Guinea Pig Connection

2010 Calendars For Guinea Pig Lovers

With December underway (where has 2009 gone?), a new year is just around the corner -- and so is the need for a new calendar. So we went trawling about and found four that we like.

Guinea Pigs 2010 Wall Calendar from Magnum

Guinea Pigs 2010 Wall Calendar from Browntrout

Guinea Pigs 2010 Wall Calendar from Avonside

Guinea Pigs 2010 Small Wall Calendar from Browntrout (good for cubicle walls)

Whether you need it for your home or your cubicle at work, one of these calendars is sure to help you bring some guinea pig happiness to your days!

Products For Making Veggies Last Longer

Tired of veggies -- especially cucumbers -- not lasting as long as they should, I've finally broken down this week and purchased a couple of products that claim to extend the freshness of vegetables...even washed veggies.

Debbie Meyer's Green Bags -- previously available only on TV but now showing up in grocery stores, drug stores, and retailers like Target -- offer the advantage of not taking up additional room in the fridge. Just bring veggies home, swap the store produce bags for the Green Bags, and you're good to go. You can reportedly reuse a single bag up to 10 times before it needs to be replaced. The manufacturer claims the bags help extend veggie life up to 10 times the normal life of the food.

Rubbermaid's Produce Saver line of plastic containers claim to extend the life of veggies up to 33% longer than their normal life. They will take up extra space in your fridge but offer the advantage of not having to be thrown out after a limited number of uses. The containers use a combination of a "fresh vent" and a "crisp tray" that sits at the bottom of the containers to separate veggies from the moisture that inevitably forms under them. You can find them at grocery stores and retailers like Walmart.

I should note that Ziploc makes Fresh Produce Bags with a "moisture vent." They come only in a large size (big enough to hold a head of lettuce), 15 to a box. I've only seen them at grocery stores.

If you've tried any of these products, please share your experiences.

Repairing A Leaky C&C Cage

Ellen, the rescue's board secretary and occasional foster mom to rescue pigs, was telling me the other day that she had to do some repairs on her C&C cage to deal with a leaky spot.

Now, I've never had any delusions that these cages are indestructible but do know they're tough stuff. Makes me wonder what those pigs of Ellen's are doing in there all day. Must be some rowdy pigs!

[Just kidding]

Anyhoo, she tells me she fixed the cage as follows:

• gave the coroplast a thorough cleaning and drying
• put packing tape on the outside where the pigs couldn't chew at it (I imagine that 3M's super-strength clear packing tape would be a good choice)
• spread non-toxic Elmer's Glue on the inside of each corner
• allowed the cage to dry a full 24 hours before putting bedding and pigs back in

It's certainly a low-cost repair. I'll be interested to hear from Ellen how long that glue holds up, or from anyone else who's tried this kind of repair. Especially someone whose pigs tend to use one or two corners as their "designated bathrooms."

[Thanks for the tip, Ellen.]

10 Things That Guinea Pigs Should Not Eat

Adrienne Carlson recently shared with me a link to her article "25 Common Foods That Can Be Toxic For Your Pet." The article is mainly geared to dogs and cats (and I encourage you to share the link with your pet-owning friends) but there's a lot on this list that applies to guinea pigs as well.

The following foods are poisonous to guinea pigs:

• potato sprouts, potato peelings, and anything to do with a potato plant
• beans and anything to do with a bean plant
• anything to do with a tomato plant (the tomato itself is okay)
• anything to do with rhubarb
• dill (watch out for prepackaged "salad & herb" kits)
• flowers or any part of a flowering plant
• houseplants
• unidentified weeds
• any foods that were previously frozen
• fruit cores, pits, and seeds
  

For a lengthy list of plants that are poisonous to guinea pigs, check out Karen Bawoll's book, "A New Owner's Guide to Guinea Pigs." The ASPCA also has an all-species list of 17 common poisonous plants. 

I do want to point out two items on Adrienne's list that are actually okay for guinea pigs in limited quantities and fed only occasionally: broccoli and (seedless) grapes.

As a final aside, if you or someone you know own dogs, cats, or horses, the ASPCA also has a database of toxic plants geared to those species. It's definitely another link to pass along. 

Chuckles From A Poetry Book

My friend Diana sent me a book she'd found at a book sale at her son's school, titled "Oh, Theodore!" by Susan Katz. This illustrated collection of verse promises that readers will "discover the work involved in caring for a pet...But it hardly seems like work once your pet becomes your best friend." The book was published in 2007 but this is the first I've heard of it. The illustrator perfectly captured some classic guinea-pig mannerisms. The author based Theodore on her son's guinea pig, who "liked to join in family conversations, especially if they contained the word lettuce." (Yep, she's got the species pegged. Definitely enslaved by a guinea pig.)

As I leafed through the pages filled with cute illustrations of the brown-haired guinea pig named Theodore, I had to chuckle over some of the entries. How many of us can relate to this verse:

THEO-DOOR

Open

the kitchen door.

Theodore sits.

Open

the cupboard door.

Theodore sits.

But open

the refrigerator door.

Here comes Theodore!

Later in the book came a verse that will resonate, in particular, with folks who have older guinea pigs:

SPRING STROLL

Out to the yard

we go.

But I don't

take Theodore

for a walk.

I take him

for a sit.

The verse is accompanied by an illustration of Theodore and his young owner sitting outside on the grass, facing each other as if to say, "Okay, now what?" It's followed by another funny (and familiar) verse, titled "Lucky":

I'm the one

who found 

a four-leaf clover.

But Theodore's

the one

who ate it.

The book is suitable for beginning readers, and can be found online through e-tailers like Amazon and through your local bookstore. As with most books, we found a couple of things portrayed in the illustrations that we don't agree with -- but we'll get into that in another post at another time. For now, we'll look at it for what it is: a good concept with cute illustrations that will (hopefully) encourage beginning readers to read it on their own, and younger kids to ask Mom and Dad to read it to them (again and again).

An Alternative To Sticky Roller Sheets

After zipping through yet another lint roller, I decided it was time to look for an alternative. 

My dog- and cat-owning friends have turned me onto the Fabric Sweeper for Pet Hair from Pledge. Originally made for cleaning pet hair off furniture and other home decor, my friends tell me they use this sweeper to get pet hair off of clothes as well. Pledge claims that one of their sweepers does the same work as 145 of those sticky sheets from a lint roller.

Certainly worth a try...it definitely puts less stuff in the landfills.

If you decide to try it, too, let us know about your experience with it.

When Do You Introduce A New Roommate?

When a guinea pig dies, when do you bring home a new roommate for the one left behind to grieve? In the last three weeks or so, we've had e-mails from owners who were facing the inevitability of having to put gravely ill guinea pigs to sleep.

My short answer is "Your pig will tell you."

Until you've had a guinea pig or two (or more) you don't realize how deeply these critters can grieve, or how quickly they can sink into a depression and how long they can stay in that psychological state until you pull them out of it. There's a fine line between letting a guinea pig mourn the loss of a friend and adjust to life without him/her and letting the guinea pig slide into a full-blown depression. Depression isn't to be trifled with, to be treated with a wait-and-see approach for too long. Loss of appetite, decreased water drinking, lethargy, zero interest in things that used to draw a reaction, little to no socializing with human companions -- all are signs of depression, and all can lead to more serious illness if they're not stopped.

Cari's Story

Cari wrote to us about her pair of female guinea pigs, one of whom is very sick and does not have a lot of time left in her life. She wrote to us, "I am worried about her companion. I fear she will be so lonely, and I know they do better in pairs and I want to get another female for her....I also wonder when another should be introduced, before or after?" I give her a lot of credit for thinking ahead like this, and for proceeding with caution instead of acting too soon. For a lot of folks, balancing compassion and restraint is not easy.

My advice to Cari is that she wait until after her guinea pig dies. The sick one is dealing with enough stress from her illness, and the healthy one is dealing with the stress of seeing her friend fade away. (Yes, I am fully convinced that these animals know before us humans when they are preparing to cross over.) Introducing another pig at this time is more stress -- and avoidable stress at that. Let the girls close out their lives together, and when the sick one crosses over, Cari and her remaining guinea pig need to grieve together and comfort each other.

Observation will tell Cari when her guinea pig is getting depressed -- she may see it within a few days, or it might be longer. But it will come, and it's best to act when the symptoms first start to appear. It's rare for a guinea pig who's used to having a roommate to function well as a lone pig for any length of time. They get used to constant companionship -- and not having it for an extended period of time turns their world upside down with unhealthy consequences.

Stacey's Story

Stacey started talking to us when she was trying to make the difficult decision between euthanizing her middle-aged guinea pig or putting her through inordinately expensive and risky surgery that offered disproportionately little in the way of guarantees of post-operative longevity. The prospect of needing to get a new roommate (someday) for her remaining guinea pig was never brought up. Honestly, as rattled by the experience as Stacey understandably was, adoption of another pig was not something I expected her to consider for a while.

After putting Cupcake to sleep, Stacey -- grieving and worried about her remaining guinea pig -- bought two 5-month-old females on the same day as Cupcake's death. Warned by the pet store clerk that her guinea pig might fight with the new ones in order to establish herself as "alpha female," Stacey did some online research to find out how to introduce them all. Introductions on neutral ground went well -- sharing space in the cage did not. After breaking up the fighting, Stacey did more online research. Her next steps were a) cleaning everything in the cage with vinegar, and b) giving everyone a bath together. After another rough beginning, the younger girls got the hint that there was only one queen bee -- and it wasn't either of them. When last I heard from Stacey, there seemed to be some kind of continuing peace in the cage.

In her last e-mail, Stacey wrote, "I thought it would be easy to bring new pigs home." I thought to myself, "You don't know what a lucky break you had. The fight could have been worse, blood could have been drawn by a bad bite, those three pigs might never have called a truce -- and then you really would have been stuck."

I can't say I blame Stacey's pig for her initial reaction. She was not happy about losing her friend and acquiring two strange roommates in her cage on the same day. It's a lot of adjustment to ask her to make. (Stacey was acting from a broken heart and concern for her guinea pig, so you can understand her impulse.) I'm just relieved it seems to have worked out as quickly as it did.

Again, how long you wait before bringing someone new home really does depend on the individual pig, but I firmly believe that the grieving process needs to be given space and time. We humans would demand and expect that for ourselves, and, knowing what emotions animals are capable of, I think they expect it as well.

Newspaper As Cage Bedding

When I read the e-mail from Joanne, one of our supporters, my first reaction was stupefied silence:

A piggy friend of mine posted that there was a piggy who suddenly stopped eating. It turns out after a vet visit, that a staple was stuck to the roof of his mouth! Naturally, if he tried to bite down it would hurt.  Apparently this person had lined his cage with a publication that contained staples.

My second reaction was, "Really, people? Does this have to be explained? Staples in a cage with critters who chew and gnaw and shred?" (I know...I know...it could have been said more gently.)

My third reaction was, "Oh ick, wet newspaper!" Every time I think of newspaper in cages, I think of the cages in shelters, lined with newspaper that so easily gets wet, then shreds into soggy bits the wetter it gets and the more the critters scramble over it. I think of the guinea pigs and rabbits I've pulled out of those cages, with inky feet and soaking wet bellies and rumps. I always think, "This is no way to live, no matter how temporarily."

I know there's folks who put layers of newspaper under layers of fleece, instead of using store-bought cage bedding. The fleece part I can understand -- it's washable, it's not going into landfills in plastic bags, it may be cheaper than conventional cage bedding (I've never done the math to figure the annual cost of store-bought bedding vs. annual costs for detergent, hot water, and gas or electricity). I also can see using just layers of fleece to line the bottom of the cage.

But handling all that wet newspaper? Ick. Double ick.

So for the folks who use newspaper for cage bedding along with fleece, share with us (please) why you went that route. How wet does the paper get? How much fleece do you layer on top? Doesn't the fleece get inky and hard to clean? What does the newspaper/fleece combination give that just using fleece doesn't? And if you use only newspaper, please share your experiences.

When Lap Time With Piggy Gets All Wet

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about reasons why a guinea pig might bite or nibble your hand. The post stemmed from a question e-mailed to me by a young girl. A follow-up question from her yielded another dilemma. She wrote, "She has started peeing on me all the time, it's really very annoying. I don't know what to do. I know that they have signals, but she's always biting me or nibbling so I don't know."

Most of the time, guinea pigs are actually quite polite, giving us signals when they need a bathroom break. These signals can include:

• constant fidgeting accompanied by repeated checking of their back ends
• circling around and around on your chest or lap
• constantly repositioning themselves, dropping their rumps on you with an adamant thump
• backing their rumps up to the edge of your lap, shoulder, chest, arms, etc. (in an attempt to pee away from you and them)
• biting or nibbling your hand or fingers (usually when you've missed, or ignored, all other signals)

While wet laps don't occur every time you hold your guinea pigs, they do happen. You can minimize your chances with simple observation and careful timing. Notice when guinea pigs drink a fair amount of water (though guinea pigs who habitually drink a lot of water can be a particular challenge), and give their bodies time to process it before holding them -- or plan on a short session of cuddling. Same goes for pigs who have just eaten juicy fruits or vegetables, like melon, cucumber, and so forth.

Learn, too, each pig's unique clock. I've had pigs who could sit on my lap for an hour or more before the urge hit, and others that get the urge after 20 minutes or so. I've also encountered pigs who had a habit of peeing when they were half-asleep, presumably because they got so relaxed that their bladders let loose but their internal alarms didn't go off. Age can also be a factor; very young guinea pigs haven't learned to "be polite" yet, and the bladders of older guinea pigs are not as resilient as they once were.

In rare cases, with guinea pigs that don't (by nature) like to be held much, the "I gotta pee" alarm seemed like a measure of self-defense, of protecting their boundaries. They didn't want to be held, tolerated it for a handful of minutes, and then triggered the panic button...presumably because they'd learned through experience that the threat of getting peed on was the one thing that would get their human to put them back in their cage or play area.

All that said, no matter how watchful you are, the odds are that you'll get peed on at least once, and probably more. Rather than get soaked, learn to have some cozy sacks or old clean towels handy for lap time. As a general practice, I always have a towel folded up under my pigs. If you want a little extra protection, puppy pee pads are a great investment.

If you've noticed that your pigs have some signals that I didn't list here, please share them. Every pig is different and, thus, so are the warning signals.

Who Says We Can't All Get Along?

When you live with a couple of guinea pigs (or more), you inevitably learn a lot of things about communal living, sharing, sticking together in good times and bad, and so much more. The photos on the Web of happy guinea pigs cuddled together are so commonplace that they risk being perceived as cliche if people miss the fact that each photo is like a nudge from The Universe to remember what's truly important: love and peace.

So, to drive the point home that things like harmony, tolerance, and acceptance are possible if we can get past labels and appearances and learn to see the spirit that lies within, we guinea pig folks have to look to other species with legendary "animosities." Author and artist Cecelia Soprano recently sent me a video link of a pet cat and pet rats that begs the question, "Well, if they can get along, what's everyone else's problem?"

I love cats. I have a hard time warming up to pet rats (but wish them no harm). Even if the cat is really just tolerating the rats, these furry teachers should be able to persuade at least a few humans to re-evaluate their perspective on their own "sworn enemies."