Of guinea pigs and human family members

[Cosmictadpole]

Does anyone have silly/funny stories about the interactions between your human housemates/family members and your guinea pigs? I thought it might be fun to share some.

Although I am an adult, I still live with my parents. They think it is kind of silly for me to own guinea pigs, but they tolerate their presence. My Mom secretly thinks they're kind of cute, even though she gets mad that they bite and run away, because she feels that they should know we are their friends because we feed them. She attributes too many human emotions to them.

When I go out of town on the weekends to visit my boyfriend, I have my parents look after the guinea pigs. I leave my specially prepared veggies in tupperware containers in the fridge to make it easy for them to feed the pigs. This weekend I called my Mom and asked if she'd remembered to feed them. "Well..." she said, "Your Dad ate their food!" I couldn't believe it. He knows what my guinea pigs eat, and no one ever leaves nicely prepared veggies in the fridge for human consumption, but my Dad has this attitude like everything in the world was put there just for him. Apparently, he saw the salad and didn't have any thought process about why it might be there and just ate it all up. I'm curious to know if he wondered why each tupperware container had only one single tiny baby carrot. He often makes comments about how the guinea pigs eat better than he ever does, so I think he was just jealous and used my absence as an opportunity to eat their supposedly better food.

My boyfriend, who is deathly afraid of mice and other rodents, surpisingly enjoys the guinea pigs. He calls them our kids when talking to our friends and he pretends to hear them say nice (or mean, depending on his mood) things about us. He enthusiastically helped me build their cages and is always really excited about coming up with ideas for toys or upgrades to their homes. He also "wheeks" to them through the phone.

How do your family members or friends interact with or relate to your guinea pigs? I'm always curious about these sorts of things.

[Biscuit]

I don't have many friends, but they love the pigs. One friend mostly stares and is afraid he'll hurt them or do something wrong. I think he knows I'd never forgive him! Another friend and I consider ourselves to be co-owners of the pigs. Before seeing them, my twin sister didn't really "get it" but she quickly grew attached, learned their personalities within a few days, and was generally quite surprised by them.

My mom mostly thinks I need to give up the pigs, get married, and start producing "real" babies asap.

[babybunny]

My husband calls them hamsters (just to annoy me). He also complains about them whenever I am in earshot, but when he thinks I am not looking I see him talking to them and sneaking them lettuce. In reality he likes them as long as he doesn't have to take care of any pets.

My 6 yr old son on the other hand adores them and is vocal about it. He gets very upset if I feed them without him. He loves putting the bowl of veggies in the cage for them. He also runs around "wheeking"and grunting like them and claims to be a guinea pig. (I have tried to get him to eat veggies like them but alas that is too much apparently hehe.)

My sister whom lives with us, thinks I am a little too obsessed with them and mimics how my voice gets distinctly higher when I call for them. She laughs with great delight at my antics. However, she will call when she gets off work and ask if I need her to pick up any veggies for the pigs.

My mom enjoys listening to them when she comes over. She says she had a mini herd of them when she was younger, so they bring her fond memories for her.

Raven, my cat, can't seem to understand why anything would get so excited over anything that isn't cat food. She mostly ignores them but occasionally will go over to say Hi to them, but runs away quickly when Sammy charges towards her.

[RayFay]

My parents like the pigs okay but I'm the main caretaker.

My best friend likes the piggies a lot but she's not allowed to have any of her own. Once she said "Hey can I feed Poppy some lettuce?" So I took Poppy (peruvian type) out and gave her to my friend with some lettuce. So I was off feeding the other pigs and after a minute or so my friend goes, "Hey, Rachel, why isn't Poppy eating the lettuce?" I took one look at my friend and Poppy and BURST out laughing and said "DUDE! You're trying to feed her butt!" She'd gotten Poppy's head and bottom mixed up! LOL

[Cosmictadpole]

RayFay, that is HILARIOUS!! I'm assuming Poppy has really long hair that obscures her face, but still, that's a pretty big mistake!

[catzeye21138]

My first guinea pig got stuck in my dad's sock. He didn't want to cut it open so he held his hand over the sock, over his lap, and shook the sock! It was hilarious to see the poor thing slide inch by inch.