RIP Nemo

Went outside this morning to see a small brown body in the garden; I knew immediately it was Nemo.  He had the desire but not the skills to be a free-range guinea pig.  He managed to find a gap to escape through that Thomas hadn't spotted when he shifted them to fresh grass yesterday and got out of the cage sometime last night.  We suspect he got caught by one of the local cats, I just hope it was quick.  We didn't show the kids as whatever got him made rather a mess, just told them he had died and buried him.   Sonic seems ok, but I think he's a bit shocked so we're just leaving him alone today to recover a bit.   I'll give him lots of pats and treats tomorrow, but we're not getting him a companion.  If we got a boy there's a fairly good chance of fighting, possibly to the death, a girl would have lots of other problems, small cute furry ones to be sure; but still problems.  We don't want to get him fixed either which would then mean he could have a companion simply because surgery for small mammals is very risky.   We knew at some point we'd have lonely piggie, we just didn't expect it for some time.

Nemo was the cute brown chap at the front of this picture.  For some reason the boys preferred Sonic (grey), but Nemo had much more personality, pity it got him killed.