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Adopt vs. Buy Impulse buyers, stupid questions, etc

4boipigs

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I work at a vet in a pet store. I get a lot of annoying/stupid guinea pig questions. I hate impulse buyers and people who don't google. There's no other way to put it. Instead of calling me and asking idiotic questions, you could have learned how to care for this unfortunate purchase already. You could have thought about this purchase instead of looking at the cute little baby and instantly wanting it. Once I had a coworker tell me about someone who brought up a pig in a shoe box and it was covered in ringworm and apparently she didn't wish to pay for treatment. Today I got a call about if a pig can eat newspaper, and if it can't eat newspaper than what toys can it have? What kind of set up is this animal in if you have to ask me that? I recommended Oxbow toys but let's face it, the animal will die a lonely, painful death or it'll become another animal dumped at an animal shelter or abandoned outside.

Of course it isn't just pigs, it's other animals too. Yesterday a bird was returned because the owners cut the wings so short, she became injured to the point where she won't be able to fly again. She couldn't be resold, so a coworker took her.

Another time someone had abandoned a bearded dragon outside in 30 degrees. Coworker took that one too, and it had been fed nothing but freeze dried junk so it was very ill.

I don't have anything against the pet store I work in. My coworkers are very smart and concerned for the animals they have to sell. It's the customers who are the problem.
 

4boipigs

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Oh I forgot the whole reason I made the post...the gal today said 'are guinea pigs the ones that run on the wheels?'. Luckily she listened to when I explained to her how that would damage their spine.
 

TheGuineaPigGal

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>:/

Wow. That is a pretty common question people have asked me, I am obviously the guinea pig crazy person at my school, so everybody comes up to me with questions about hamsters and stuff. I had to explain to them that a guinea pig is definitely NOT a hamster.
 

Soecara

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To be honest even I got questions about "guinea pigs" when they were actually thinking of hamsters.

The strange thing about that is I live in Australia and we don't even have hamsters here. I would even have to explain that to people, not only are guinea pigs not hamsters, but there are no hamsters in this country.
 

GuineaPigQueen1

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I agree people can be so annoying when they don’t research. I talk about my piggies at my school and some of my classmates want one then I said that they take up tons of space and time and that they are very expensive and need a partner and much more. ( Sorry about the grammar) The other day I was looking at rabbit cages to see how big they were on petsmart and they were under the guinea pig standards ( I know rabbits don’t live in cages and hutches.) So I get you guys.
 

4boipigs

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I'm grateful we only see cats and dogs. Another branch of the chain I work at see exotics. I'd probably quit my job very fast if I had to deal with that, because most of the exotics calls comes from people who bought pets from that pet store.
 

Rosiethecutepig

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I hate hate HATE it when dumb people are like "what a cute hamster!" and it's a guinea pig, not a freaking hamster!
 

TheGuineaPigGal

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People also tend to call guinea pigs rats? Is this a joke or literal stupidity?
 

teambenji543

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I remember once when I first got my guinea pigs, I took them out and my friend screamed, “you got hamsters?” How do you even mistake guinea pigs and hamsters?
 

4boipigs

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This sort of fits into the topic and really bothered me today. Guy comes into get his pig's nails cut. He's taken the pig to another branch which does see exotics. I scroll thru his account to see how he keeps the pig...alone, in a 12x18 cage. I take the pig to help with nails, and he has this crusty, greasy patch on his back with bits of dried blood. Our doctor is busy so I can't ask her about it, so I make note of it and tell the guy he needs to go back to the vet. It was so nasty and I didn't want to the touch the poor pig. Makes me want to come home and hug my pigs and do whatever I can for them. It makes me think of how life may have been for my boys before I got them.
 

GuineaPigQueen1

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This sort of fits into the topic and really bothered me today. Guy comes into get his pig's nails cut. He's taken the pig to another branch which does see exotics. I scroll thru his account to see how he keeps the pig...alone, in a 12x18 cage. I take the pig to help with nails, and he has this crusty, greasy patch on his back with bits of dried blood. Our doctor is busy so I can't ask her about it, so I make note of it and tell the guy he needs to go back to the vet. It was so nasty and I didn't want to the touch the poor pig. Makes me want to come home and hug my pigs and do whatever I can for them. It makes me think of how life may have been for my boys before I got them.
People today.... This happens way too much because pet stores and other people put out wrong information. I hope the pig get a friend and adjustments, by adjustments I mean changing everything.
 

4boipigs

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I literally dread coming to work because of stuff like this. I'm so glad we see just cats and dogs.

It was bad when I first started. For some reason we had a lot of calls from people trying to get rid of pigs. That is how I ended up with one of my boar pairs.
 

Rosiethecutepig

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Most of the time when people want to get rid of guinea pigs, it's because they (a) Can't care for them, (b) Are too lazy to care for them, (c) The vet bills are too expensive, or (d) All of the above.
If you want guinea pigs, REMEMBER, THEY NEED A LOT OF CARE!!
 

peanny77

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One guinea pig owner in my country got her boar to a vet to get him neutered. After a few days,it got purplish and filled with pus. She took him to the vet,now even that vet couldn’t tell the difference between hamsters and guinea pigs. The boar passed away shortly after.

Another person in my country went to a pet store for guinea pigs.She made it clear to the pet store employee that she wanted two boys. Before leaving the pet store,she carefully asked the employee to make sure the pigs were both male. The employee insisted so,and she bought them home. One day,after returning from work, she saw a dead baby inside their cage,and the female (missexed) was very exhausted and was bleeding a lot. She rushed her to the exotic vet,the vet did an X-Ray and found a large baby inside of her,she couldn’t deliver the baby by herself so the vet had to induce labor to force the baby out…The baby pig didn’t survive,due to suffocation. The owner brought the sow home from the vet’s and took special care of her, but her health only got worse. She passed away one week later and the boar was left alone.

Do not buy guinea pigs from pet stores and take your pigs to an experienced exotic vet,not ones who only treat dogs and cats.

—————
However…I live in Vietnam and we don’t have shelters here (Should I make a post to explain why?) so we have only two options to get piggies while not supporting pet stores : (1) adopt from owners who has to rehome their pigs or (2) buy from reputable breeders who are recommended by many guinea pig owners here,I only know 2 of them. Is option (2) okay? I see that many owners here get pigs by that option.

(Sorry if my English is bad)
 

Soecara

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Obviously the best choice is to get from owners who can no longer keep them, or have accidentally had a litter, or from a rescue.

However if none of those are reasonable options (as in not within driving distance, and there is no way to negotiate to say meet halfway), I would personally prefer and prefer other people to purchase from a breeder who treats their animals well and doesn't over breed then as opposed to purchasing from a pet store where their backgrounds are unknown and they are likely from breeding mills where the animals are treated horribly. This is my personal stance not just with guinea pigs but with all animals.

This of course only applies to reputable breeders, some breeders treat their animals just as bad as a breeding mills do and supporting them is just as bad as purchasing from a breeding mill.
 

4boipigs

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I'm going to add onto this since all my stories tend to lump under this thread...so I have one coworker with a set of "unfriendly" pigs she wants to rehome. My other coworker who is pregnant asked me today if I want her pigs. She is moving/doesn't have room/crazy roommates/etc. I just hate listening to them talk about rehoming when we all know the rescues are full and none of think the shelters are capable of handling guinea pigs. The poor animals already have a home...keep them.
 

teambenji543

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I dislike when people say that too! It’s usually just that the piggies aren’t socialized enough, but people deem them “unfriendly”. Right now my local shelter is jam-packed with small animals. I just checked and they have a total of 103 small animals up for adoption. I foster, and they are constantly sending out emails begging people to take a foster pet as they have no more room in the shelter. I feel really bad for the volunteers and the animals cooped up in tiny cages.

They recently had an entire adoption event with games, prizes, and gift baskets and at the end of the day, a grand total of 1 animal got adopted. I think people are finally realizing that they don’t have enough time for their “pandemic pets” and are just dumping them at the shelters. [MENTION=46209]4boipigs[/MENTION] , are you going to take your coworkers guinea pigs? What are you going to do with them?
 

4boipigs

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I would love more pigs but for many reasons adding more is not smart. Its bad enough there is a hamster who was abandoned 2 months ago there who I am considering taking. I told her to just keep them. She knows there is no room anywhere for them.

My shelters also have a lot of pigs, rats, hamsters and gerbils rn.
 
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