I love this site but...

[TwilightStar]

I've had three guinea pigs in my life, a while crested one and a little golden colored short haired guinea pig. My first one was given to me by my uncle, my cousin did not take care of her. They gave me a salt block, a tiny cage,a large house, a water bottle and some alfalfa. She lived to be around 5 years old, and later on, my golden colored guinea pig lived to be four.

I love this site very much. Before we found it, we bought another guinea pig from the pet store. We knew that our old cage was a little small, and cages were terribly expensive. Then we learned about CC cages. My sister and I skipped lunch for a entire week to buy the grids on our own, and talked to over a dozen of stores to find the coroplast. We bought her timothy hay and changed the pellets we were using when we found that it could make guinea pigs obese. In fact, we decided to get our guinea pig a sister, from a animal shelter.

Point is, what you guys are doing is great, but the way you guys act is all wrong.

Obviously anyone on this site cares, you need not make them feel like horrible sinners for not being aware of every detail.

If you guys were kinder about suggestions, you could make a bigger difference!

It's not anyone's fault that they believe the pet store workers, the main thing is that they are here on your site!

I've bought guinea pigs and had them live in a small cage and feed them things that I didn't know was poor choices. I did not have access to the internet, only books for my library. I'm sad that I could have made my guinea pig's lives better, but I simply did not know back then.

Now I do. I'm going to adopt a new friend for my guinea pig to keep her company. I'm going to throw things out of my room to make the cage as big as I can. I save up my lunch money to buy her food and bedding. You guys have changed one person's ways.

But can't you guys be a little nicer?

If you were nicer about your suggestions, it will be easy to educate.

When you're rude, you put people off.

So, basically what I'm saying is, I love you guys so much for making this site.
But, if you were nicer to people like me (Who believe the old way because of our parents are general education) then you can help spread your cause easier.

[5guinea5pig5]

The only rude people on here are people who say we "bash" them but we don't. If you can show me examples of us being rude then go ahead but right know I don't believe you.

[TwilightStar]

Hm?
I never said anyone was rude to me. And I didn't bash any site moderators, I said I love you guys.
I just read posts saying people's cages are too small,etc. And I'm like...Aw...they tried so hard.

[TwilightStar]

I guess what I'm saying is, we care here. Because we're here, we care. So, educate us nicely, instead of putting us down when we give our best effort.

[TwilightStar]

And 5guinea5pig5, I want to thank you a million times for what you said on my cage post, by the way. :)
No one was rude to me, it just disturbed me what I read looking through pictures people put on here. Kinda scares me that I'll get yelled at.

[5guinea5pig5]

We ask them nicely to please build the appropriate cage as soon as they can. It's not up to us when they do it's up to them. We're just suggesting they do that because it's best for the pigs.

[TwilightStar]

Ok, I guess I'll leave it at that.
You've guys helped me enough, still makes me sad when I see people like me bashed, but yeah.

I reeaaallllly do love this site, I just want you guys to know that everyone here is trying, and it's not their fault that they made bad choices.

[5guinea5pig5]

Wow? When did we bash them? Did you read my posts above? We're not bashing them. We're helping them so there cavies can have healthier happier lives. So basically we're not bashing them you're trying to bash us.

[TwilightStar]

I'm not trying to bash you at all.
Tell me where I said anything rude about you guys,please?

I can look up some pictures where someone probably tried really hard to make a cage and all they get is negative responses. Not saying from you, not saying a mod even. Just general comments.
There's a difference between making people feel bad and making suggestions.

[5guinea5pig5]

Let me see the pictures.

[TwilightStar]

Ok, let me find some. :)

[5guinea5pig5]

13 minutes later nothing...

[TwilightStar]

I'm sorry I did not bookmark these. :)

Do tell me why you must demand me to find something I saw, and yell at me for asking people to be nicer, when I went out and made a cage for my guinea pig and changed my ways.

[5guinea5pig5]

So I know you're not trying to "bash" us for no reason.

[TwilightStar]

How am I bashing you, tell me this first.

[TwilightStar]

Ok here we go,
"...I hope that this is her all time cage and that's just the potty. I hope she is NEVER locked up in that.. It's horrible.. Small.. You didn't clarify- is that play pen always attached and for her to get out and run? She needs more floortime than that anyways- Bunnies need a LARGE floortime area at LEAST 3 hours a day.

Are you getting her a buddy?"

Want the link? Someone went to so much trouble to make her rabbit a cage to have it called horrible. This is exactly what I am talking about.

[TwilightStar]

It's the words we use here. You can say that or you can say this-
"While it's a nice cage, I think you should expand a bit to give the bunny more room to move around. And is the area attached to it a playpen, if so I think you should increase it's size too. Good effort though!"

This is much kinder to say, and gets the same point across. :D

[Amsley246]

I've never had anyone be rude to me, but I have see some other threads were some people came off a little, strong perhaps? I know there are some dumb people in the world who actually deserve it, but some people just plain don't know. Everyone has different circumstances and some people on here, not going to name drop that's just wrong, jump very quickly to conclusions. Not everyone is cruel hearted, some people just plain out make mistakes. I also know that people hear are only typing messages and with that, you don't see the emotions behind them, so something that could be trying to help out cold sound like they're trying to cram something down your throat. And like Twilight star said, we're brought up the way our parents raised up and whatever they taught us. Back in their day, there was no internet and animals were just animals, no one really took their feeling into such consideration like people today do. Not saying people never loved their animals, we just don't have the knowledge that we have today about them. They had no internet to look up what guinea pigs eat, or how much cage space they need. We should just apperciate what we have now and what we're doing for our pets and enlighten people.

[Amsley246]

We also need to take into consideration that the internet has millions of sites. Some give false information, which from firsthand, I've seen a few of them. Some people are unfortunate enough to find them and listen to the information they give. There's absolutely nothing anyone can do about those, as there will always be there.

[Paula]

When you post pictures on a public site, when so many people are going to be seeing it, you have to be realistic about the responses you're going to get. If someone thinks it's horrible, or that your animals are ugly, they are apt to say so, I think.

As for being rude, or mean, people here care very much about guinea pigs and their well being, but not so much about people's feelings.

Honestly, if I was doing something wrong or potentially dangerous for my pigs, I'd really rather hear that and not have something sugar-coated so that I'm not upset by something. The problem with making things "easy" is that you can often miss the point that needs to be made.

Another thing, is that the admin and moderators here work very hard to make sure people browsing the photo galleries get a good idea of what proper care is, and that's why the rules probably seem kind of harsh.