Late introduction

[Lakota]

I'm late with this introduction because I've already posted like 12 posts in other threads. I'm sorry about that.

Anyways, I'm Allison and I'm studying to be a vet tech. I don't own any guinea pigs at the moment (everyone else in my family has mutliple animal allergies), but I am baby-sitting two for the month. They're to be used at my school so we can learn how to handle guinea pigs. So many people want to adopt the pigs we use in this program that my 2 already have homes!

I suppose I can talk about these 2 guinea pigs even though they're not mine. They are sisters and about 2 to 3 months old. They came from PetSmart. Both are Crested. One is definitely an American Crested, but the other might qualify as an English Crested. It's a bit hard to tell because that one happens to be a calico.

The American is gold (or buff-- I'm not too familiar with guinea pig colours), and I'm calling her Taffy. The calico has patches of tan and dark brown but only on her head! The rest of her body is white. I'm calling her Rudy. Both of them are high-strung little buggers; I don't think they've been socialized with people too much in the past. >_< Taffy is a bit shyer and often cuddles with you once you catch her. Rudy is more active, harder to catch, and won't sit still when you hold her. She's an explorer! Oddly enough despite being harder to catch, she is the only one of the 2 that will eat food from your hand.

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I also own 3 dogs (one of whom came from my school) and a full-grown igunna. The oldest is a yellow lab named Misty; she is very smart... a bit too smart. She knows how to open the gate to our yard, so we have to be sure to lock it. Misty won't run away on her own, but she will follow if our other dogs get loose. She'll be 12 this October. She was my first dog (though she was not my family's first dog); I got her during the holidays when I was in 7th grade. Misty is a very good girl who gets along with all people, but she hates other dogs and cats. It's a bit weird that she hates other dogs because we did everything to socialize her as a pup; equally weird is that she only started disliking new dogs when she turned 4 or 5. She still gets along with the other dogs she knew when she was under 5 years old to. Misty was very close to my family's first dog, Odie, and was devasted when he died 2 years ago.

My second dog is Duke; he's a field English setter, meaning he has less feathers than the ones you see in dog shows. He came from school, and we took intially took him on as a foster for a breed rescue. But my parents insisted on keeping him. Duke considers himself to be my dog and follows me everywhere. He is a typical alpha male; however despite being unaltered, he does not show an interest in roaming or acting very hyper. He only acts like a boss towards our other 2 dogs. When we first got him, he was underweight and had kennel cough. Two days later his kennel cough became pneumonia, and he was taken back to my school for treatment. He has since recovered completely. But that's the reason we still haven't fixed him-- he lost too much weight during that! We think he's between 1 and 3 years old.

The third dog isn't actually my dog; she belongs to my mom. Rikki came from one of mom's former co-workers whose Yorkie had an unplanned litter. Rikki is a bit unique in that she was the only one of her litter with a different father. Her brothers are definitely part poodle; in fact the Yorkie's owner knew about that mating. But Rikki is part dachshund. Because it is possible for a female dog to mate with different males and have pups in the same litter with different fathers, everyone assumes Rikki's father was a smooth-haired dachshund. Her mom was quite a flirt! Anyways, Rikki is a complete brat who doesn't listen or behave; that's because mom spoils and babies her, and of course she takes advantage of that. She will be 9 this June. I call her a rat because she looks a lot like a big, black rat! Rikki has always been very interested in our other pets; she has even protected Rudy and Taffy from Duke!

The igunna is my brother's. His name is Ida Jones after one of my mom's patients; we named him before he was sexed so that's why he has a girl's name. We used to live in Cuba where igunnas were native species, and when we moved back to the States, my brother wanted an igunna. Our parents put off getting him one for about 5 years though. Ida came into the family a year before Misty. He was very tiny!! Now he's 4 feet long... counting his tail. My mom didn't think we would have Ida this long; I'm sad to say that mom expected Ida to live only a few years. We really weren't planning on him living this long, but now that he's here to stay we feel it's our responsibility to care for him the best we can. Ida is a fairly boring pet; the only neat thing about him is that he is very particular about who he likes. Because of the location of his cage, he became close to our first dog Odie and now has become close to Rikki.

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One of my favourite pets as a child was my guinea pig. I still miss him. I love guinea pigs even though I can't adopt any until I move out of my parents' home. We used to own 6 guinea pigs though.... but not all at once. The first one was my brother's; then I adopted one. My brother's died due to her pregnancy, and he adopted another female. About a year later we took on another female that no one else wanted; she had been for sale at our favourite petstore for 4 months! The two females were rehomed due to allergies, and mine died of old age. The final 2 guinea pigs were adopted from SuperPets when I was in high school. My mom was a teacher then and wanted them to be class pets. However the female died from a fracture complication, and rather than keep the male alone, we donated him to another teacher.

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I hope to post here occansionally so I can learn more about guinea pigs for when I can finally have one again.


(I hope this wasn't too long; thanks for reading though )

[Wheek Weak]

Hi Lakota!

Good luck on your vet tech training. Please learn as much as you can about the proper care of guinea pigs. One of the main problems many piggy slaves have is finding cavy savvy vets.

This is a fantastic site for learning more about rescuing and the proper care of guinea pigs. It will be invaluable for your line of work - absorb as much as you can from these pages and pass it on to others.

Also, please, please, please encourage people to adopt unwanted cavies from rescues, humane societies, private homes, etc. Pet store purchasing only causes more unwanted guinea pigs that get dumped. Not to mention making "blood" money for the breeding mills supplying the pet stores.

[mommyoffive]

Hello, I'm going to western career collage this october to become a vet tech! Welcome to the forum!

[Lakota]

Originally Posted by Wheek Weak

Hi Lakota!

Good luck on your vet tech training.

Thanks! I want to be a good vet tech, so I hope I do good in school.

Please learn as much as you can about the proper care of guinea pigs. One of the main problems many piggy slaves have is finding cavy savvy vets.

That's what I want to help improve. Even though I won't be doing surgery or prescribing medications (vet techs can't in small practices), I can at least help the vet with some aspects. You know... provide suggestions, stuff like that.

Besides vet techs are considered important in telling owners about proper care and such, so I can help guinea pig owners that way. Maybe having an informed staff memeber will be comforting to guinea pig owners even if the vet isn't as informed.

This is a fantastic site for learning more about rescuing and the proper care of guinea pigs. It will be invaluable for your line of work - absorb as much as you can from these pages and pass it on to others.

I thought so too. I want to learn some information (and explain things to you guys from the medical side of things) so I'll have an edge on my up-coming course. Everything I learn now in school (and here) will be put to good use, so I can also pass this stuff to owners in the future.

I also need some info now, so I can make sure Rudy and Taffy are happy while I'm watching them. I do plan on including the link to this site for their new owner. They'll definitely need this site when it's time to increase the cage size when Rudy and Taffy are older.... because I had to use the size for one guinea pig (the correct size didn't fit on the table).

(This is off-topic, but Rudy and Taffy love their new cage! Thanks for the wonderful tips about making it; it's literally 3 times the size of their old cage!)

Also, please, please, please encourage people to adopt unwanted cavies from rescues, humane societies, private homes, etc. Pet store purchasing only causes more unwanted guinea pigs that get dumped. Not to mention making "blood" money for the breeding mills supplying the pet stores.

Oh I know! Whenever someone says they're looking for a new pet, I advise them to try the area's shelters or rescues before reputable breeders (I warn them about puppy-mill type places too). There are so many wonderful animals needing homes at shelters and rescues. My area simply didn't have guinea pig rescue when we adopted our first 4 guinea pigs. And we couldn't find any at the shelters when adopted the next two.

I mentioned in another post that my school is willing to work with guinea pig rescues with neutering and health care. We're willing to do neutering and general care for free; we just ask to use the guinea pig for a month so we can learn how to handle them, take blood samples, etc. There are still no takers!! Hence the school has to get guinea pigs from PetSmart. We always have a long waiting list of people wanting to adopt them when the course is over.

Hello, I'm going to western career collage this october to become a vet tech! Welcome to the forum!

Thank you. I think you'll enjoy the courses for vet tech; you get a lot of hands on experience during the school year. It's a lot of fun... but also a lot of work. Good luck with it!



Again thank you both for the welcome!!

[JarBax]

Hi, and welcome!

Oops, I've been here for a wee while now, and still haven't introduced myself formally! Don't feel bad about that one!

So good to hear you are open to learning as much as you can about good guinea care! You've come to the right place!

[seagirl96]

Hi Lakota, nice avatar!

It's nice that you want to come here and talk about the piggies staying with you. Foster parents are great in my book. I realize this is for a month for school but you could probably become a foster parent on a regular basis if you hook up with a rescue. Careful though. Once they get their little piggy paws in your house and your heart, it's hard to get them out again.

[Lakota]

Originally Posted by JarBax

Hi, and welcome!

Oops, I've been here for a wee while now, and still haven't introduced myself formally! Don't feel bad about that one!

So good to hear you are open to learning as much as you can about good guinea care! You've come to the right place!

Thank you. And, ummm, welcome to the forums (not sure I could say that though since you've been around longer than me...)

I want to learn about good care for all domestic animals, exotic animals, and even some farm animals. That way I can have good advice for those owners. Even if I can't provide the info, I want to be able to tell them where they could go online for good information about their pets. So that kind of means I have to be open-minded until I learn more.

Originally Posted by seagirl96

Hi Lakota, nice avatar!

It's nice that you want to come here and talk about the piggies staying with you. Foster parents are great in my book. I realize this is for a month for school but you could probably become a foster parent on a regular basis if you hook up with a rescue. Careful though. Once they get their little piggy paws in your house and your heart, it's hard to get them out again.

Thanks for the welcome. I take it this av is of your pig then? I like it because it looks like my old male guinea pig. I still regret that I never managed to take a picture of him.

My parents already said never to bring guinea pigs home again!! So this will be the first and last time we foster guinea pigs. Too bad-- I like having the girls around and would love to foster other guinea pigs. I have to wait until I move out to own or foster guinea pigs again. I hate that my parents and brother are allergic to animals.