Pipari had an episode - panic attack?

[teemu]

Pipari had the weirdest episode just now, and I'm really not sure what happened. She's totally fine and normal now, but the situation was really scary and I have no explanation for it.

I dug out an old appron with a big front pocket, and I figured that Pipari might like it. I've been trying to get her more comfortable with handling, so it seemed like a good idea to have something like that, which she could hide in. I took her out of the cage and sat down to my computer with her in the pocket. She was a bit tense about it, and started pushing herself into the most cramped nook of the pocket and generally acting very withdrawn. I tried to give her some seeds to entice her out, but in just a couple of minutes she started to suffer some sort of an episode...

She went very limp and her eyes bulged out, and it looked like her left back leg wasn't working. I pulled her out (carefully of course) and set her down, and she flopped onto her side and kept feebly kicking and trying to right herself. It was very scary, I thought she might have hurt herself in the pocket or something like that. But after I got her out and put her back in her cage, in literally a minute or two, she was totally normal again. She found her feet again and started to eat the seeds I'd put in her cage and generally seemed like nothing had happened, other than looking a bit wary. No sign of any issues at all...

I have no idea what happened. In the moment it seemed like she was dying. I've seen rodents dying, and she seriously looked like that. She was deflated and uncoordinated in the worst possible way. But she got over it in just a moment after I put her back home. Now she's jumping around, pushing things around, doing all the normal stuff as if nothing happened at all. I don't know what to make of it...

Has anyone seen anything like this? The only things I can think of are that she genuinely had a panic attack from the weird situation since she felt trapped or something, or that she somehow ran out of air in the pocket. Suffocation seems really unlikely, but those are the only two things I can even think of.

I have carefully inspected her and there does not seem to be anything wrong with her. Her behavior is totally normal now. I will of course keep careful watch over her, but I can see absolutely no issues any more...

[bouncy]

If she was behaving like that, my immediate response is to check the pocket. The way they're made, there are often loose threads in those corners, and I suspect she was restricted somehow. If it's a patch pocket, it's often a piece of fabric, hem folded under, then stitched directly on top of the main apron body with either one or two rows of stitches. If the raw edge isn't covered by the inner row of stitches, nothing is generally done about it.

[deguconvert]

It could have been an intense fear response as well. Depending on what things have been carried in that pocket . . . the smells alone could have ignited things . . . or the very different experience. Who knows . . . perhaps she had a pocket experience before coming into your home that terrified her.

Whatever it was, I am very relieved that you were able to safely remove her, and her recovery once in her cage seems to be complete. That would have terrified me as well, Teemu!

[teemu]

Yeah, we won't be doing the pocket thing again! She's been totally normal now, so we got off with a scare, but something obviously happened there. I can't see any long strings or even flaps of cloth that could have strangled her, but her head was kind of in a pocket there, since she was pushing herself so tightly into the corner, so I think what might have happened is that she genuinely ran out of air. It's pretty thick cloth. I think it was suffocation combined with panic (probably the reason she started doing that in the first place), but luckily nothing more permanent...

(I did hear her panting and gasping afterwards very heavily, when I pulled her out, so that probably points towards the possibility of suffocation.)

I'll have to be careful about introducing any new things to her in the future. She seems pretty prone to panicking when anything unexpected happens. It seems like I have been blessed with some rather troubled degus...

[moletteuk]

I wonder if she could have positioned herself so that the blood supply was limited to her head.

I think you can buy carrying pouches that have a more 3d space for the pet. You might not fancy trying anything similar again, but if you did you could try just sitting in the playpen/kitchen with it on and let her discover it for herself to see what she thinks.

[teemu]

May 6, 2022 14:27:48 GMT moletteuk said:

I wonder if she could have positioned herself so that the blood supply was limited to her head.

I think you can buy carrying pouches that have a more 3d space for the pet. You might not fancy trying anything similar again, but if you did you could try just sitting in the playpen/kitchen with it on and let her discover it for herself to see what she thinks.

Yeah, I think it was something like that, either blood or air got cut off. It was one of those square pockets, with rather deep corners and no give or air flow at all. So she panicked, pushed her head in there really tightly and was essentially half-dazed by it.

I think something like a more rounded pouch, or even a hoodie with one of those tunnel-like front pockets would work a lot better. She isn't afraid of things like hiding inside a shirt or anything like that. It was just a very unfortunate series of events just then.

(She's been totally normal now for the past two days, so no harm done, thankfully.)

[yasmin]

I've had degus that do that when I take them to the vet. It's like they're playing dead.