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Chat Anyone Else get Annoyed...

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Guinepigmom_2.0

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When your friends called your guinea pigs "hamsters" - this grinds my gears so much! Especially when at work my coworkers as me how are my "hamsters" doing. theyre not hamsters! heesh! not that i don't like hamsters, but clearly, guinea pigs are way bigger, friendlier, and much much more social compared to hamsters....i get sooo frustrated to the point where i have snapped at one of my friends lo l ....
 

Guinepigmom_2.0

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This used to annoy me a lot more, and it still does if it's someone to whom I've mentioned multiple times that they're guinea pigs, not hamsters. But the annoyance there is mostly that they haven't listened to me.

Honestly, I think the worse thing is when people hear I have guinea pigs and immediately go into a story about how their old guinea pig died horribly, usually because of bad care or their own negligence, which happens a lot more than you would expect.


That seems to be the pattern with me as well. Instead of guinea pigs they talk about their hamsters instead, which is a different species so its like ummmm how is this related to me having guinea pigs lol...
MY one friend just kept telling me how he had three hamsters but not as cute as mine and I got mad at him because i told him and everyone else they were guinea pigs llol..his remark was " same thing" - ugh people are crazy.

And the death stories are even crazier.
 

Soecara

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It does annoy me, but for a bit of a different reason. We don't even have hamsters here in Australia, they are illegal, there are none in the country and you cannot import them. So when someone mentions my hamsters i have a bit of a forehead slap moment and explain that no they are guinea pigs, there are no hamsters in Australia.

I've heard some truly horrific "oh i had a guinea pig and it died" stories.
 

MerryFriarTuck

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I can relate to all this, too!!! It grates on my nerves because so many people underappreciate just how personable, social, sweet, and sensitive guinea pigs are...and that leads to the awful "dispensable pocket pet" belief. ( not that any small pet animal is dispensable; just that I think guinea pigs suffer for it even more than, say, hamsters, because they have even greater needs. ) Or when people act surprised when you say you love your piggies so much.

To people ignorant of this I try to use prairie dogs as a comparison to guinea pigs. I've never had a prairie dog, so I don't how accurate it is, but it's one of the few explanations that help people see them as more than hamsters and different than rabbits. I say they're so social, vocal and talkative, and live in small groups together in the wild like prairie dogs do.
 

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I work in a small company and most of my colleagues have dogs and one has a cat. My colleagues periodically ask me about my pets but of course they don't remember I have guinea pigs. So I've been asked about my hamsters, gerbils, mice, etc. It is kind of funny in a weird way. The part that gets me is they are shocked when I tell them I take my piggies to the vet. If they take their dogs and cats to the vet, why would I not take my piggies to the vet when they need medical care?
 

Beatrix187

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This literally happened to my sister two days ago! She was snapchatting her friends and they kept saying hamster, adn when she corrected them they said "there's no difference anyways" or something. Basically everyone except my close friends and family call them guinea pigs consistently, lol. I'm surprised people can't see the difference, as they are a lot more different than you would expect.
 

Guinepigmom_2.0

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I work in a small company and most of my colleagues have dogs and one has a cat. My colleagues periodically ask me about my pets but of course they don't remember I have guinea pigs. So I've been asked about my hamsters, gerbils, mice, etc. It is kind of funny in a weird way. The part that gets me is they are shocked when I tell them I take my piggies to the vet. If they take their dogs and cats to the vet, why would I not take my piggies to the vet when they need medical care?


Haha it is strange, my coworker every Monday morning now asks me "how are the boys doing" - and I'm like they're good haha, but at first they all judged me for having guinea pigs and how its waste of time, money, vet bills etc. and im like well you don't understand the love and value of any animal as a pet. I am very loving animal person and the fact that they say to me about how "Oh why not get a dog instead"
strange how yours don't think guinea pigs go to the vet.
every pet has to have a vet if anything happens.
i guess some people just don't have a broad interest beyond cats or dogs as pets so they don't think about other possible pets as guinea pigs or hamsters.
 

Guinepigmom_2.0

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This literally happened to my sister two days ago! She was snapchatting her friends and they kept saying hamster, adn when she corrected them they said "there's no difference anyways" or something. Basically everyone except my close friends and family call them guinea pigs consistently, lol. I'm surprised people can't see the difference, as they are a lot more different than you would expect.


I had a hamster named Peaches - she's rainbow bridge now..but she was a teddy hamster ( small)
They have different body structures, toes, everything is different even their diet!

my roommate i think is the only friend who actually references to them as guinea pigs because she had one growing up named Patches.
Lol.
 

Beatrix187

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It does annoy me, but for a bit of a different reason. We don't even have hamsters here in Australia, they are illegal, there are none in the country and you cannot import them. So when someone mentions my hamsters i have a bit of a forehead slap moment and explain that no they are guinea pigs, there are no hamsters in Australia.

That's so interesting they are illegal! I have never heard of that, but I just googled it and it says it's because it could be a possible threat to wildlife if let loose?
 

Beatrix187

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Yes and also their cages are so different. Thankfully I knew someone who knew the difference because she said "guinea pigs can't go in the balls". Lol, but she also owned two young piggies.
 

Guinepigmom_2.0

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That's so interesting they are illegal! I have never heard of that, but I just googled it and it says it's because it could be a possible threat to wildlife if let loose?


wait what? hamsters are threatening to wildlife in australia? lol
hamsters are so small LOL how are they threatening to the wildlife - thats hysterical
 

Beatrix187

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wait what? hamsters are threatening to wildlife in australia? lol
hamsters are so small LOL how are they threatening to the wildlife - thats hysterical

I think it is because if they are let loose, they could breed very quickly and use up all the resources the natural wildlife would use. Like an invasive species. Still, the idea of banning them all together is a little much I would think, but it does sound funny when you just say they illegal, haha.
 

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This is what I miss about being a vet tech -- the confusion between hamsters, rats, gerbils, guinea pigs, etc never existed when I used to work with animal-people! lol Now that I work in the human-healthcare sector, I try to remind myself to be patient with my non-animal-people coworkers and also try to make light of it as well as educate them whenever they get guinea pigs mixed up with another pet rodent.

A few of my coworkers have even expressed a (mild) interest in my knowledge of pigs and how I care for them, I think probably because it's something entirely different from they way they've ever thought about "pocket pets". When Casper was neutered last month, one of my coworkers was amazed to learn that there are vets that work on animals other than dogs and cats and that guinea pigs can have surgery! I couldn't help but tease her a little bit and asked, "What do you think the zoo does when one of their animals gets sick? There have to be vets for other types of animals, silly!" They still don't really get it, of course, but I like to think that I may have opened their minds -- a little -- to a wider world in which "pocket pets" have a much greater potential than conventionally believed. ;)

However... they DO NOT like to see photos of my pigs, because they think their pink eyes are scary. lol (I happen to LOVE my boys' pink eyes!!)
 

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wait what? hamsters are threatening to wildlife in australia? lol
hamsters are so small LOL how are they threatening to the wildlife - thats hysterical

They are a treat to local wildlife because they could out compete them for food and other resources. They could also pose a treat to some native plants if they were to establish as pests in the wild. We have many small native wildlife here that are already endangered or even have become extinct due to the effects of other non-native pests such as rabbits, rats, mice, feral cats, feral dogs and foxes, adding on top of the habitat loss due to us humans.

Honestly i believe the only reason guinea pigs haven't become pests are they simply can't survive in the wild here, summer is too hot. There are too many people that are simply irresponsible and will toss their pets into the wild when they don't want them any more to trust people to do the right thing.
 

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As I read these stories I can’t help but think of the episode of Fawlty Towers when Manuel kept trying to convince people he had purchased a Siberian Hamster, when clearly he had been sold a rat. Those of you who never watched the show, it involved John Cleese as a rude hotel owner, and the Siberian Hamster got loose and ended up in the kitchen.
 

Soecara

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@Soecara. I was wondering if ferrets are also illegal in Australia?

They are not allowed in Queensland or the Northern territory but they can be kept as pets in all other states. I think it is the same situation with most small mammals though where you can't import them but pet populations already existed before the import ban was put in place. Rabbits are also not allowed to be kept as pets in Queensland

This all makes me think of this older news story https://www.theguardian.com/austral...ueensland-police-illegal-pet-was-a-guinea-pig
 

Guinepigmom_2.0

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They are a treat to local wildlife because they could out compete them for food and other resources. They could also pose a treat to some native plants if they were to establish as pests in the wild. We have many small native wildlife here that are already endangered or even have become extinct due to the effects of other non-native pests such as rabbits, rats, mice, feral cats, feral dogs and foxes, adding on top of the habitat loss due to us humans.

Honestly i believe the only reason guinea pigs haven't become pests are they simply can't survive in the wild here, summer is too hot. There are too many people that are simply irresponsible and will toss their pets into the wild when they don't want them any more to trust people to do the right thing.

That's horrible...people should be arrested for animal abuse..thats animal abuse. why get a pet if you decide down the road you no longer can take care of it..such annoyance. having a pet is life plan, you can't just give up when things get tough. geez, i lose faith in humanity
 

Guinepigmom_2.0

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As I read these stories I can’t help but think of the episode of Fawlty Towers when Manuel kept trying to convince people he had purchased a Siberian Hamster, when clearly he had been sold a rat. Those of you who never watched the show, it involved John Cleese as a rude hotel owner, and the Siberian Hamster got loose and ended up in the kitchen.

LOL never heard of the show but sounds funny!
 

ItsaZoo

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It was pretty hilarious since the Hotel Inspector was one of the people dining there, and everyone was scrambling to find the missing “hamster.”

I had a co-worker who kept referring to Lacey as a hamster just because she couldn’t remember what Lacey was. When I explained she weighed about 2 1/2 pounds and was the size of a sub sandwich that kind of illustrated the difference. But then another co-worker got upset because I compared her size to food, and in some countries guinea pigs are food. So this is a losing battle.
 
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Guinepigmom_2.0

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It was pretty hilarious since the Hotel Inspector was one of the people dining there, and everyone was scrambling to find the missing “hamster.”

I had a co-worker who kept referring to Lacey as a hamster just because she couldn’t remember what Lacey was. When I explained she weighed about 2 1/2 pounds and was the size of a sub sandwich that kind of illustrated the difference. But then another co-worker got upset because I compared her size to food, and in some countries guinea pigs are food. So this is a losing battle.

Oh yes, my Peruvian friend kept asking me if he could eat my guinea pigs because in Peru they eat them.....i felt uncomfortable told him that they're not his dinner...

Weird your coworker got upset over size comparison....thats a strange thing to be upset about.

i just need my close friends to understand they're not hamsters. that's all i ask lol. its frustrating to explain sometimes too
 
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