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Got myself into a sticky situation here. We need more prefixes, this is really a Need To Rehome, a Looking To Adopt, and an Advice..all in one. This is also a bit of a rant, but I am rather upset.
People who abuse animals hold a very special, dark place in my heart.
The story begins as I was browsing Craigslist the other day, looking for a nice-but-cheap guinea pig cage because i'm facing a dilemma:
I'm taking our class guinea pig, a teeny cavy who is almost a year old, home for the summer and I don't have a proper cage. When i'd take her home for the weekend or something, she'd stay with my rabbit, Sadie. The two'd get along great and snuggle together for the first 2 days, but if it was a 3-day weekend or something, eventually the piggy'd get bored and start messing with Sadie. Summer is long, and so naturally that agreement wouldn't work out for the entire time..or even a week.
I stumbled upon this one listing for a cage, that said it came with a free adult female.
It's always sketchy when people say it like that.. I mean shouldn't it be the other way around?? but regardless, the pictures looked alright, and i've been looking for a companion for my little one for quite a while.
well, when we get there.. both the cavy and her cage are in HORRIBLE condition. when the mum told the girl to take the piggie out, the girl made this disgusted face, rolled her eyes, and grabbed the piggie by her stomach with one hand. the way she offered her to me? upside-down and flailing.
containing my rage,
I listen as the mum tells us how sad they are to see her go and says how they've spent sooo much time with her and she's sooo well cared for and she hopes I will continue to care for her. She then asks if I have other pets. when I say yes, she says..in a disgusted voice.. 'oh, so she'll be just a pet to you?'
through the glass door, I saw a family member kick their cat halfway through the conversation.
She wanted $20 for the cage and fixtures, some cedar chips that the lady said she LOVES, some expired alfalfa pellets, MORE expired alfalfa pellets, and some unopened but still expired timothy hay. Yayyy. when I say expired, I say 'oh look it says Best Used By at least two months ago'
After we left, I put the piggie in my lap. She really was a sweetie. Terrified at first, but then she realized I wasn't going to kill her and was happy. Dandruff, dirt, and tons of hair came off on my fingers. I instructed my friend(who'd graciously agreed to drive me there) to pull over at the nearest trash bin.. nothing that lady had given us, except the cage, the igloo, and the water bottle. And the piggie, of course.
The cedar bedding was quality stuff. It made our eyes water the entire way to the trash bin, which we found after about 10 minutes of driving. Into that bin, I also dumped the contents of the cage minus the pig and the supplies. About 3 months worth of guinea pig poop, wet newspaper, and maggots.
My friend and I dropped just her off at my boyfriend's place, and went to another friend's place to work on the cage. It took an entire half-gallon of ammonia to clean that thing. Most of you cannot even begin to imagine how terrible this cage was, and if you can I am really sorry. To give a small taste of how terrible, i'd like to inform you all that when I initially poured the ammonia in, there was smoke coming off and I was terrified it was reacting with the plastic. After the smoke cleared, I was ecstatic to find that the poop was what had dissolved, not the cage. xD Spending 4 hours coughing and dying over a thing of ammonia with a PAINT SCRAPER isn't exactly the best way to spend an afternoon..but it was well worth it not to put her back into such a terrible cage again.
Examining her feet, I see that her back left one has almost two-inch-long nails..and that all the other ones have been newly-clipped. How beautiful, the people were trying to impress me. the fact that they let them get that bad shocks me. the fact that they forgot one, well.. that's also a bit sad..but i'm almost glad they did because that almost underlined how much work and care this piggy'd need.. when the nails were trimmed, they were brittle and CRUSHED rather than neatly coming off like a healthy animal's nails should.
Then my boyfriend texted me the horrible news: 'she' was a He.
I hadn't bothered to check, simply out of shock, and probably wouldn't have turned my back on him even if I HAD known..
SO, now you see the dilemma. I can, and plan to, nurse him back to health. I have more experience with animal husbandry in general than with cavies specifically, but I learn fast and know how to research. He's already making progress, though. After a bath, a couple hours of being lovingly petted, and some better food(he REALLY seemed to enjoy the fruit my boyfriend gave him!), he seems a lot happier and is definitely a lot softer. Giant flakes of dandruff aren't spewing everywhere, either!
Advice, please? I shall post pictures of the poor baby a bit later..
and if anyone knows of someone in northern Virginia that would be willing to take him... I know there's already a huge overpopulation, and I saw plenty of cute young sous that i'd love to adopt as a companion for my cute young sou. But before I even think seriously about trying to find my piggie a friend, I need to find a HOME for this other one.
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Originally Posted by Ly&Pigs 
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