Guinea Pigs need our help!

[Henle15]

To all Guinea Pig enthusiasts:

Recently it was brought to my attention that Petco will be having a Hamster Derby on Saturday, September 8th, 2007. After the Derby there will be a critter run for rats, gerbils, guinea pigs, and chinchillas where those animals must be placed in a ball to race each other. As all or most of you know, those exercise balls are extremely bad for guinea pigs and Chinchillas. I have since written a letter to Petco informing them of this bad idea and hope they will reconsider their idea of having guinea pigs and Chinchillas placed in exercise balls.

Please help me and all those guinea pigs out there and write a letter or call them about this. Let them know that they are promoting dangerous activities for Guinea Pigs and how bad those exercise balls are for the spines and feet of Guinea Pigs.

If you don’t want or have the time to write a letter or call, please email me and I have a generic letter written up that you can send by just changing it to fit your thoughts at the end. I also encourage you to go to your local Petco on that date and let everyone know how harmful those exercise balls are for guinea pigs.

Jeremy Henle
Crazy Cavies Guinea Pig Rescue
(email removed by mod so auto bots don't pick it up- you can email this member through the forum.)

[Henle15]

They also sent this on their portal to all employees about 2 weeks ago before the press release of the Hamster Ball Derby this is quoted word for word

"Customer owned guinea pigs will have the chance to compete in the upcoming Critter Run race. Guinea pigs will be able to participate in appropriately sized plastic ball which gives the guinea pig plenty of space and air to move around comfortably and safely. An older version of the guinea pig care sheet contained a statement that placing a guinea pig in the plastic balls may lead to injury; this statement has been removed as it is not accurate. The newly updated guinea pig care sheet can be found on your store portal. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the guinea pigs participation in the critter run then contact your RCAC".

[Ly&Pigs]

I read this over on gl earlier. I think it's terrible that they are doing this. I hope to encourage many members to write letters to PetNo to get the guinea pig and chin races stopped.

[Piggersrule]

Where is this race going to be? Is it just certain locations or is it nation wide with all the Petno's? I will definately be giving them my two cents worth.

[RayFay]

oh just wait till they here from me! I knew they were doing hamster races but I didn't know they were doing guinea pigs too! UGH!

[Henle15]

I am not sure if every single PetNo is doing it, but most of them are. If you go to the website and click on the banner for the hasmter derby, you can type in your zip code to find the nearest one to you that is participating.

[pigsforlife]

I live in Australia so we do not actually have Petco from what I know. Are you able to send a letter on my behalf?

[landhermie]

[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]I'll make a YouTube video. I doubt that PetNo will listen to letters sent, because they are probably making a lot of money off of it. Maybe a petition or something might work. We should work on spreading the word so people don't take their guinea pigs to it.[/FONT]

[Henle15]

If you live in any other country you can visit their website at petco.com and one in that way.

[pigsforlife]

Yes, that is a good idea Land Hermie. We need lot's of people on this site to be informed, then people can take their information to another forum and so on. People in the community should also be informed about the dangers of using a wheel, maybe posters stuck up around the area of interest.

[landhermie]

I just posted about it in a bunch of places, and also made a neopets page where people can get a code to put an image about it on their HTML webpage. Kyle_lover_Bruce got their homepage at Neopets.com

I also uploaded a video. YouTube - Hamster Derby @ Petco

I will do much more tomorrow. I have to go to bed right now, because I have to wake up earlier than I did today so I can clean my guinea pigs and take a shower before marching band practice tomorrow.

[MotaroRIP]

Stop The Petco Critter Run Petition

Here is a petition I created.

[Pennyspiggies]

signed the petition!

[AmberEyedPiggy]

OK, I have a few friends in America that have friends, so I will ask them to go to the derby and explain to people how PETCO SUCKS!!!!

[AmberEyedPiggy]

I will get my friends to sigh the pettition...Signed it myself and made a comment..

[wickedrodent]

I signed the petition. As well as writing a letter, I might make a personal apperence at one of the stores, and try and incourage those who brought guinea pigs in balls, to not use them. Hm, I might print out some flyers with some care information and the web address to this site.

[Fanch]

This is horrible, it I lived near a petco I would march down there right now and give them a piece of my mind. I signed the petition, and am going to wrtie a letter.