Would it be better to just put him down?
So basically this whole situation starts at the end of July this year with My male 3 year old guinea pig (not neutered) Odin. I noticed a lump on his bottom jaw. I immediately thought tooth abcess it was about the size of a nickel. We try to make a vet appointment at are primary and a week goes by and I push my parents to make one. By this point it is Thursday (of last week!) and the lump is at least 3 inches around (1 measured). So we go in for are appointment with Vet A and they look in his mouth and see a completely black tooth a premolar. So for the moment they take a syringe and draw out some of the pus (very liquidy) while we are waiting on a quote for the surgery they wanted to do which was go in through the abcess and remove the tooth. We get him started on antibiotics in the mean time. He was still eating and drinking.
Okay a couple days goes by and it's now Sunday August 9th. I go in to give him his morning meds and I take him out. First thing i noticed was that his chest was wet and his feet. So l take a closer look and that's when i noticed that it's dripping as it just started coming out. The abcess had ruptured over night. So I try to think what to do as I get gauze pads and hold it over the area. But the more alarming thing I noticed was that he still had lettuce in his cage from last night. The SAME amount so he didn't eat. We make the decision and drive out to a er vet that treats exotics. He was perfect the entire time just was acting pretty lethargic. Basically we ended up waiting 7 hours to be seen (mind you he hadn't eaten this whole time except for some parsley I got him to eat I had brought snacks for him).
And his teeth are WAY worse than we think including him having a heart murmur which we had no clue about.
I included a photo of the findings.
This vet (let's say Vet B) wanted to do 3 different surgeries with him one surgery to remove the tooth, another to treat the abcess, and a final one to go in and fix the rest of his teeth.
So at this point we are trying to evaluate if it's ethical to even put him through a surgery? Like will he have a quality of life. (Planning to ask the vet when we go in next these questions).
Given the fact he's a small rodent so the risks are increased. With his dental issues he will probably have a life long issue. That's my first question from another opinion is it right to put him through it.
Notes about his life: Odin is
SEVERELY INBRED he is from a lab (not joking). He has 23 toes that don't seem to affect him from doing the things he loves. But this does mean he has pretty bad genetics.
Kinda unrelated part of the story but it is a progression I will include
Spoiler is for graphics including self canibalism and slight gore!!
Today August 11th I was going to give him his critical feed and notice that he has a area that was thickend with dry liquid food so I think "oh I will just go give him a quick rinse" I needed to clean his feet anyway so I go in and try to get it off when it just...>!falls off the fur and skin showing a pretty big hole with puss. So of course I panic a bit as now it's more exposed and bring him downstairs where I try to see if I can dress it or something he would just keep shaking it off. When I was distracted texting my parents though is when I saw out of the corner of my eye he was eating something so I look and yeah... he ate the skin piece that fell off fur and all. So I quickly looked it up to see if it was safe he wasn’t choking luckily and he got extra fiber at least. I did go through and make the decision to remove all hay from his cage he wasn’t eating it anyway and was just laying on top of it didn’t want to risk getting hay in the site. So I gave him grass and unlimited kibble instead.!<
Just realized it isn’t letting me post photo on here with the message so here are the photos in link version
July 28th when I first noticed the lump. 1 nickel in size
where it was 3 inches in size before first vet appointment
The paperwork stating a in-depth look over of everything that is wrong with him at vet
discharge summary so stating in more vet terms what they wanted to do
TW GRAPHIC
Photo of what it looks like right now that the rupture point is exposed
Posted Aug 11, 2026, 10:34 PM UTC