Poor little Billy Dee doesn't sound like a healthy piggy. Ever since we got him, he's been sort of a noisy breather. It's tough to explain. Since then he's just gotten progressively worse, very slowly, until in recent weeks we'd notice days where he just sounded sick. He grunts, wheezes, labors at breathing.

But he's so darn sweet! Never bites, loves to just chill out with us on the couch. I pet him when I go by the cage and he just chills out. He'll eat any healthy food we put in there... he's the one who gets the others to try tomatoes and fruits.

Guinea pigs are prone to upper respiratory infections, but those are usually fast-moving and come with other symptoms. Since Billy has a healthy appetite and we haven't had any other sick pigs, I wasn't sure what could be up. Either way we decided it was time to see the vet.

So I put him in the pet wagon, which he didn't like, drove him in the car, which he didn't like, and he got a full exam, which he REALLY didn't like. It's so tragic watching trained medical professionals try to deal with a teeny little squirmy pig. I had to do my best not to crack up laughing... the nurse tried to set him on this scale and hoped he'd stay in this little bowl, obviously he wouldn't. The doctor checked his ears and listened to his heart and lungs with a stethoscope which is hysterical.

They asked if I'd pay for an x-ray... about $80, on top of the $40 exam. They understand that a lot of people don't like paying huge vet bills for guinea pigs, after all you can get the buggers for free off craigslist, but when I consider all the bedding, food, and cage supplies we spring for on a regular basis I don't think a couple hundred bucks is a huge deal. There are people in guinea_pigs who buy surgery for their pets... Marc and I have discussed that sort of thing, after reading too many very expensive stories that don't end so well we've decided that we will have a limit. But an x-ray sounded like a good idea.

The x-ray was adorable too, of course. A guinea pig x-ray looks like this: the top 1/3 has a head, heart, lungs, brain, all this important stuff. The rest is pure belly. It just reinforced my belief that these are ridiculous animals.

Unfortunately the x-ray showed other bad things: a mass of denser tissue in his lungs that just shouldn't be there. The vet said it could be tumors, but more likely it was scar tissue from an old injury. If Billy had cancer he wouldn't be so happy and willing to eat tons of food. But scar tissue is common... since we have no idea what his history is (he came from a home who got him from a home who got him who knows where) he could easily have suffered an accident we don't know about. Maybe when he was little he was dropped, or stepped on, and some internal bleeding occurred, and it didn't seem to have an effect at the time but it's worn on him.

The vet recommended some cortisone drops, twice a day, to relax the tissue a bit and rule out allergies. We'll try it this week and if it helps we can keep him on a low dose. It should be fairly manageable.

But until we see how that turns out we're awfully worried about the little guy. He's so lovable and cuddly and we hate to see him wheezing all the time. So keep him in your thoughts. Sick pets are the pits.

I dropped Pinky on his face. I feel like the worst guinea pig human ever. He was only about two feet up from the floor of the pen, and I was trying to get him in there fast because he was biting me kind of hard through my sweatshirt. We'd had some fun hang-out-on-the-couch time, but he was obviously done. Anyway I went to put him back and just wasn't holding him right because he struggled out and POW, eyes first to the floor.

He got up and made sad little wheeky crying noises, if guinea pigs can cry that's what it'd sound like I think. I had no idea what to do, it was the most pathetic sound I've ever heard. Then he went into his house and didn't really do much. I kept checking on him.

I try to remind myself that he once jumped from a full-speed run face-first into his cage, and just shook it off, so he must be kind of sturdy. I put some hay out later and he ran out to eat with the roommates, and he's on top of his house now like he usually is, so I think he'll survive. I just feel bad.

(Plus some little voice in the back of my head keeps asking what would happen if I had a human baby someday, and she bites me and I drop her on her face. Is that weird?)

I have a bookmark for the page on flickr that shows recent photos tagged with "guinea pig". I know I've got four guinea pigs now, but I LOVE looking at pictures of other people's. They're such a perfectly adorable little animal. The look on their face is always deadpan, disapproving, or suspicious. They have floppy little rose-petal ears. Their fur comes in all types, from curly to smooth to my favorite: super cowlicky! Someday I totally want to have a super cowlicky guinea pig.

Unfortunately when you just do a plain old flickr search for guinea pig you WILL run across pictures of guinea pigs being cooked and eaten. People travel to exotic countries, see racks of roasted cuy (I think that's the name, I'm not going to google extensively), think it's so crazy they've got to post a picture. The first few I saw really bothered me, then I just started skipping over them, scrolling a little faster when I got to one. I can deal with the fact that some people eat my pets, I'm not going to be some aloof westerner. I even have a well-traveled friend who's eaten it. He says it's a little greasy, but overall pretty good.

Then last night I had this horrible dream that we were at some woman's house, and she was eating grilled-up guinea pigs. I told myself I was okay with it like normal. I had my guinea pigs there with me in another corner, we were watching TV, she had this little campstove on the coffee table and was offering people food. Then I look over and she's got Pinky on the campstove. I freaked. Grabbed him off the grill, looked at his feet, held him close to my chest sobbing "I'm so sorry Pinky, I'm so sorry pinky, please be okay..." He was alright. I woke up feeling alarmed, realizing that I should no longer search my flickr tag. It's getting to me.

It's funny that I dreamed about Pinky because in real life, he's a total shithead. He's not quite a year old so he's by far the smallest pig we have but he's scrappy and will take your ass on. He bites. He chases the other pigs around. He will stare you down. He doesn't mind being petted which is funny, he's the one pig who I can go up to and just pet his head and he lays down and closes his eyes and chills. And occasionally I can even pick him right up. But if I hold him too long he becomes very uncool with it and will go for an artery. If you chase him around too long trying to pick him up when he's in no mood, he will turn and stare you right in the eyes and chatter threateningly. It's funny because I read that in a herd of males, someone will establish dominance. I always thought it'd be Jabba because he's huge and fat and has experience torturing Billy Dee in their former home. But Jabba's really afraid of us humans, and when he tried chasing the herd around Pinky wouldn't put up with that shit. Pinky will not get chased out of a house, or away from food. In fact his favorite place to be is usually on top of a house, observing all his subjects. If there's anyone who doesn't need my protection, it's Pinky. But the idea of losing him was horrible.

Incidentally I still get freaked out all the time at the thought of a dead piggy. I know they have short lifespans and since they're made for the bottom of the food chain, they hide symptoms of disease or weakness to avoid getting picked off. So I always worry we've got a dead one. I'll see one laying calmly in the corner, eyes closed, still... and I poke it to make sure it's just sleeping. Then I feel bad for waking them up but what can I do? They're so small.

Feeling lazy? You're nothing compared to this expert:



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Yesterday was a gorgeous cool fall evening so we took the guinea pigs out to the park. Since guinea pigs have evolved through the centuries to handle temperatures between 65° and 80° F, I figure there will be four good days in Kansas when we can do this. Although from what I've read, 65° is a flexible guideline, they can handle colder for a little bit. But hotter doesn't work. They get scared, huddle up together, and overheat. They're not really made for survival.

Anyway it was a grass-eating love fest for the ages, they were in rapid eat mode for something like 30 minutes. This morning they seem fine so I guess that's okay. There were some clovers in the grass too that became victims of the attack.

Besides eating grass, the piggies spent their time in the park being petrified of everything. In fact here's a list of things piggies hate about being at the park. You'll notice it outnumbers the things they like (eating):

• The car ride out there
  
• Cars driving by
  
• Dogs barking
  
• Crows squawking
  
• Car alarms
  
• People
  
• Squirrels
  
• Things falling from trees

Oddly enough though, nobody minded the troupe of BAGPIPE PLAYERS that set up to rehearse 30 meters away. We thought they'd hate that, and they'd been out for a while so we were just packing up when they music started, but they were just sort of chilling out. Next time I'll know! I actually really liked listening to the rehearsal for the few minutes we were there, it was neat.

We set up a big pen for them to run around in but they weren't too interested in running. They mostly stayed huddled together. When we put a little shoebox in there they all tried to hide in it, which doesn't work because they're four fat little rodents, so we put a towel over one end of the pen and this made them relax a little. But no matter how scary life got, they never stopped eating.

Anyway, here's a pigture:

each morning my alarm goes off, I wake up, get out of bed, go to the bathroom, then walk downstairs to make some coffee, and by then the guinea pigs are in full-on pig mode. there's only one reason a human needs to be around and that's for food. So since we've got the pen at the bottom of the stairs, I get these four little noses staring up at me sniffing and squeaking and making darn sure I know what priority #1 is. It's not coffee.

I'm used to hearing them rummage around at night now. They sleep, but they're kind of hour-on-hour-off all night so at certain times you definitely hear them bouncing around making cute little piggy noises. But that first morning encounter is something that always amazes me... like, "I'm tired. you're not tired? you're ready for fresh hay, what? but I haven't even had breakfast yet... oh okay settle down please don't get this loud this early I can't TAKE IT..."

I will post this picture of billy dee. Don't trust him. He may look cute and innocent here but he's only concerned about his own personal needs, and will eat your soul if necessary.

wildelion brought this to my attention, it's good: http://community.livejournal.com/ohnotheydidnt/37474935.html

The gist is that guinea pig rescue volunteers watched the previews for the new movie G-Force shaking their heads, because it's going to mean more work for them, and more homeless/neglected guinea pigs. Like 101 Dalmations, a million kids are going to see the movie, beg their parents for a guinea pig, and then get tired of it as soon as the next Disney movie is out and they're tired of feeding the hungry little bugger who poops all the time.

This shouldn't happen. A guinea pig, however small, is a life. A fragile, cute little domesticated life. It shouldn't be starved to death or dropped off a couch or kept in a tiny cage because it's the victim of a latest trend.

If you read my journal you'll know that we have four guinea pigs, all adopted. There are already guinea pigs without homes... mostly because people buy them without thinking, or worse, breed them because they think cute guinea pig babies would be fun and don't realize that litters can be up to eight and it only takes three weeks for a male to be able to impregnate another female pig (little buggers are made for rapid breeding). And suddenly they're overloaded and have to decide whether to cram too many guinea pigs into a tiny space, or put them out on craigslist for the next bad owner.

So spread the word... a guinea pig is not a pet to get on a whim. It needs the care and supervision of an adult, it has a 5-7 year lifespan. So if your 10-year-old thinks getting one would be a great idea, think hard about whether she's going to still think it's a great idea when she's 17.

If a guinea pig is right for your home, go you! Be sure to read up on how to build a proper cage and health care requirements, and then please do not buy one at a pet store! There are lots up for adoption.

Brainy agrees.

On Tuesday ms. A and I spent the afternoon re-configuring the piggy complex, and then I put all four guinea pigs in there to live together. The new boys have been in quarantine per recommendations... we've had all four out playing together for floor time, but very supervised. They were sharing and playing nicely though so we decided it was time. There's still some fighting and chasing but I think everybody's happy.

Anyway this morning I noticed that pinky had found a soft, comfy new place to lay down: jabba the hut's back.


I don't think jabba likes this, but for some reason they were just chilled out in there. Maybe they were trying really hard to share the house, which is not big enough to be shared? There are plenty of other houses I promise.

btw marc thinks we should re-name jabba "piggy smalls".

Anyway I got the camera out for that one, and got some more shots to add to the pigture gallery. like this picture of Billy Dee's cute little nose:

My first week off, I was chillin' out reading my twitter pages and noticed someone in Wichita searching for a home for some guinea pigs. I sent the pictures to Marc, who I thought would surely say "no bad idea we already have two" but he called me instead and said, "I'm looking at a picture of two ADORABLE piggies!!!" and it was all downhill from there. Short story: we now have four guinea pigs, which officially makes us herders. They're all male... the family was looking for a home for a female also but we said no way. The last thing I need is to risk auto-multiplying guinea pigs when, just living our normal lives, we go from zero to four in a matter of months.

Introducing males has been exciting. The new piggies came with their own cage, which spent a week in another room. Then we moved the cages together, and started letting them have floor time all in a group so they could "get to know" each other... this involves a lot of butt sniffing and face humping. You know, guy stuff. But these days they're getting along nicely. Yesterday's floor time was basically uneventful... playful chasing mixed with lounging and sharing food. I'm happy. So we'll be keeping these guys for sure. Next week they'll be moved into the big cage with Pinky and The Brain.

They came to us as Whiskers and Cuddles but I'm afraid we have to rename them. Nothing against the names, it's just that I had a parakeet named Cupcake once who came to a very unfortunate end at the hands of another parakeet, so I'm for tough names. One of the piggies, the lighter brown one, is a BIG PIGGY. You can't see it in photos but when you pick him up, you're like, "damn." So we're naming him Jabba the Hut. The lighter brown one we're calling Billy Dee, after Billy Dee Williams who played Lando Calrissian in star wars. Yes, the original owners are probably head-shaking right now, they'll always be whiskers and cuddles to them, and that's okay.

Anyway, mom and dad haven't seen pictures of the new grandpigs yet so I've got pictures!

From the left we have Billy Dee's butt, then Jabba, Brain, and Pinky:


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This weekend we finally pulled all the pieces of the guinea pig dwelling together. We stopped using just the petstore cage a while ago... just a word of advice, if you ever get guinea pigs, don't buy a cage from the petstore. They're both expensive and useless. All you need is some grid shelving, plastic, and old towels (or, if you're fancy like us, fleece). It's $20 worth of stuff and your piggies will have lots of room to run around and be happy and adorable. Here's our setup:



We use the bottom of our old petstore cage for food and bedding, because they'll tend to use it like a litter box which makes cleanup nice. We shake the hair and poop out of the fleece every few days, and change the bedding once a week or so, it's easy.

And just for fun, because I haven't posted pigtures here in a while, here's some adorableness for you:
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If you're a guinea pig, any of these sounds will make you think that there's a possible veggie treat in your immediate future. You need to squeak forcefully to remind the humans that you're around and ready for food.

• The fridge door opening
  
• The front door opening
  
• The produce drawer opening
  
• Any drawer opening
  
• A bag rustling
  
• Voices in the morning
  
• A toilet flushing in the morning (I'm not kidding)
  
• Dishes clanking
  
• Any noise from the direction of the kitchen
  
• Footsteps
  
• Talking
  
• Breathing
  

If the normal WHEEK sound doesn't produce results, get up on top of your house so your little voice carries farther. Then have your friend chew on the cage bars. Then run around in circles and start over.

You can also do this at random times if you're just bored.

Remember... it doesn't matter how much hay or pellets you have, set goals. Lettuce, carrots, spinach... it has to be fresh and delicious. Don't settle until you get what you want. Also remember that if a human comes home and feeds you veggies, you need to be ready to start all over again when another human comes home, because it's a whole new game. Even if only a few minutes have passed, you're entitled to something wonderful.

I think we can get a whole new weight loss system going called the "guinea pig diet". I'm on it and it's working great.

First, you get a couple guinea pigs and put them within earshot of your kitchen.

If you feel like snacking and get up to rummage around in the kitchen, they go absolutely insane. It starts with subtle little squeaky noises, then amplifies slowly up to an ear-piercing WHEEK WHEEK WHEEK WHEEK and if you don't stop what you're doing immediately and redirect your efforts to finding lettuce, carrots, spinach etc. it's not going to stop. If you try to avoid the kitchen by, say, just keeping a bag of chips by the couch, they'll hear the bag and that'll trigger the alarms too. All of these sounds lead them to believe that they are entitled to a fresh vegetable treat, it doesn't matter how much you give them or how much fresh hay is in their cage, they will always demand more.

Eventually you'll realize that you can't just go get yourself a snack. You'll avoid eating altogether and just like that, watch the pounds melt away.


Don't you loooooove meeeee?! Then I WANT FOOD!

I know, I posted this video EVERYWHERE... except here! It's just so darn cute. marc actually shot it, but I'm the one with a youtube account, so...



Do I feel bad, embarrassing little pinky on the internet? a little. but egads the little thing expects everything from me, a month ago we couldn't get him to eat anything but hay, now he EXPECTS lettuce or some kind of treat the second we let him out of the cage. he squeaks at us. if he hears a bag, he squeaks. if I get home from work, he squeaks. if it's morning, he squeaks. if he feels like squeaking, he squeaks. we're practically slaves. they're both so damn cute though.

so anyway we set up this nice ramp so they could get in and out of the cage, and now pinky thinks he can just jump over the whole thing, and usually he can! unless he totally can't. eh, little guy shook it off and is fine.

And now, you get to read about Pinky & the Brain because I love them.

This week:
Pinky has learned to climb on top of the pigloo. This makes him so happy he has to jump up and down... piggies do this a lot, it's called popcorning because you look over and there are little furballs flying in the air. Anyway lots of things cause this... winning a fight, getting treats, getting back into the cage after "run around outside" time. Morning. Someone new getting home. You get the picture. Anyway "pigloo domination" also causes the jumping but not in a stable way. So we've seen pinky fall a lot this week, and heard lots of little clunks at random times, which we just ignore so far because he seems to shake it off.

Only one thing stops all celebrations... and that's if I reach for the camera to try and video some of this. It's uncanny.

They like carrots now. Last week was only lettuce. I've noticed that if we introduce seven new foods to them, they'll like one. And there's no in-between on the "do they like it?" scale. Guinea pigs either sniff food and turn away immediately, or snarf it down like piggie crack... and I have no idea what makes the transition happen. One week they hate carrots, now they'll do anything for them. Lately I let them out of their cage and sit in the middle of a blocked-off area with them so they do laps around me, and climb all over sniffing to see if I've got treats.

They also like the stems of parsley now... but not the actual parsley leaves. go figure.

They've finally figured out ramps which is good because it makes cage time easier... we don't have to grab them to throw them back in the cage, we just put the door down, lay a towel on the door, and eventually they both find their way home. Brain caught on pretty early, pinky took FOREVER so apparently we named them correctly. I'd pick pinky up and set him right on the ramp, he was still clueless.

Pinky bit marc on the arm this week, left visible signs and everything. I have yet to be bitten. Marc says they like me more than him, they get excited when I get home and all that. I don't think they're smart enough to tell people apart, or tell people period, but who knows.

I got some video of the piggies:



They seem to be doing pretty well, they kinda eat lettuce now which is a big step. It's sad because everybody in guinea_pigs talks about their pets LOVING all sorts of foods, and ours just like hay and pellets. we've left cucumbers, oranges, carrots, all sorts of stuff in there and it barely gets sniffed.

Brain will eat anything on the floor that is not for eating, though. I can't understand that. We let them out to run around and he gravitates towards whatever tiny bit of trash the vacuum forgot, and before I can run over there he's consumed it. Damn piggie.

I haven't decided if they're smart or not. When they're out for floor time, the spend a lot of time chewing on the outside of their cage trying to get back in. So we made a towel-ramp for them to walk up and into the door... this is beyond them. Brain can kinda figure it out because he sees the door and jumps into it from the side of the ramp, which is NOT smooth-looking, watching him try to haul his back-end up right where the corner of the ramp meets the door. he doesn't get that he can start where the ramp meets the floor and the whole process is much easier. Pinky can't even figure it out if we put him right on the ramp.

Brain has figured out how to dominate the purple pigloo we put in there though... he chases pinky out on a regular basis, then puts his nose in the door and pushes it around until the door is blocked by the cage wall or another toy. when he wants out, he moves the door back around. so when it comes to screwing with one another, they've got that down.

I read on the internet that when my little guinea pig stares intensely at me, shifts his hind leg weight from side to side so his back end kinda sways, and makes a low murmuring noise, he's not trying to intimidate me. he's performing the official guinea pig mating dance.

he's NEVER done this to marc. yeah, both piggies will growl from time to time when marc can't seem to leave them alone, but the butt swaying? that's only been for me, so far. I'm not sure whether to feel flattered or not... you want to think your cute furry pets are so innocent. when they try to seduce you with bedroom eyes and suave moves it makes you wonder where their minds are at. or not, whatever.

male guinea pigs are called "boars" and according to forums and articles they're basically ridiculous. I mean all guinea pigs are ridiculous... they're making me believe in creationism again because I can't believe any animal would evolve to THIS. they seem to be designed for the bottom of the food chain, they're even food-shaped, like furry little chicken nuggets. well, except they're cute enough so us humans want to take them in and give them foods they love just so we can watch them freak out in spasms of happiness... maybe that was their evolutionary goal all along.

but anyway boars are especially ridiculous because they're trying to be everything a guinea pig really isn't... aggressive, scary, and dead sexy. we've got two and they fight constantly, and it's fun and they love it, they jump around and squeak and settle down and then start right back up again. we're even building them a bigger cage, so they have more full-speed-lap room. it's like having our own little furry fight club that just runs 24/7.

So I love the little guys, but I can't help but wonder why the humane society had to call us on a day when they had BROTHERS. I'm surrounded by men all the time, is it a destiny thing?

so last week we got some guinea pigs, no check that MARC got some guinea pigs, and I was a bit skeptical at first but things are looking up. They're fun, and adorable, to have around. They jump up and down randomly and make cute noises. When we first got them they seemed to hate all people but things have changed a lot in the past week. We read some online thing about making piggies more social... play with them every day, give them some time to hide in things and some time to run around outside. They still don't like being picked up but we can pet them now which is a BIG deal.

Since they're lab-mouse white we named the little one Pinky, and the big one The Brain.

Little pinky was the especially skittish one, but we've found out that if we pet The Brain, Pinky gets jealous and comes over to see what's up. Then you pet his little head and he holds still and closes his eyes and he's all happy. Earlier this week Marc was trying to pet him and he kept running away. Marc kept bugging him and finally Pinky just turns, stares marc RIGHT in the eyes and makes this low kinda growly noise. Seriously trying to be, like, the alpha piggy or something. Sometimes brain does that to us too, but he shifts his weight between his hind legs so his butt kinda sways back and forth like he's going to charge. it's absolutely adorable. guinea pigs just don't do "mad" very well.

we got a brush for The Brain to help with his shedding but haven't attempted that challenge yet. We can hold him, but he's not really happy, he'd rather be petted on the ground where he can make a run for it whenever. He almost sort of bit marc the other day... didn't break the skin, just sort of put teeth on him so we'd know the situation.

They really like eating hay. That's about all they like eating... they're supposed to be into all these other sorts of foods but they'll only eat lettuce if there's NOTHING else there.


a few more pics...

They do not seem to like getting their picture taken, but we'll work on that. We used to have them by the window where there was lots of light, but moved them because it was a little drafty there this week with the cold spell.