Guinea Pig Connection

10 Ways Guinea Pig Owners Can Help Mother Earth

Today, April 22, is Earth Day -- a day for each of us to reflect on how we can better care for Mother Earth and help ensure the healthy survival of all the species who live here. This year, Earth Day organizers are coordinating an effort called "A Billion Acts of Green," and are "encouraging people to observe Earth Day 2011 by pledging online to do something small but sustainable in their own lives to improve the planet's health." In the words of one spokesman, "Millions of people doing small, individual acts can add up to real change."

So I've done a quick inventory of things that guinea pig owners do routinely, and where there would be opportunity for us to change a habit or two...or more.

1. Use paper towels made from recycled materials. Seventh Generation and Marcal Small Steps brands are easily found in many major grocery stores and general retailers like Target.
2. Use trash bags made from recycled materials. This appears to be a growing category, and Seventh Generation and GoodSense/EarthSense are among the first brands I'm aware of seeing widely available.
3. Use eco-friendly laundry detergent for cozy cups, fleece sacks, fleece pads, play area towels, and so on. Seventh Generation laundry detergents are easily found in major grocery stores, and Method products are easily found at Target. Mrs. Meyer's Scent Free detergent and Ecover products are stocked in natural food stores. (Admittedly, these products are a little more expensive, requiring you to watch for sales or check online for coupons, but even swapping out a couple bottles of your usual detergent in a year will help.)
4. Recycle the plastic bags that hay and cage bedding like CareFresh comes in. Plastic bag recycling bins are found at grocery stores, some general retailers, and sometimes special bins at municipal landfills.
5. Buy larger sizes of hay and food pellets. For example, buying a 10-pound bag of Oxbow Cavy Cuisine instead of two 5-pound bags puts one less bag in the landfill.
6. Buy bulk bundles of paper towels and trash bags. One 3-pack of paper towels means 2 less plastic wrappers are being thrown out.
7. Recycle the cardboard boxes that bulk orders of hay are shipped in.
8. Compost used CareFresh bedding and old fruits and vegetables instead of sending them to the landfill. (This is difficult for apartment and condo dwellers, but if you own a house with a yard and want to learn more about composting, check out this resource for starters.)
9. In good weather, line dry cozy cups, fleece sacks, fleece pads, tunnels, towels, and so on. A large load of these items typically takes 50-60 minutes to dry in a clothes dryer (unless you have one of those high-efficiency dryers).
10. Replace paper towels for cage cleaning with microfiber cloths, microfiber sponges, and reusable synthetic or natural sponges. Companies like The Fuller Brush Company, 3M, Don Aslett, and others are expanding product offerings in this category. (If you decide to try microfiber cloths, don't overlook sources like QVC who frequently sell bulk packs of high-quality cloths at insanely good prices.)

Whew! Okay, so I've come up with 10 ideas. Can you suggest more? Please share in the Comments section!

A Trophy Won't Win You Points With A Guinea Pig

Roxy Sorkin must have one particularly brassy guinea pig.

In his acceptance speech at last night's Academy Awards ceremony, Aaron Sorkin (who won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar^TM for "The Social Network") called out the little devil on the international broadcast. He finished his pithy, eloquent, and refreshingly humble speech with the comment: "Roxy Sorkin, your father just won the Academy Award. I’m going to have to insist on some respect from your guinea pig." The comment -- an admission of being stymied (if not bested) by a 2-1/2 pound furball -- only added to Sorkin's likability as he walked off stage.

Anyone who has lived with guinea pigs for any length of time can chuckle at the comment and make a few guesses about what Roxy's guinea pig must be doing to "disrespect" her father. Run away when he comes to the cage. Chews on his fingers. Chews on his shirt. Fidgets incessantly while he tries to sit with it. Poops on him. Pees on him. Sasses at him for a snack. A myriad of possible behaviors.

The misconception about guinea pigs is that they're simple creatures, that all you have to do is feed them and you're in like Flynn. But guinea pigs are not won over by superficial gestures. They cannot be schmoozed. Because they are prey animals, which makes them anxious and fearful by default, they're slow to trust. It takes time, calm effort, and gentleness to form a bond with them. It's a process that cannot be rushed.

Guinea pigs are actually a lot like horses in this regard. In her book "Inner Peace for Busy People," Joan Borysenko relates a story about an equine experience program she participated in. During the program, she learned that "...horses were like mirrors that showed you who you really were....[they] respond to our energy, mirroring our emotions and intentions." They pick up on frustration, impatience, anxiety, irritation, aloofness -- emotional turmoil of any kind -- and respond accordingly. "Horses are very sensitive to energy," Borysenko writes. "They respond to peaceful clarity of intention."

If you're trying to connect with a guinea pig, and it's not progressing to your expected timetable, frustration inevitably rises. Frustration begets more frustration. And, if you don't do a course correction and try something new, frustration begets irritation -- and the guinea pig will respond to neither favorably. It matters not to a guinea pig that you're formidable in the board room, hypnotically persuasive in a sales presentation, or capable of successfully pitching a screenplay in a town drowning in screenplay pitches. Success with human beings does not necessarily beget success with guinea pigs (though I contend that the reverse is true).

The beauty of guinea pigs (all animals, really) is that quality time with them forces you to get out of your head, snap out of your mood, slow down, and be fully present with them. And when you think about it, these are all things you need to do in any relationship in order for it to be successful. For Sorkin, who makes his living in a fast-paced and uber-connected industry, his daughter's guinea pig may well be The Universe's way of planting a reminder in his life to stay grounded and stay present in spite of the insanity and busy-ness swirling around him.

It's been said that daughters keep their fathers humble (maybe even moreso than their wives). Sorkin's comment at last night's ceremony suggests that there's a guinea pig in his life doing the same thing. And that, I think, is a good thing. 

Tips For Taking Better Photos Of Your Guinea Pigs

Let's face it, our beloved piggies can be tricky, ornery little devils to photograph. They wander off. They chew on a friend's ear or decide to clean their face just as you're framing a shot. Their varied coat colors make them blend into some backgrounds, and clash with others. But when you do pull off a good photo, boy, is it worth all the effort!

While trawling on the Web site for The Nate Berkus Show for an old episode on another topic, I stumbled across a segment on pet photography, featuring photography expert Me Ra Koh. Her tips include:

• Make like a fashion or home photographer and create a staged set. Remove things that clash. Create some kind of boundary to prevent your piggies from wandering "off set."
• Get your "models" into a calm, even Zen-like state. Have a handler nearby to help you; your two hands are already busy with your camera, you would be greatly assisted by another pair of hands to keep the piggies corraled.
• Get down to -- or below -- their level. You miss a lot when you're standing up.
• Use props to help spark their curiosity, animation, and cuteness. Frame your shot to emphasize the things you love most about your pet (e.g., their profile, their ears, etc.).
• Learn to use your camera's features (e.g., no flash, natural-light settings, continuous shooting mode) to increase your chances of getting a great shot with every shot. After watching Me Ra photograph a pair of dogs (and noting the similarity to fidgety pigs), my next camera is soooooo going to have a continuous shooting mode feature.

For the full details of Me Ra's tips, read the Photo-Recipe for Your Pets article on Nate's site. You'll absolutely want to watch her in action in the Pet Photography Tips video clip, in which you can see her help various owners take pictures of their rowdy dogs, multicolored cat, and wandering bunny.

On Grief & Loss

It's been a tough summer of departure, loss, and many many tears. Cindy has dealt with the loss of two long-time canine friends and some of the rescue's sanctuary residents. In the last two weeks of August, I lost two furkids within 11 days of each other. For both Cindy and I, the losses were unexpected and stunningly -- frighteningly -- quick.

In our personal lives and the rescue, Cindy and I have dealt with many losses over the years and it never gets any easier. Our coping skills might improve with the years, but we feel our grief fully with every death. And it never gets easier to find something comforting to say to each other. Everything sounds hollow, superficial, inadequate, and cliche in the face of profuse tears and deep grief. If we're face to face when we share our news, a hug with no words seems to say everything perfectly. On the phone and in email, words alone aren't up to the task.

Things like "He lived a good long life" or "She found a second chance with you that she wouldn't have found elsewhere" are little consolation. "There's a reason for everything" is also among the 10 worst things you can say to someone who is grieving.

When someone is grieving, our job as friend or family member is not to rationalize death, comment on how someone navigates through the stages of grief, or put our emotional discomfort on display. Our job is to comfort and support, with a hug, with an "I'm so sorry," with an "I'm just a phone call away," or any of the other best things you can say to someone who is grieving. You have to provide the space for your loved one to feel what they need to feel for as long as they need to feel it, even if they grieve differently than you. What is "healthy" or "normal" grieving is for mental health practitioners to assess, not the rest of us.

"Grief is an important healing mechanism, a way the psyche makes the transition from one situation to another," writes Marianne Williamson. "...it is dangerous to shut out or suppress our pain because events we don't process we are doomed to...act out in dysfunctional ways. The time to cry is when we need to cry. Only then will we ultimately not need to cry anymore."

Not cry anymore...but live with a hole in your heart that you feel daily and a hole in your living space that you see constantly. You know full well how blessed you were to have these furry friends in your life, and you agonize over whether you gave them as good as they gave you. Grieving is a bitch...and the doubt, the second-guessing, the would-haves, the could-haves, the should-haves, and the ought-to-haves don't make it any easier and invariably make it even worse (if that's possible). But you have to feel it all, however you need to feel it.

In the midst of my own grief, I happened to hear Jewel sing a previously unrecorded song of hers for the "In Memoriam" segment of the 2010 Emmys and found comfort in the lyrics she'd written for a friend who died from cancer. You can see that performance of "Shape of You" on YouTube, and read the lyrics on Metrolyrics. If you're grieving, give it a listen. If someone you know is, pass along the links. It might help others cope with their own loss.

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.

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.

Hope, Love & Second Chances

In animal rescue work, you hear a lot of stories. Stories that restore your faith in mankind. Stories that make you think the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Stories that fall somewhere in between. The tales of how people find their pets bring you tears of joy. The tales of how people spent the final hours and days with their pets bring tears of sadness and commiseration.

While inviting us to join Dog Days of Oxford in September, Marlies Sullivan shared the story of Henshew and Alexandra. It's a story of how one human saw hope where others didn't, of how one animal found a second chance as a result of an impulsive -- nay, an intuitive -- act of compassion, and of how a young girl found her first love.

Guinea pigs are near and dear to my family's heart. I never thought I would be a guinea pig mom since I mostly adopted homeless dogs and cats over the last 21 years, but 5 years ago I was at the local pet supply store and it all started there.

As I was led to the back room to pick up some donated dog food for our local shelter, I heard something move amongst the many bags of food and supplies. To my horror, in a very small cage, was a very large hairless guinea pig. He had NO HAIR on his entire bottom except for a bit on his head. He also had an open sore all over his body. Apparently he had been dropped off and, according to the young kid helping me, he was to be picked up to be euthanized. I guess he was thought to be beyond help for the store.

Knowing nothing about guinea pigs, but seeing that this little fellow was SCARED TO DEATH and in desperate need of help, I grabbed him and bought the largest cage they sold as well as the most organic bedding they sold. Next was a trip to my vet who determined that the little guy was sooo stressed, had probably been beaten up by another pig, and was suffering from a skin condition.

Medicine, a good quality guinea pig food, and lots of fresh organic veggies and 3 weeks later he had HAIR. He became my 11-year-old daughter's best friend. He spent so much time outside of his cage on her bed. He even got along quite well with our cats (we have photos of him sleeping with our cat).

Sadly, 6 months ago, we had to put him down. It broke our hearts. He had developed a tumor and was suffering. Our vet had a lot of experience with small animals and said there was nothing we could do. My daughter, now 16, held him as he was put down. We had him cremated in a personal cremation and his ashes are on my daughter's desk.

Henshew was such a special guy. We used to joke that he was spoiled because he only wanted organic veggies, but ohhhh, we loved him so.

Marlies' words tell us a beautiful story. But if I'd never heard the story, the photo she sent me of Henshew and Alexandra would have told me everything that needed to be said about their bond, in a way that words could never make tangible.

Henshew's proud stance makes clear he is right where he wanted to be. He seems to be saying, "I am hers, she is mine. All is right in my world." The joy that radiates from Alexandra's smile makes clear that she's right where she wanted to be.

Those of us who have loved and lost pets know all too well the pain she feels now, the pain we all wish we could avoid but know is part of the deal when you love anyone and then lose them. But we also rejoice in her good fortune to have had such a strong loving bond with him, for we know how much she was transformed by it. That she'll carry it with her always. We know this because we, too, have been transformed by our relationships with our own pets.

I've been told that Alexandra is still struggling with Henshew's loss. I wish I could tell her the pain and grief go away, but they don't. They lessen, or seem to, because our coping skills get better, because we learn to compartmentalize our emotions. The tears are there, ever ready to catch you off guard when you find a photo or meet another human who just lost their own furry friend.

Believe what you will, but I believe that our furry friends never leave us. They just trade the frustrating limitations of aging or sick bodies for angel wings, and walk with us as loyal protectors until we meet again.

Guinea Pigs Gone Wild

This Jerry Bruckheimer guy isn't so bad. First, he gives us "CSI". Then he gives us "Eleventh Hour" (though I'm really peeved CBS didn't have the good sense to renew it for a second season, in spite of it attracting millions of viewers a week).

Now, Bruckheimer gives us...guinea pigs.

Watching TV tonight, I saw the first promo for "G-Force," a 3-D animated movie featuring the voices of Oscar-winning actress Penelope Cruz, Oscar-winning actor Nicholas Cage, award-winning comedian Tracy Morgan, and others.

The movie's tagline is "Gadgets. Gizmos. Guinea Pigs." Think James Bond meets Disney digital animation. The guinea pigs work for the government, and are armed to their plump rumps with high-tech spy equipment to help save the world. (Okay, so as with the plot lines of a lot of children's books and movies, all adults need to just suspend disbelief, tap into their inner child, go with the flow, and have a couple of hours of fun.) The G-Force trailer promises a colorful, fun, imaginative romp just in time for school summer vacations (the movie hits theaters July 24). The clandestine espionage team includes Darwin (the leader, who looks kind of like our Minerva), Blaster (a weapons expert), Juarez (a martial arts expert), and Mooch (the recon expert). The team also has the help of a mole (who is the computer expert...someone clearly having some fun with the stereotype of computer geeks), a cranky and territorial hamster, and a "peanut gallery" of helpful mice.

Like most guinea pig lovers, I'm delighted to see our little friends featured prominently in two theatrical releases in a 12-month period (the last one was "Bedtime Stories" with Adam Sandler. I sort of agree with the folks over at Teaser Trailer (where I found the copy of the movie poster above), one of whom wrote:

I think some movies should never be released… G-Force, the latest Disney movie directed by Hoyt Yeatman, is one of those. Not because because it’s bad, not at all, but rather because I expect my kids to ask for their own team of rodents at home after watching this movie…There is no denying that those rodents are cute though...Fortunately we’ve got a cat at home, so still have an excuse for vetoing the adoption of any guinea pig!

(Kudos to Teaser Trailer for saying "adoption" instead of "purchase"!)

We can only hope that if there's a surge in kids asking their parents for guinea pigs as a result of this movie, the parents will all do their research before bringing any critters home. Otherwise, when the novelty wears off (which, sadly, it too often does), rescues everywhere are going to have their hands full with surrenders.

Pets On Oprah

This past Friday, Oprah devoted her entire show to all things "pets". The show started off with a profile of Puppies Behind Bars, which demonstrated a point I blogged about last week, then proceeded with some unique don't-try-this-at-home wildlife adoption stories.

At the end of the show, she brought some two dozen pet owners and their pets out on stage to help show her huge viewing audience all the kinds of animals that can be adopted: cats, dogs, disabled/special needs animals, guinea pigs, rabbits, hedgehogs, birds, turtles, snakes, and more. Kudos to the show's producer and camera crew for making sure that each animal on stage got camera time. I liked what one owner said about how their pet "filled a space in my heart I didn't know I had."

I liked what Oprah said even more, stressing that we should only adopt pets when we're confident that we have the time, space, budget, and commitment to do so. Gesturing to the people and pets on the stage behind her, she encouraged the adoption option "if you're ready and committed...and it takes commitment, does it not?"

Bravo, Oprah. And thank you.

She's featuring pets in her June issue, which is on newsstands now -- and is pretty hard to miss with the pack of puppies that join her (including her newest pup, Sadie). Oprah's Web site also features a great article titled, Pick the Right Pet for You. Be sure to share the link with anyone you know who is considering bringing home any type of pet!