My little chinchilla Pip passed today, Saturday 28 December, 2024. He had a healthy life. A few months ago he began to slow in his activity. About a week ago his sleeping behavior changed in that he took minutes to wake, when previously for his meal times, baths, and outings he would come to alert immediately. Yesterday he was very sleepy. I held him in my lap for a few hours, when previously he never was a lap pet who rarely would remain still for a minute. Despite his sleepiness yesterday, when would wake him to return him to his pen, he would become fully alert with normal behavior to use his litterbox, eat snacks, and socialize. We left him in his pen last night as he was sleeping in his house with his companion chinchillas as normal after engaging in his routine.
This morning at 5:30am Fabian went to check on him, and he was downstairs from his house, near the manger where we feed him hay, nodded off. He had never slept there before, as it is in the open and not arranged for his comfort. Fabian put him into his carrier and brought him to our bed. Chinchillas normally rest and even sleep standing on their hands and feet, but when we tried to position him, he was unstable standing and laid on his side. Normally he only does this when he is very relaxed. His breathing was labored. By 6, his breathing was wheezy and loud enough for us to hear every breath. We considered taking him to a vet. He did not seem in great discomfort, but he was without energy, and we did not want him to suffer if his condition declined. There are few vets in Charlottesville which will see a chinchilla, and they were all closed for the early morning. Instead of making an hour drive and putting him through the stress of a car ride, we thought to wait until 8am when nearby clinics would open.
His breathing continued to be noisy, but also, it slowed. around 6:30 he took a deeper breath then more time till the next one. He did that again, then again. Then instead of a next breath, he made a loud and long rodent squeak, and he stretched and flexed his whole body. After that, he quit breathing. We were watching him the whole time talking to him, and had our hands near him. We cried over his little body.
Fabian and I took his body back to his pen. We woke up the other chinchillas and offered them mint leaves as treats to have them come downstairs from their home. Pip’s body was near us, and as they came over for leaves, they passed Pip’s body. Each of them sniffed the body in a few places, which is more attention than a chinchilla typically gives to most things. Both of them checked out his face and his belly. Starr Baby licked Pip’s eye. They took treats after examining his body. After they had some treats they returned to bed.
Fabian and I wanted to have a funeral and we thought about how to organize it. Robin was home. Gaby was at Micah’s house. Alethea would be coming over soon. In the morning we contacted them and set a time for a home service at 3pm. We would bury Pip in the back yard, as we decided that he was known for living at Chinchilla Café, so whatever happened to us living here and this building, there are still going to be hundreds of people who remember Pip here at this location. For that reason, we wanted to have him buried here.
Hadley had been planning a visit, and I invited him and Ava to the funeral. In that context, I considered that Robin and Alethea, Gaby and Micah, and Hadley and Ava had all met each other at Chinchilla Café, and are all over their one-year relationship anniversaries. Gaby and Robin lived here, but the other four came because of events which were chinchilla-themed, so I felt that everyone had an ongoing relationship due to Pip as a romantic match maker. Even Fabian and I years ago had our relationship deepen through Pip. While Fabian and I had other interests, if two people are highly enthusiastic about pet rodents, then that does make the relationship more aligned, and pet owners who prefer rodents are probably a 2% demographic for matchmaking. Funerals are for the living, and so at the funeral, I wanted Pip’s memory to be something that tied each of us to a significant relationship and also to all of the other couples who likewise had a chinchilla-mediated relationship.
At the funeral we went around the room sharing a memory of interaction with Pip. Memories included playing with Pip here, people who were shy to come to concerts or parties but who came to our place because it was known that people could come with intent to stay in the chinchilla room and engage with the chinchillas, and how talking about chinchillas leads to talking with other people generally. Pip was the most social chinchilla. While all the chinchillas would approach the gate to interact with humans, Pip did this the most often. The interactions were hand sniff, where a human would put their hand out and a chinchilla would sniff it, and receive treat. For hand sniff, each chinchilla would be interested in each different human for one interaction, then after that, they would not want another hand sniff on that day. It seemed that chinchillas liked doing as many hand sniffs with different people as possible but would only be interested in repeated interactions to receive treats. It often happened that Pip would be first at the gate with the other chinchillas some distance back watching Pip, then after seeing Pip do this activity, the other chinchillas would copy. For many activities, Pip would do the activity first, the others would watch, then they would emulate.
We had a service then moved outside to bury Pip.
Pip was born December 2010. At 3 months old, he was surrendered to a dog grooming business in Brooklyn. It is a crisis for a chinchilla to be in such a place, as a business for dog care has nothing to do with chinchillas, but sometimes people with unwanted pets will abandon them at any pet-oriented community space. Fabian adopted Pip from there, as previously, Fabian had a pet chinchilla which he adopted from the owners of Lucky Cheng’s drag bar. As he still had the chinchilla gear after that pet’s passing, he was able to take in another chinchilla.
I met Fabian in 2014. At the time, Fabian had another chinchilla, Feisty, who died in 2017. In January 2018, Fabian and I adopted 2 more chinchillas from a nonprofit chinchilla rescue in Amityville called Chin Friends. Those two are Napoleon and Starr Baby. They moved to live with me in Charlottesville in 2020, and are still performers in Chinchilla Café. Chinchillas should live with a companion as they socialize with each other. I talk with Fabian every day. Every day we exchange updates about the chinchillas. I have talked about Pip every day for 10 years. He has been a great pet for me and I think Pip has been an ambassador for chinchillas in the modern age. Chinchillas are recently domesticated, and Pip has been an early example of a public figure chinchilla demonstrating human / chinchilla unity.