Ziggy the guinea pig was not doing well. He wasn't eating, and we noticed a tinge of blood in his urine. After having him for 3.5 years, it was time to take the little guy to the vet. We packed him into a lunch-box-sized carrier and brought him to the closest practice that would see a guinea pig. The vet guessed that he had a small bladder stone, but wanted to take an X-ray to be sure. She took him into another room, and we could hear his guinea pig squeals of alarm and displeasure through the wall. He does not like X-rays, this little guy. He did indeed have a kidney stone, which required guinea surgery, which he recovered well from. We still have this old man, who turns 5 this very month. He's a very old guinea man.

The silver lining of his brush with guinea death a year and a half ago was getting a copy of his guinea X-ray. I think it's beautiful and haunting. But then, I have a general fascination with X-rays, and I request copies of my own too. After I recently shared Ziggy's X-ray on Twitter, I asked for submissions from other pet owners who have copies of their animal X-rays as well. I wound up with a nice collection to add to the guinea X-ray: a dog, a cat, and a ferret. Below are their X-rays followed by a picture of the pets from the outside.

A very special thank you to Matt Shipman, Julia Ellis, Meg Helmes, Chis Zhu, and Glendon Mellow for helping with this post!

Ziggy

Juju

Andy

Momo