Companion animals enrich our lives in many ways and for children, owning a pet can be a valuable lesson in appreciating the responsibilities associated with caring for a small and vulnerable life.

Those of us lucky enough to have kept pets in our childhood will cherish those happy memories I am sure, but as animals tend to have such relatively short lifespans, inevitably pet ownership provides for many of us, our first real sense of loss.

My eight-year-old granddaughter has recently had to deal with this situation when one of her much-loved guinea pigs died without warning. No matter that Bethany also has a dog and two ponies, she had lost a friend for whom she had cared for, taken responsibility for and taken pride in for almost half of her own life.

We couldn’t even offer any comforting words of explanation. Cherry was not old or sick, she just died.

Beside herself with grief, Bethany was inconsolable to the point of having to take some time off school and then, understandably, thoughts turned to Blossom, the remaining sibling guinea pig.

How would she be feeling now that she had lost her twin sister? What if she became so sad and lonely that she died too? This thought instigated a fresh wave of despair.

There is only one thing to do I advised my daughter, you need to find her another guinea pig, but this proved to be easier said than done.

Telephone calls were made to every pet shop within a 50-mile radius, only to be told that it was a bit early in the year for young guinea pigs and to come back in a month or so. Four weeks is an eternity for a grief- stricken eight-year-old and, as feared, little Blossom was beginning to look rather sad and lonely too.

Eventually, as luck would have it, I stumbled across two beautiful 16-week-old guinea pigs in a pet shop nearby.

Yes, I was advised by the pet shop owner, they were both female, sisters in fact, who could only be sold together. We’ll take them both, agreed my daughter and son-in-law unanimously.

I was granted responsibility for collecting the new additions, which was fine until I noticed that one looked a little bit chunkier than the other, with a bigger and more masculine head.

“You are quite sure that they are both female?”, I ventured a little hesitantly. On further examination it transpired that one was in fact a male.

Initially, I was not too concerned because we had originally only wanted one guinea pig after all, but then the shop owner pointed out that as cavies mature very quickly, there was a very good chance that this little female was pregnant.

Not to be put off by such trivialities, we decided to go ahead with the purchase anyway and when we saw the smile spread across my granddaughter’s face as I handed her the pet carrier, we were in no doubt at all that we had made the right decision.

The guinea pigs were introduced to each other in a neutral, indoor cage which was a huge success and they were the best of friends in no time.

The new addition was named Elsa, not after the lioness in Born Free, but after the Disney heroine in Frozen; I really do need to keep abreast of the times.

As suspected, it soon became very obvious that Elsa was indeed “in the family way” and on Saturday evening, while my daughter and son-in-law were hosting a small, informal dinner party, three brand new bouncing babies were born in the kitchen.

How’s that for after dinner entertainment?

Happily, the new family are all doing well and now there are five guinea pigs where, just a short while ago, there was only one. Thankfully, little Blossom loves her new, extended family and, as for Bethany, the past few weeks have proven to be a very steep learning curve but, for the time being at least, all is well in the world of an eight-year-old.