have done is to jump that gate and land in Rick’s lap as he sat in his wheelchair watching.

Garibaldi explores the house

It seemed Gari had his own ideas and his own way of making his needs known. We soon learned that chewing on furniture, carpets or bedding meant he was hungry. And he was hungry a lot. Probably his previous owners had not understood how much a growing capybara needs to eat. The first few weeks we had him, Garibaldi ate like a maniac and grew like a weed. He learned to overcome his fear of the outdoors in order to graze, the natural eating habit of capybara but something he’d never been able to do before. At first he would eat anything and everything we set before him: apples, potatoes, melons, lettuce, spinach, corn, mangoes, bananas, carrots, kale, chard. As he began to understand he would never be hungry again, many of those things disappeared from his acceptable foods list.

Garibaldi is a clown

After seven months I’ve come to love Garibaldi in a way that is different but (almost) equal to my love for Caplin. He is not Caplin and he doesn’t act like him–I sometimes wonder if they are even the same species–but he is his own crazy capy self. While Caplin was a dignified ambassador for capybara-kind, Gari is the clown of capybaras. Caplin panicked whenever he accidentally rolled over; Gari doesn’t even know how to stay right-side-up. Caplin was great with people we met outside our property but somewhat territorial at home; Gari is scared of things in the wide world but welcomes people at home (after an initial shyness).

Gari & Dr. Sharman Hoppes and her students from Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine

Now Gari is helping me promote the ROUS Foundation for Capybara Veterinary Medicine, which I founded in memory of Caplin Rous (ROUS stands for Rodent Of Unusual Size). He’s had his own share of veterinary issues and has made quite a few visits to Texas A&M and the vets there have even visited us and swam with him in his pool.

On Oct. 31st, Garibaldi has his first scheduled school visit. I think he will be up for it.

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Please do not get an exotic pet unless you are prepared to take care of it. As hard as it is to re-home cats, dogs and other domestic animals, exotics are even more difficult.

You might recall that I was in Washington D.C. for the Blog Paws conference. The timing couldn’t have been better. I got there the day after they had their largest earthquake in 100 years and I left on the day Hurricane [...]]]> Owner’s blog:

You might recall that I was in Washington D.C. for the Blog Paws conference. The timing couldn’t have been better. I got there the day after they had their largest earthquake in 100 years and I left on the day Hurricane Irene barreled through. Surprisingly, the conference was still a big success.

Capycoppy listening to a lecture on SEO

I learned a ton of useful stuff, like did you know that SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and not Solar Eclipse Onlookers? Who knows, maybe it stands for both. Honestly, I sometimes thought that Capycoppy knew more about what was going on than I did, he went to all of my sessions and was so cocky that he didn’t even take notes!

A few of the sessions were cancelled because of the hurricane. The one I most wanted to see, about how to quit your job and become a full time blogger, was one of the unfortunate ones. Drat! Now I’ll have to work for another year until the next Blog Paws.

A lot of people left the conference early which is why there weren’t many left for the hurricane photo at the top of this post, but a few of us stuck it out until the end. My flight was schedule for 8 am Monday morning, virtually the exact moment the hurricane was supposed to be its most intense in the DC area.

Some of the conference die hards working a Caplin Rous puzzle

Luckily I had brought a couple of Caplin Rous jigsaw puzzles and several of us started working on one. In this photo you can see (from right to left) Stacy Winnick of Dobby’s Day, Celeste Lindell of Average Jane, Becky Wilson of Metropolitan Guinea Pig Rescue, BZTAT, the famous artist, and Becky’s husband whose name eludes me. (It might be time for me to confess that I have a great deal of trouble recognizing people or remembering their names. It is a near miracle that I got four names out of five.)

The great thing about a jigsaw puzzle is that it gives everyone something to do, it is a shared effort and you can still talk and (obvious from the photo) drink while working on it. We had a wide ranging conversation that clustered around pets, hurricanes, blogs, technology, and airline flights.

Finished the easy part

Possibly a 672 piece puzzle was not the right choice for a night of hurricane watching when I had to get up at around 5 am to catch my hypothetical plane. The thing about a jigsaw puzzle is that it is very difficult to stop once you’re started. There’s always just one more piece. Unlike board games and the like, one or two people can leave the puzzling for a while and come back to take up generally where they left off. That’s good and bad since when you come back it just sucks you back int.

Puzzle finished!

At about 1 am, we finished the puzzle. I’d like to say the wind was howling outside while sirens wailed in the distance, but all seemed quite.

Sleepy 'baras

Capycoppy and Super Gari woke when Stacy and I got back to the room but they slept right through most of the hurricane. There wasn’t even any loud thunder. Or maybe the hotel was sound proofed.

My servant, Angela Mitchell

Angela Mitchell of  Guinea Pig Today came to pick me up. You might remember that Angela designed our great “3 capybaras walked into a bar…” tshirt and also the ROUS Foundation logo.  She only started the Guinea Pig Today blog after the conference so it isn’t fleshed out completely yet. I’ll bet this is her first link from another blog. Y’all need to go over there and check it out and embarrass her into writing more content.

Angela had a more authentic hurricane experience than I did. She was awakened by a branch falling onto her house. The drive to the airport was completely traffic and obstruction free. We did see a couple of fallen branches and leaves littered the road but that was the extent of it.

Angela and friends

The airport was virtually empty so there was no one to see Angela posed with three plushies…but I think she would have done it anyway.

My 8 am flight was still "on time"

I was lucky I booked my flight on Delta, although even some Delta flights were cancelled. Who would have thought that the 8 am flight would go through to Atlanta but the 10 am flight to Atlanta would be cancelled?

We picked up a snow globe for Sheldon's collection

Many of you will remember my friend Sheldon. Well, he has a new addition to his snow globe collection. The plushies were impressed by the variety available. These are just the ones featuring President Obama, there was a whole other section for the White House, Congress, the Washington Monument, etc.

Hurricane Irene

This is what Hurricane Irene looked like at sunrise at the airport. Not much. I know now that it was a serious storm in other parts of the East Coast but it seems to have been pretty mild in D.C. You’ll notice that Capycoppy has on a little raincoat. We got that at Blog Paws as swag from PetsMart. I think it is for a teeny, tiny dog but maybe it’s for a cat. It just fit Capycoppy. Super Gari is wearing a lai that someone at the conference gave us. I think it is really a hair scrunchy.

Hurricane Irene

This is Hurricane Irene from the air. It really made for some beautiful and unusual clouds. Naturally none of these clouds followed me to Texas where it never rains.

Airport art...with plushies

The Atlanta airport has some great African art tucked away between the main terminal and terminal A. I had some extra time so I took the plushies there and photographed them with some of my favorite pieces. American cities are typically sadly devoid of art and yet almost all airports have at least some. But why is this beautiful collection buried in such a dismal and infrequented location?

Capycoppy & Super Gari with a painting of Brewskie Butt

There was a lot to learn and a lot to do at Blog Paws 2011 and almost all of it seemed to involve posing Capycoppy and Super Gari with various props. Some of my favorites were the amazing paintings [...]]]> Owner’s blog:

Capycoppy & Super Gari with a painting of Brewskie Butt

There was a lot to learn and a lot to do at Blog Paws 2011 and almost all of it seemed to involve posing Capycoppy and Super Gari with various props. Some of my favorites were the amazing paintings by artist BZTAT. I have always loved BZ’s work, including the above painting of her famous cat, Brewskie Butt. I could hardly pass up the opportunity to have the plushies drinking his “morning brew.”

Capycoppy & Super Gari with a painting of Okey

We  love all of BZTAT’s work (Am I really talking for myself and a couple of plushies? What’s happened to me?), especially this painting of her cat Okey. Okey was a stray that BZ picked up out of a parking lot but she’s a lot more than that now. Not only is she beloved by BZ and her many friends, Okey has inspired a charity to bring awareness to the link between animal abuse and child or spousal abuse. Here is the link to read about Okey’s Promise. Please consider a donation.

BZTAT has long been an online friend of first Caplin Rous and now Garibaldi Rous. Like many people she was stunned by his sudden death. I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who sent me a letter or an email or posted on my blog or Facebook or who bought a Capycoppy. While I was at Blog Paws I heard several stories of the shock and loss that so many of us suffered at that time. I still can’t talk about it without crying.

BZTAT, the plushies and a portrait of Caplin Rous

But I digress. What I was trying to say is that BZTAT created a beautiful portrait of Caplin Rous walking through the grass by Capybara Creek with a warm sun overhead. I guess this is what capybara heaven might look like if I only believed in such a thing. I had always meant to have her do a portrait of him for me but she volunteered to do this one on her own and she gave it to me free of charge.

Garibaldi Rous with BZTAT's portrait of Caplin Rous

I’ve always said that pet people are the best people. Thank you all for helping me through a very difficult time. And thank you to my friend BZTAT for her wonderful gift. Who says internet friends are not real friends?

At the Austin Airport

I never thought I would say this, but I just got back from a conference to which I took two plush animals. And I didn’t even feel like a fool. You can see Capycoppy and Super Gari perched on a sign at [...]]]> Owner’s blog:

At the Austin Airport

I never thought I would say this, but I just got back from a conference to which I took two plush animals. And I didn’t even feel like a fool. You can see Capycoppy and Super Gari perched on a sign at the Austin airport. If posing plush animals in public places doesn’t make you self-conscious, nothing will.

Okay, to be honest, I was self-conscious, at least at first, but I spent four days posing these little plushes in the craziest places and after a while you have to accept your own insanity and run with it. It helps when you share your insanity with others, and at the Blog Paws 2011 Conference, there were plenty of crazy/nice people who do the same kind of crazy/fun thing I was doing.

Dinner with plushies

Two of my co-conferencers were Stacy Winnick of Dobby’s Day and Angela Mitchell of Whek.tv. They both brought plushies. Angela brought Decoy Piig, the little guinea pig plush in the photo above, and Stacy brought a nameless naked mole rat. Here we were out at a nice restaurant in the Washington, D.C. area and we all got up to pose our plushes having a drink.

You’re probably wondering who the bad influence is in our group. Well, it is all of us. And we’re not the only ones! Plushie posing is a common pastime among pet bloggers, or at least those who show up to Blog Paws conferences.

Capycoppy, Super Gari and George the Duck

The above photo shows my two plushies, Capycoppy and Super Gari, with the world famous George the Duck. As you can see, George is a plushy. What you might not know is that he is a plushie with his very own blog! That’s taking it a step farther than I’m willing to go, although I do enjoy reading his blog which is not as crazy as it sounds.

I took over 400 photos during my trip to the conference so I hope you don’t mind if I take a few posts to cover everything that happened. You can be sure that there will be plenty of photos featuring Super Gari and Capycoppy!

Garibaldi sharing corn Capycoppy & Super Gari

I’ll leave you with a photo of Gari with the two plushies. Next year I hope to be able to take him to the conference. That’s going to involve a whole lot of training between now and then. Gari has come so far in the past seven months though that I think he will be able to face the long drive to Salt Lake City and all the dogs and other pets that will be at the conference. Wish us both luck with that, we’re going to need it.

Orthopedist palpates Gari's hind legs

I (Melanie, not Melly like Gari likes to call me), am continuing this blog topic for Garibaldi since he was asleep during a lot of what happened.

The first thing that happened after Gari passed out [...]]]> Owner’s blog:

Orthopedist palpates Gari's hind legs

I (Melanie, not Melly like Gari likes to call me), am continuing this blog topic for Garibaldi since he was asleep during a lot of what happened.

The first thing that happened after Gari passed out was that an orthopedist was called in to look at his hind legs. Garibaldi has a problem with his hind end as is evident from the photo below.

Gari's stand compared to Caplin's stand

I hope it is noticeable that Gari’s hind legs are quite cow-hocked or knock-kneed. He is also much narrower in the hips than Caplin was. We don’t know why this is. Maybe it is genetic or congenital or developmental, we just don’t know. Either way, it worries me that he might have problems with his hips and hind legs later in life. We took the opportunity of having him examined thoroughly while he was sedated.

The orthopedist could find nothing obviously wrong by palpating Gari’s legs so he suggested we get another set of xrays. I had Gari’s legs xrayed when we took him in for his well capybara checkup (how long ago that seems! and how naive I was!). He weighed just over 60 lbs at that time and now he is up to 80 lbs. A set of comparison xrays might be interesting.

In case you’re wondering, the vets found the xrays fascinating. There were some unusual aspects to them but without a normal capybara to compare against, they don’t know if they mean anything.

Before they carted Gari off for his xrays, they took a needle biopsy of his lump, which Gari has named Napoleon. Dr. Hoppes had trouble getting any cells to come out in the needle. She said the lump was much harder and denser than she expected. But by the time Gari came back from having his xrays taken, the results were back from cytology; the lump was just a glob of normal fat cells. Dr. Hoppes said we could remove it, although that might be difficult, or we could just watch it and see what happens. I decided to watch it, after all it has a name and everything.

At that moment I realized I had a healthy, full grown, fully male capybara under sedation. When opportunity knocks, I open the door! This was the perfect time to have Garibaldi neutered.

There were several reasons I wanted to neuter Gari. The first is his stand (refer to photo above). I don’t intend to breed capybaras but even if I did that abnormality would be enough to rule Gari out as breeding stock. Secondly, because of his narrow hips, he really doesn’t have room for his testicles. On normal capybaras, the testicles are not so prominent. Thirdly, I wanted to curb his wanderlust. If he ever gets out of the yard, I want him to come back instead of going out searching for some lady friend that he is never going to find. Fourthly, I am hoping this will calm him down some and make it easier for him to go on trips and out in public.

Gari marks up our house

The final reason is that I am sick of cleaning the carpet all the time. Since we got Garibaldi, I have been shampooing the carpet once a month. The above photo shows what it looks like four weeks later. That cannot go on forever and I think I’ve been pretty patient. I hope neutering puts a stop to it like it did with Caplin.

Garibaldi on the operating table

Even though I wanted to get him neutered, it was still pretty hard to see him on the operating table. He looked so helpless.

Gari & Napoleon (lump)

Another vet came in to look at Gari. In the photo above his fingers are around Napoleon so you can see how big he is. Napoleon grew to that size in less than one month, possibly being brought into existence from one of the subcutaneous fluid injections Gari got when he had his abscesses removed on July 1st.

Poor little 'bara!

They used gas to keep Gari under during his operation. He just looks so incredibly helpless. Poor baby ‘bara!

Before and After

The two photos above show what Garibaldi looked like before and after surgery. They made two small incisions that won’t even be noticeable after they heal.

At this point, I’m going to turn the telling of this tale back to Garibaldi. He’ll post something more in the next couple of days.

If you would like to see photos of the actual operation, please send me an email.

WARNING: This blog contains graphic medical images.

Coral in the driver's seat

The big day finally came for Garibaldi Rous’ trip to the Small Animal Clinic at Texas A&M University. Since y’all [...]]]> Owner’s blog:

This blog entry is a followup to Lumpy Capy, please read that post first.

WARNING: This blog contains graphic medical images.

Coral in the driver's seat

The big day finally came for Garibaldi Rous’ trip to the Small Animal Clinic at Texas A&M University. Since y’all have read the Lumpy Capy blog post,  I don’t have to tell you why we were going. We rented a van the day before (expensive!) and Coral came over to do the driving. In the photo above, we are headed out the dirt road that leads from our house to civilization. Coral had to get her CD set up before we hit the pavement.

Settling down for the drive

We put Garibaldi in his crate for the first part of the trip. I am so glad his previous owners shipped him in a crate with room to grow! He’s twice the size he was when we got him but he still fits.

A chance of rain

Outside the van window, the sky was overcast with an interesting mixture of low and high clouds. The weather forecast said there was a chance of rain but we have been in such a horrible drought here in Central Texas that we just laugh when they say that. Those little clouds might put out a cup of rain altogether.

Out and about

Once we got past the town of Bastrop, the only town of any size between our house and College Station 150 miles away, we let Garibaldi out of the crate and gave him free roam of the back of the van. I was sitting in the lone seat in the back so that I could try to comfort him, he gets very nervous in the car.

Garibaldi and Coral in the exam room at the vet's

The trip was uneventful and we were only 30 minutes late for our appointment, a record for us. I’d warned his vet, Dr. Sharman Hoppes, that we might be late. It’s a long drive and it’s not easy to get a capybara up there for an 11:00 am appointment. Gari walked into the clinic on his leash, just like a fully trained capybara.

Capybaras sweat when they are nervous

Capybaras sweat when they are nervous. You can see just how nervous Gari was in the photo above. That is all sweat. And the blankets he used in the car were drenched with sweat even though we kept the AC cranked up.

Dr. Hoppes and her student, Kristen, meet with Garibaldi

Things started out pretty well. Garibaldi acted like he liked both Dr. Hoppes and Kristen. I threw one of his blankets over his head and held him tightly while Dr. Hoppes gave him a small shot of sedative. I didn’t hold him tightly enough though and he banged his nose a little bit on the strut for that table.

A gift from the vet clinic

While we were waiting, Dr. Hoppes brought me this wonderful paw print impression that they had made of Caplin Rous’ paw when he died. Since July 4th will mark six months, the paw print was especially touching. And one of the technicians painted a beautiful capybara picture on the back. I can’t tell you how moved I was. I really could not speak for some time. This is something I will treasure forever.

After a few minutes, Gari became very lethargic and hardly able to move, just what we had hoped for. Unfortunately, he was still able to move enough that it wouldn’t be safe to try to pick him up and put him on a gurney to the operating table, for that he needed another little shot. Since he was really almost asleep, Dr. Hoppes thought she could just give the shot with no trouble. No sooner had the needle touched his skin though and Gari was up and running…straight into a wall.

For the next attempt, Kristen used Gari’s harness to hold his front feet off the ground while Dr. Hoppes did a quick jab with the needle. Luckily this worked although Gari managed to up high into the air so that his nose was above the level of that table.

On the operating table

After a little while, Gari was safely under gas on the operating table with his crack team of veterinary specialists gathered around him. You might be wondering why there is that little swab of blood next to his mouth. Turns out that when Dr. Hoppes tried to give him that shot and he ran into the wall, he must have hit his lip on his teeth and cut himself. Those capybara teeth are super sharp.

Garibaldi cut his lip when he hit the wall

There was really not much we could do about that. It isn’t serious enough for stitches.

Everyone really liked Gari, especially when he was asleep

Coral watching the onset of the surgery

It was pretty nice that Dr. Hoppes let us watch and photograph the surgery. Of course, it was a minor operation, not like they opened his abdominal cavity or anything, still a lot of vets would not do this and we really appreciated it. Coral surprised me by not being the least bit queasy. If you are the queasy sort, you should probably stop reading this post now.

The lump

Once the hair was shaved and snipped away (capybara hair does not shave well), you could see the lump much better. A little squeeze and creamy pus started coming out of it. Not good.

Excising the abscess

Dr. Hoppes first cut a slit in the lump to make sure there was nothing else in there (like a bot fly) other than puss. There wasn’t so that meant she was clear to excise the whole thing. In capybaras, an infection is often encapsulated in a membrane which is the body’s defense against the spread of the infectious agent. That means that if you can get the whole capsule out without cutting it or rupturing it, you can remove the infection with little possibility of it spreading. That is what Dr. Hoppes did. As you can see in the last image above, the abscess came out in one piece with no pus leakages.

This was not as easy as it seemed. The abscess was fairly large and capybara skin is amazingly tough. The surgical instruments were hardly up for the job.

Bloody Coral

Dr. Hoppes had her student, Kristen, palpate the abscess so that she would know what one feels like if she ever runs into it again. Then she let me and Coral feel it, not that we’re likely to be engaged in another such surgical procedure. Coral took the opportunity to put a little humor (or is that horror?) in to the proceedings.

All stitched up

A few stitches and Garibaldi was as good as new.

Or was he? Now that he was down, it was a good time to examine his entire skin surface and see if any little abscesses were lurking under his sparse fur.

Another tiny abscess

Disturbingly, there were two more small abscesses. Dr. Hoppes took them both out and closed them with one or two stitches.

Stitching up the capybara

Coral watches as the procedure nears a close.

The third abscess

Subcutaneous fluids

Because of all of his sweating, it was decided that administering some subcutaneous fluids would be a good idea. The problem is that capybara skin is unlike the skin of any other mammal in that it is tightly bonded to the underlying fascia. You can’t just squirt a bunch of fluid in there. Only about 20 mls can be inserted into any one place and that resulted in the large bumps you can see in the above image.

Heading home

Garibaldi came out of the anesthesia nicely and we headed home thinking all had gone well. Or kind-of well. We still do not know why he had three abscesses or what this means about his future. And Garibaldi would not come out of his crate at all on the ride home. Still, we could see rain in the distance and a pretty fantastic cloud ray when the sun peaked out from behind some storm clouds. A good omen.

Good omen or no, things did not work out so well. When we got home, Garibaldi was very agitated. He kept jumping onto the window seat and then jumping down, then jumping back up and pushing on the window as if he wanted to go out. We were told not to let him swim in the pool for four days and not to let him back into the pond for 2 weeks so no outside time for him. Plus, I did not like the way he looked. His back was hunched up and his hind legs were right behind his front legs. He did not look or act comfortable.

That night he slept on the window seat, which he usually only does during the day. Only I exaggerate, he did not sleep, he just sat there all night, occasionally shuffling from one position to another. He didn’t eat anything. He didn’t even drink any water until about 3 am. In the morning I talked to Dr. Hoppes on the phone. We both decided that his behaviors indicate pain and the most likely source of that pain was the subcutaneous fluid injection site. The fluid should have been absorbed in a few hours but it was not.

At 24 hours post surgery, most of the injection sites are clearly visible as lumps of fluid under Garibaldi’s skin. He is acting a little better, eating some of his favorite foods, mostly corn,  a little grass that I picked for him and some lettuce. We stuffed his painkiller pills into gummy bears to get him to eat those but haven’t figured out a way to get him to eat his antibiotics yet. He is just not interested enough in food at this point to fall for the pill-in-the-treat trick. He has been steadily improving during the day so I hope that by tomorrow he will be mostly back to his usual self.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This video shows how Gari is moving and the large lumps of subq fluids.

Note: Gari did not get neutered since we did not want to do elective surgery while he had an infection. That is still looming over some distant future.

Owner’s blog:

Garibaldi Rous is going to the vet tomorrow and the photo above shows why I made the appointment.

**** This post contains images that may disturb some people, please do not continue if you suspect you are one of those.*****

I am not [...]]]>

Garibaldi's lump on June 24th

Owner’s blog:

Garibaldi Rous is going to the vet tomorrow and the photo above shows why I made the appointment.

**** This post contains images that may disturb some people, please do not continue if you suspect you are one of those.*****

I am not sure when Garibaldi first developed this bump high on his left side but I know it’s been there a long time. Possibly he had it when we got him five months ago. When I took him to Texas A&M for his well-capybara checkup, he had the lump but it was very small. I wouldn’t have even called it a lump back then, it was just a rough spot on his skin. I was going to show it to Dr. Hoppes but when I probed his side with my fingers, I couldn’t find it. Well, I thought, it’s probably nothing anyway.

On June 24th I decided that the lump was looking much bigger and nastier and a vet visit was clearly called for.

Getting all the way up to A&M in College Station with Garibaldi is not trivial. Firstly, I have to rent a van, which is startlingly expensive. If Gari were Caplin, he could just go in my car, but Gari is not Caplin and he gets scared and nervous. Plus we have to bring his gigantic crate in case we need a reliable transport mechanism since he is still not good on a leash. And I need at least one person to travel with us. Someone has to drive and someone has to take care of Gari. And that person and I both have to have a day off from work. On top of all that, Dr. Hoppes has to be available to see him. Given all that, it’s pretty amazing that we got an appointment for July 1st.

Garibaldi's lump on June 28th

As if it knew it’s time was limited, the lump started looking worse almost immediately. By June 28th it was much larger and redder. And it had a suspicious hard spot at one end. You can see that in the photo above. It looks almost like a whole in his skin with something sticking out of it. That made me think of bot flies.

Bot flies are flies whose larva live under the skin of various warm blooded animals. The made a sore with a breathing hole in it. I have never seen one that looked quite like this but there are a lot of species of bot flies. Also, capybara skin is different from the skin of any other mammal in that it is very tightly bonded to the layer of connective tissue underneath. That might cause a bot fly larva some trouble.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Bot fly larval removal from a dog

Garibaldi's lump on June 30th

Today the lump looked even worse and now it seems to be exuding puss. I don’t think a bot fly would do that unless maybe it had died and the whole thing had become infected.

The lump on June 30th

Another look at the lump on June 30th

All I can say is that it looks bad and I am so glad Gari will be at the vet’s tomorrow to take care of it.

Garibaldi from behind

Gari has another, more sensitive, issue that we are hopefully going to take care of tomorrow. Look at his legs in the photo above. You can see that his hocks (that’s what they would be called on a horse, not sure about a capybara) are hitting each other. For some reason, Gari is too narrow through the hips. This may be due to his living mostly indoors until he was ten months old, or it may not.

Garibaldi from the rear

Another symptom of his narrow hind end is that his testicles really don’t fit back there. They are more prominent on him than on a typical capybara and there just doesn’t seem to be enough room for both of them. At any rate, he is marking up the carpet at a prodigious rate and that is going to have to stop one way or another. I don’t think Gari would be happy as an outdoor capybara so tomorrow he is going to get neutered.

Wish us luck and a speedy recovery to little Garibara! Tomorrow will be a hard day for him.

Lesser Capybara at Gamboa, Panama (photo by Jose Soto)

The amazing photo above is of the elusive lesser capybara. The lesser capybara, Hydrochoerus isthmius, is a second species of capybara found only in Panama and Colombia. And guess what? We are going to go see them!

You might remember my previous [...]]]> Owner’s blog:

Lesser Capybara at Gamboa, Panama (photo by Jose Soto)

The amazing photo above is of the elusive lesser capybara. The lesser capybara, Hydrochoerus isthmius, is a second species of capybara found only in Panama and Colombia. And guess what? We are going to go see them!

You might remember my previous blog post about the Elusive Lesser Capybara. That got me thinking. Here was a place, the Gamboa Rainforest Resort, where we can be virtually assured of seeing wild lesser capybara. And we don’t even need to leave the resort to do it! Sign me up for that! So I began emailing Jose Soto at the resort and asking about the probability of seeing capybara and he sent me these great photos.

Band of wild lesser capybara at Gamboa (photo by Jose Soto)

You can see the lesser capybara look a lot like the common capybara. They do seem to be significantly darker and missing the red in their fur. Their faces look more blunt and maybe a little bit bigger and their fur looks shorter. I cannot wait to find out if that is true by seeing them in person! Jose, who is the activity director, said he would set up some special tours for us so that we can see even more capybara.

Lesser capybara with cattle egret (photo by Jose Soto)

Stacy Winnick (who owns Dobby (or Dobbye) Winnick, Caplin Rous’ little brother), will be going to. So will popular capybara-related personalities Coral and Sheldon. Stacy and I might give a talk on what it is like to keep a capybara as a pet, depending on if anyone is interested.

So the point is, if you want to see capybara in the wild, why not meet up with us in Panama this December? We are going to be at the resort from December 26th through January 2nd.  Let me know if you decide to come.