Archive for the 'Chinchillas' Category

Homeopathy for chinchillas

Things have been, well, a bit tense on the home front lately. As our younger chinchillas grow into adulthood (and go through the various cycles associated therewith), spats and quarrels between cage mates — and between cages — become more frequent. Our senior male, Dudley, was bitten by Chihiro, our largest female, when he put his nose too close to her cage. Dudley meeped in displeasure and didn’t emerge from his quarters for forty-eight hours; his “spouse”, Joonko, was nearly frantic.

We’ve made some external changes that will keep “out time” safer. But we’ve also decided to address some of these squabbles homeopathically. All seven of our chinchillas have “issues”, as it were, just like their human guardians. And though I don’t rely on natural remedies to the exclusion of Western medicine, we do consult a homeopath regularly. And we’re going to start giving the chinchillas some flower essences, gently rubbed onto their tiny paws or lightly placed on a treat. Different chins will receive different remedies; Chihiro may benefit from “beech” to help her become more tolerant, while Dudley may need a bit of Gentian to restore his optimism as he continues to cope with the aftermath of his bite.

Tease and eye-roll to your heart’s content. We’re going to have the most well-adjusted chinchillas in town. Look, in a future post, for updates about our introduction of massage therapy to their weekly regimen.

Year of the rodent

My friend Zoran sends me this link: Hamster prices triple in China.

According to the Chinese media, prices have tripled to about 30 yuan ($4.20, £2.10) per hamster across the country.

In the Year of the Rat, this tiny creature has become the most acceptable rodent, a type of animal that is not everyone’s first-choice pet.

“Rats and mice have a bad image, but hamsters are gentle. You can hold them in your hand a play with them,” Xinhua News Agency reported.

Pet stores are also reporting an increased interest in other, similar-looking creatures, such as chinchillas and squirrels.

Yikes. I shudder to think what will happen next February, when the year of the rat comes to an end. We all know the horrors of Easter, when cute bunnies are given — and rapidly neglected. This seems to be the same phenomenon, potentially on a massive scale.

In other chinchilla news, our charity, the Matilde Mission, now has a UK partner: R&J Chinchilla Rescue. The Matilde Mission has given a grant for the year to support R&J’s work; you can read more at their site.

And the Matilde Mission continues to welcome your donations; you can read about our latest work here.

Whispering in Dad’s ear…

While doing some last minute on-line shopping, I had a special visitor come and share his Christmas list with me. Dudley asked for craisins, walnuts, and lots of out time in the New Year. (And no, I’m not bare underneath the laptop, and yes, I am working in bed, in shameful contradiction of what I’ve advised before. Oh hypocrisy, thy name is…)

Dudley being enchanting.

Impossible to be cuter.

Rocky’s a female, and cops love her

So my wife took Rocky Shimon, our newest baby chinnie, to the vet’s today. To our moderate surprise, it turns out that Rocky is a girl, not a boy. (Trust me, sexing a chinchilla is notoriously difficult. To be really graphic, girl chinnies have big labia, boy chinnies have very small penises, and when they’re wriggling around and not sedated, holding them still to tell the difference is miserable for them and for you.)

The a/c in my wife’s Solara is out; we forgot to switch cars this morning so that Rocky could ride in airconditioned comfort. As a result, my wife drove home in the midday sun briskly, and rolled through a stopsign. Two cops pulled her over. She begged to be allowed to drive Rocky home quickly, and asked the police officers to follow her back to our house. Once Rocky was safely back in the cool, she promised would “take the ticket.” The cops looked at Rocky in her cage and fell — not surprisingly — in love. They offered to put the cage in their air-conditioned squad car, and my wife readily agreed.

By the time the small caravan arrived home, two of our local finest were head-over-heels. They came into the house and met all of Rocky’s siblings. They talked at length to my wife about our chinchilla charity; they each gave her $20 towards the work of the Matilde Mission.

And they warned her about rolling through stop signs, and didn’t write a ticket. I won’t name the city for which they work or give any more details about them, as I don’t want the very nice pair of officers to get in trouble. But Rocky, Gabby, Chihiro, Dudley, Joonko, Racheli, and Ninotchka join their mama and papa in expressing gratitude.

Oh the enchanting allure of chinchillas, to get donations (and a free ride in air-conditioned coolness) rather than a moving violation!

Please folks, no remarks about women getting out of traffic tickets easier than men. (One of the officers was a woman.) This was about the wonder-working power of chinchillas, not about my wife’s looks.

Rocky Shimon’s first pictures

Here, here, here. He’s our second son, and he’s doing amazingly well given that his early life was characterized by consistent mistreatment.

My brother and his wife just had a son (of the human kind) born tonight in England: Matthew Hubert Schwyzer-Howell. I am a very proud uncle (and chinnie papa).

Introducing Rocky Shimon Schwyzer

First off, we’re keeping our newest rescue chinchilla. He came with the very generic name of “Chili” (which is almost as bad as “Fluffy”), and last night, we formally bestowed upon him his new monicker: Rocky Shimon. Rocky joins his brother Dudley Mr. Doodles and his sisters, Gabriella Princessa; Ninotchka Miss Mouse; Chihiro Pango Massionfruit; Joonko Evangelista Crawford Turlington and Racheli Scrappy Doo.

Plans are afoot for their own website, complete with webcam (and possibly live chat.)

Updated pictures of all of our babies to come this weekend.

Various charity-related items: chinchillas, mangosteen, and the Hubert Schwyzer Quartet

1. We are fostering a seventh chinchilla, a sweet little boy who comes with the name “Chili.” (Just about the most popular name ever for chinchillas. If we keep him, we’re changing his name.) We rescued him from a very bad home situation where he was being abused; pictures to follow soon.

2. You can read more about the latest adventures of our chinchilla charity, the Matilde Mission, here. Check out a bunch of cute little ones who were saved from pelting by the kind donations of folks just like you. You can donate here. Continue reading ‘Various charity-related items: chinchillas, mangosteen, and the Hubert Schwyzer Quartet’

A Matilde Mission Update

I lied, one more post before we go.

The Matilde Mission, our chinchilla charity, is undertaking a number of major projects. Through painstaking negotiation, we’re very close to “shutting down” one of the biggest chinchilla pelters in the upper Midwest, and were — just in the last few days — able to bring a significant sized herd off the ranch and into a safe house. Read the latest update here. Here are two babies, for example, enjoying soft bedding and hiding enclosures for the first time. Instead of ending up in a fur salon (it takes 100 chins to make a full-length coat), these little guys will watch cartoons (a chinchilla’s favorite pastime) and eat hay and play for the rest of their days.

Here’s “Nubs”, who survived having his ears chewed off when he was a kit. And here’s ‘96, just before she died; some chins come off the pelting ranches so traumatized that they aren’t long for the world. But when the Matilde Mission rescues, we make sure that the chins that can’t be saved die either at home in their adoptive parents’ arms or in an animal hospital, gently euthanized while loving fingers stroke their fur. On the ranches, they die alone and frightened — if not by having their necks broken (standard procedure for making a pelt), then of neglect.

I’ve cried a lot this week. My wife and I serve as president and treasurer of the Mission, and we are coordinating with rescuers in Arkansas and Michigan at the moment. We’ve saved dozens of lives this week; dozens of little happy, intelligent, kind, soft creatures will know joy and comfort they’ve never known before. But we’ve lost a few and had to put a few down, and though I’d love to authorize unlimited vet procedures to save the sick ones, vet money comes from the same fund that pays for acquiring, transporting, and rehoming the ones who can have long and happy lives. There’s been a lot of hard decision-making these past few days.

We’re going to ramp up for a major fundraising campaign this summer as we seek to take the Mission nationwide. In the meantime, I know money’s tight for most of my readers. But any donation, no matter how small, will do so much good. These girls are playing today instead of being turned into coats or dying of neglect, and you, our donors are the reason.

You can donate securely via credit card here. The Matilde Mission is an IRS-recognized, 501(c)3 tax-exempt charity. Checks and chinnie fan mail can be sent to:

“The Matilde Mission: Pet Homes for Ranch Chinchillas, Inc.”
PO Box 94521
Pasadena, CA 91109

The late Matilde Schwyzer thanks you.

Tuesday notes

My Lenten practices are still going reasonably well.

Each morning while I teach, my body aches for a diet Coke. So far, I’m restricting very well.

I’ve been getting up very early — earlier than usual — to take some time for prayer and spiritual writing. It’s definitely a stretch physically, but after nearly a week I notice it’s really starting to pay off.

And I’m trying to be completely vegan for Lent. That isn’t going as well as I’d like. I had a bagel on Sunday after my run; no cream cheese but no doubt plenty of egg in it. I had a bite of egg salad yesterday too, and on Friday, I had a protein bar with milk product in it. But for the most part, I’m doing okay.

In other news, the Matilde Mission has at long last won a quiet little battle we were having with the IRS. For eighteen months, the chinchilla charity that my wife and I helped start in honor of our first chin had been battling to be recognized as a non-profit. We were granted provisional 501(c)3 status, but the IRS kept coming back with bizarre and arcane queries, perhaps trying to make absolutely sure that the Mission is not affiliated with groups like Animal Liberation Front and other organizations that employ violence.

After spending a small fortune on lawyer’s fees (out of our pockets, not the Mission’s), we finally convinced the IRS that every dime we spend is for chinchillas, their rescue, and their housing. And we got all of our paperwork at last; we are no longer provisional.

So with that said, feel free to donate here! It’s tax-deductible, we’ve got a secure server, you can give as little as $5.00… We’ve saved the lives of a few hundred precious little ones, and we can save many more with your help.

The IRS approves.

Against predatory evangelism: thinking about Chris Clarke, the life to come, and how we share our faith

I have little to say about the death of Anna Nicole Smith. She and I were exactly the same age, and I suppose all I can say is that while I never paid much attention to her career, I always felt a strange tenderness whenever I saw her face or heard about her. There was a very obvious frailty to her, a kind of vulnerability that I can’t really explain. It’s sad.

A few days ago, Chris Clarke made the difficult decision to put down his beloved dog Zeke. (He had posted last week about steeling himself for that fast-approaching decision). Zeke went peacefully; the not-safe-if-you-don’t-want-to-weep link to that story is here. As always, Chris writes with such clarity that it makes me ache, though I’m not sure if that ache is more from empathy with his grief or envy at the grace with which he writes about it.

Now that Amanda has moved on to serve John Edwards, Chris is writing at Pandagon. And he’s got a fabulous post up today (one in which I am quoted, but without being named). It’s a post about the various things people have written to him in the aftermath of Zeke’s passing. Chris is not much of a theist, but that hasn’t stopped the well-intentioned from assuring him that he and Zeke will be reunited in heaven. (Lots of references to the Rainbow Bridge.)

Chris and Becky don’t believe in the Rainbow Bridge. He writes:

Here’s the thing: I don’t believe in an afterlife. What’s more, in contexts like the one in which I live now, I find the whole concept of an afterlife to be profoundly unhelpful. No, that’s not strong enough. It’s like sticking a fucking corkscrew in my heart and yanking it out. After all, I’m not so completely rational that I don’t succumb to the temptation to stand on his grave and talk to him. After years of indoctrination in Roman Catholic dogma, the reflex of imagining the Pearly Gates dies hard. But it’s false hope, and both the glimmer of reunion and the fleeting thought that he misses us make me feel worse.

And Chris has asked folks to please not persist in foisting what he sees as false, perhaps even cruel reassurances upon him as he grieves his friend. Sadly, that request was ignored. Folks continued to push:

When people respond to a politely worded request to can the heaven stuff by ramping up the heaven stuff, that is an example of religious intolerance. When a person has to take time out from grieving to forgive people who’ve made him feel a lot worse, telling himself that he has to give them slack because they’re upset over the death of his family member, that he has to remember they’re just trying to make him feel better with promises of meeting again despite his express request, that is a symptom of religious intolerance.

Chris and I both love the rolling hills of the San Francisco Bay Area. He hikes them with what seems like reverence; I tend to attack them with hyper tenacity, measuring my fitness on their slopes. We both love animals, and we’ve both lost creatures whom we adored within the past year. And when it comes to the great questions, the ones about life and death and the possibility that our souls endure, sentient and unique, beyond this world — Chris and I have different answers.

And because I know he and I have different answers, I don’t try and comfort him in his vulnerabilty with my answers. Authentic Christian evangelism is not predatory. Authentic Christian evangelism doesn’t see the grief of those who don’t share our faith as a “special opportunity” to do some witnessin’! And far too many of my brothers and sisters in Christ make this obnoxious error.

I use this blog to share my faith, of course. But the best way I can carry out the Great Commission is to lead a good life, a life devoted to justice and compassion, a life that is happy and considerate and brave. And when people see any goodness in me, or ask me where my strength comes from — then heavens to Betsy, I’m gonna share. But to paraphrase what they say in AA, evangelism is about “attraction, not promotion.” It’s about living out our faith in ways that will draw others to it; it’s not about foisting pamphlets on passers-by, and it’s not about saccharine promises to pray for those who have already made it clear that they don’t want to hear it.

Do I pray for non-Christians? Sure I do. Do I tell them about it, as if I’ve done them a special favor and tucked the spiritual equivalent of a $20 bill in their purse when they weren’t looking? No, I don’t. In his Pandagon post, Chris quotes what I wrote on his blog when I learned of Zeke’s death:

Much love to you and Becky from a man, a woman, and six chinchillas in Pasadena.

That seemed right. Chris doesn’t need to hear that I’m lifting him and Becky up in prayer, and imploring Jesus to soothe their pain. Chris doesn’t need me to tell him that more and more Christians are convinced that we may indeed find animals in the next life. He doesn’t need me to claim that I believe that he and Zeke will hike together again, each in uncorrupted bodies, climbing the true mountain in the undiscovered country that lies beyond the grave. I can write that sort of comforting, sophomoric bullshit very easily. It comes naturally to me. And it’s more than bullshit, I suppose; I not only am certain that there is a heaven, I am pretty danged hopeful that all the beings I have ever loved will be with me there. And there will be no more tears, for the former things have passed away… and so on.

When a fellow Christian asks for my prayers, I promise them that I will storm the very gates of heaven on their behalf. With those who do not believe in prayer, when they tell me of their grief, I share a gentle “I’m so sorry.” I often ask what I can do, which usually is little more than listening. And my prayers are quiet. I might pray just as hard for those who don’t believe as for those who do — but I don’t feel the need to share that tidbit. I often say “I”m sending you love”. I always mean it.

I lost my father last June 22, eleven days after our first chinchilla, the beautiful Matilde, left us without warning. Sometimes, usually in the early mornings, the reality of their deaths hits me with such force that I have to sit for a moment. My chest still gets very tight when I think of my Daddy. And I’ll be honest about what I believe:

I believe my Dad and my Matilde are together somewhere. I believe that Matty died so suddenly because she knew her beloved opa, her abuelo, would need her in the next world and she wanted to get things ready for him. I believe it because I want to believe it, even though my Dad was not a Christian and my own faith is dubious about whether or not animals have souls. So when people told me that I’d see them both again, I was cheered and comforted. Those who reassured me that it was possible to be reunited with those who have gone before knew that I believe in the resurrection; they knew that I do believe that we will all be together on the far side of the Jordan. Those aren’t just pretty words to me — they are certainties as certain in my life as the Pythagorean theorem, the orbit of the moon around the earth, as the pounding of the surf on the rocks of Carmel Point.

On this blog, in this space that is my own (bought and paid for), I will say what I believe as honestly as I can. When I write a note to comfort the grieving, when I reach out to those I know who are in pain, I choose my words carefully. Their journey may not be my journey. They may well be sheep of a different fold, as my shepherd says. And I choose my words carefully, making sure that the only constant is love.

New chin photos

Eleven new chinchilla photos up in the Flickr album. Here’s our little rescue, Racheli Scrappy Doo; she’s doubled her weight since we saved her. And Dudley Doodles loves on his daddy.

Flickr account open

I finally have a Flickr photo account, and I’ve started adding to it. Just a few pics so far, but you can see each of our six new chins.

More photos will appear eventually, especially after our Christmas season travels.

A note on Christmas trees

I’m home from a gorgeous fifteen-miler in Griffith Park this morning. I ought to run in one of the world’s largest urban parks more often; I hadn’t pounded trail there in three years.

Last night, we decorated the Christmas tree. Growing up in a decidedly unchurched family, the tree was at the heart of what it meant to celebrate Christmas. My mother’s tree is a bejeweled work of art; it takes a day to do properly, and has well over 1000 ornaments upon it. The oldest pieces hung on her mother’s childhood trees a century ago.

For all of my life, we’ve been a “Douglas fir” family. (Call it the official tree of OKOP!) There are rules, you see; noble firs and colored lights are decidedly NOKOP. (One of my cousins once married a woman from a colored light family, and it caused quite a stir. Marrying across ethnic lines is one thing, marrying someone who appreciates “flocking” and blinking lights is another. A family has to have standards.) But yesterday, at the tree lot, the Douglas firs we saw looked rather pathetic and tired. And while the noble firs would have been beyond the realm of consideration, my wife suggested a very handsome Fraser fir. It was a fine 7-8 footer, green and healthy; most importantly, I saw no “bald patches.” All of his sides were good. And I decided to throw caution to the winds, throw one tradition out the window, and embrace change. For the first time in my nearly forty years of decorating trees, I decorated a Fraser fir last night.

My wife likes the tree, but she is happy to defer to my obsessiveness on the subject. She lets me do the lights; doing lights well is not easy, but I’ve learned a trick or two over the years. My brother-in-law came over, and he helped me do the vital work of hanging the colored and clear balls; those go on before the “special” ornaments. The balls get hung on the insides of the branches, and they serve to reflect and enhance the effect of the lights. Once we’ve put a hundred balls on the tree (clear, red, silver and gold only), then we can hang the more interesting ornaments. Over the years, I’ve inherited some old things from my childhood trees. I have a very special toy soldier that has been on every tree since I was born, and he always is hung in the front and near the center.

I’m always on the lookout for Christmas ornaments. My wife, who often travels without me, knows to buy unique ones when she sees them. My mother taught me that gaudy costume jewelry can often make interesting ornaments; I have a pair of dangling earrings, bought from a Venetian vendor, that do splendidly on the tree. (They’d be ghastly hanging from the ears.) The idea is that each ornament ends up telling a story. Each year, as we unwrap the tissue paper and pull an ornament out, we can exclaim “Remember when we bought this?” Or “Oh, it’s my old polar bear ornament that I got when I was eight!” No other Christmas tree in the world has quite the same mix of decorations as ours, and each year’s collection is different. Each year, we add ornaments, and in the decades to come, will surely have ever more elaborate and bejeweled displays. When we have children, we’ll buy ornaments for their “first trees”, and if we’re lucky, they’ll take the same degree of joy that I do in the decorating.

This morning, I got up just after 5:00 to get ready for my run. I said my morning prayers, poured my coffee, and then sat in the living room with the tree lights on and all the other lights off. I’m an impatient, fidgety man — but I can stare at a beautiful Christmas tree for half an hour. I’m a happy man today, with the scent of the season filling the house.

Oh, and the chinchillas are happy too. Each chin shall have his or her own stocking this year, and we shall squeeze them all above the fireplace. While I finished the tree last night, my wife decorated each stocking with each baby’s name: Dudley, Joonko, Ninotchka, Gabriella, Chihiro and Racheli shall each have lots of nuts, craisins, and chew toys come Christmas morn.

Matilde Mission Update

All six of our chinchillas are doing very well at home. There’s a lot of cleaning and monitoring involved in having six chinchillas, but it’s more than worth it. I will get around to pictures eventually, but time is not on my side these days.

As many readers know, my wife and I started a charitable foundation to support chinchilla rescue: The Matilde Mission, named for our beloved girl whom we lost in June. Our first fundraising campaign at the beginning of 2006 did fairly well, and we can report that the money raised has gone to good use.

Our project coordinators, Adam and Sally Blacke, saved 16 chins from a pelter in Michigan last month. Some were in poor condition, and the Mission has absorbed the cost of medical care as well as housing and food for these sweet ranchies. Read the update here. Ranch chinchillas who live with pelters live in tiny cages, without toys or wheels or ledges or shelters. It takes a while to acclimate the little ones to their new, safe, infinitely more fun lives.

Our hearts belong to Flipper, who was named for the broken wrist he came with from the pelter. The Matilde Mission saw to his medical care, and he’s recuperating well. Here’s a picture.

Folks, I imagine that chinchilla rescue doesn’t rank high on your list of charitable causes. Yet in a world filled with unnecessary human and animal suffering, anything we do to alleviate pain and provide joy and comfort to our fellow creatures is God’s work. The Matilde Mission is a 501(c)3 tax-deductible charity, and we welcome your donations — from $5 to $250 — through our safe and secure network.