Female pair Fort Myers FL

[jrv4babies]

I saw today a female pair at Gulf Coast Humane Society Fort Myers FL. I'm not real experienced with cavies but did say Hi (Pick them up) etc. They seemed like pretty nice piggies to me. I was just not on the market for two and certainly didn't want to split them from each other. I already have a single female I am looking to pair up.

Few red flags for me though...staff kept joking around and calling them rat food, they told me there isn't any "bring yours in to see if they get along" etc that you just bring them home and if there are problems they don't want to hear about it. Also they have them listed separately on their website (which is how I ended up there looking at them, I didn't realize the only two they had were a bonded pair), I don't think they have a vested interest in keeping them together.

Please don't get me wrong. I'm sure these are not high paying jobs and in many ways these staff otherwise seemed nice. I am sure they love dogs and or cats and that is how/why they ended up working there. The young lady at the front desk seemed caring. She was SUPER busy so I never ended up talking with her about the guinea pigs, but I did (yes I'm a sucker) end up adopting a hamster while I was there and she seemed in tune with small pets when I was discussing the hamster with her. It was other staff (probably their dog walkers) who were making the comments as they were in and out of the lobby.

I think one also commented that it was just recently they started taking lil critters like this, so I think it was just more of an ignorance issue.

Regardless, these lil sweeties need rescuing so I just wanted to help get their story out there!!!

 

[pinky]

I think I'd call back and speak to the person who manages the place and let them know about the staff. They're a non-profit and rely on donations to stay afloat so they should be concerned if their staff represents them so poorly.

 

[mufasa]

Very sad, but unfortunately most shelters that focus on cats and dogs know little about piggies. That's how it was at the place where I adopted Borat. He was in a too-small cage and was separated from a cagemate he came in with literally earlier in the day that I adopted him. Worst of all, they told me he was a girl. Thank goodness for quarantine or he and Amy would have had little Bor-Ams. I know they don't mean any harm, but it's sad to think some shelters actually inadvertently contribute to the over population problem. I suspect whoever adopted his cagemate thought it was a girl, too, when it was likely either a boar or pregnant.