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Pet Stores Buying pigs in petstores

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princesspoppy

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I bought both of my guinea pigs at a petstore. I honestly DID NOT know that it was bad to buy from a petstore. I honestly didn't know that it was considered taboo on this website. My guinea pigs are perfectly healthy, but I am still ashamed.

Although not ALL petstores are bad like delilaharcade says, I think that it all depends on which petstore you go to. Some petstores are horrible and some are just ok. If I had known that you could get guinea pigs from a rescue and that petstores were horrible places of breeding, I wouldn't have bought my guinea pigs there.

I hadn't regretted getting my pigs from there until I came on here. I was in chat, talking to other members and when I said I had gotten my guinea pigs from a petstore, they all jumped on me! Thats when I knew it was not respectable.

I now know why everyone jumped on me. And I am ashamed, upset, and embarrassed that I even contributed to the horrible breeding mills that petstores get their pets from.

I will forever try to make it up for my guinea pigs by trying to stop the cruelty petstores engage in and I will always provide the best life I can for my pigs. In a sense, I feel like I sort of rescued my guinea pigs from living in a tiny cage with several other guinea pigs. Sure, they weren't from a rescue, but I think they didn't have to endure living in those horrible circumstances anymore. My guinea pigs turned out to be healthy pigs. My first guinea pig got mites, but we aren't positive if it was from the petstore or from another source.

Don't beat yourself up . I was exactly like you. I found this site 24 hours after i got my pigs. A day to late. I was jumped on also and considered not even returning here. But then it would have been me and my pigs that would have lost out. I'm happy i stuck around because i have learn't so much from everyone here. Super members and very knowledgeable mods. Muah to you all.
 

Annab7

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For some reason I thought I'd post a quick reply. I did get both my girls, Gloria and Pearl from Petsmart. I had no idea that you could even adopt Guinea Pigs at the time. I am not ashamed though, and I thought it was sad that there are people on here who are ashamed when they did not know that what they were doing was wrong. More or less, I feel sorry that I did something that is seen as bad and can be bad, rather than adopt a guinea that needed a good home, but I'm not ashamed at all. I love my girls. I plan on getting more piggies and will look for them only in adoption places and such, but for those who purchased their little babies; you have no reason to be ashamed if you purchased them BEfore you knew it was bad, only if you purchased them AFter you knew it was bad. And just to point out, when I went to get my Piggies from Petsmart (I did gobs of research on their health and care prior, but missed the whole adopting one post; perhaps adoption info should be placed at the beginning of each forum, like one that says BEFORE YOU BUY:ADOPT [READ THIS]. I would have seen that) anywho, when I went to Petsmart and pointed out that I wanted Guinea Pigs they sent out a lady who is the main caretaker of the piggies and she asked me tons of questions as if she was ready to convince me against my decision if I didn't know jack, and she was very pleased with how much thought I put into it before I came to get them, even so much as having a homemade cage ready for them before I even got them. There was also another woman there with her young daughter who wanted a piggie but they had done no research. The lady gave them a book on Piggies and told them to read that and if they still wanted one afterwards then they could get one. She couldn't stop them from getting one if they really wanted, but she did try to make sure they knew what they were doing beforehand. She also was an avid Piggie owner. Anywho, I just wanted to say that because not all petstore people are there just to sell an animal.
 

1frankie7

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I had to drive about 1 hour to get my piggy maybe longer including traffic.
 

Ly&Pigs

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Annab7's post and the rest of the ensuing conversation has been split off into it's own thread. If you want to add more to that, here is the link: https://www.guineapigcages.com/forum/kitchen/48545-adoption-info-site.html.

Please keep this thread on track. This thread is not about whether there is or isn't adoption info here on this site or what administration should do regarding that or about attitudes, rudeness or anything else along those lines. It's about getting people to realize there are better means of getting pigs than by purchasing pigs in petstores or from breeders.

So please keep this thread on topic. Otherwise the threads will be unapproved.
 
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JordynThePiggie

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Wow, had no idea! Thanks!
 

Rubybubbles

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First post!

I am so glad I saw this, I live in England though! I having been looking and researching as looking at getting guineapigs thanks! will keep on looking through the RSCPA local sites
 

Rose11

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I was actually thinking of buying from a pet store but now I know not too! I have checked all the SPCA's in my area and they have no piggies. I ahve also looked on rescue sights but I am looking for a female, and they are mostly males. I also read somewhere that if you want to have 2 piggies you should introduce wone of them as a baby. I have been looking for shelters with baby piggies and I cannot find any! Please help!
 

Fudgenrolo

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First post!

I am so glad I saw this, I live in England though! I having been looking and researching as looking at getting guineapigs thanks! will keep on looking through the RSCPA local sites

Hi! I'm in England too..... depending on where you are there are quite a few small animal and guinea pig specific rescues. :)

It may be worth Googling 'Guinea Pig Rescue *your county*' if there are none in Rspca centres near you.

There are at least three fairly close to me with lots of piggies looking for homes.... also check out (broken link removed).
 
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Ly&Pigs

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I was actually thinking of buying from a pet store but now I know not too! I have checked all the SPCA's in my area and they have no piggies. I ahve also looked on rescue sights but I am looking for a female, and they are mostly males. I also read somewhere that if you want to have 2 piggies you should introduce wone of them as a baby. I have been looking for shelters with baby piggies and I cannot find any! Please help!

This can be somewhat helpful when finding male pigs to adopt. It doesn't really matter that much with females as most females tend to get along no matter the age. Just keep looking and you will eventually find the pigs you are seeking. Have you tried petfinder and craigslist yet?
 

alicia09

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I also feel quite guilty because most of my guinea-pigs were bought from pet shops. I think because a lot of people haven't heard of guinea-pig rescues is why pet shops sell so many. Well, I know quite a lot of people have heard of guinea-pig rescue centers, but I know lots of people that think the only place you can get a guinea-pig from is a pet shop. I wish I'd known about rescue centers for guinea-pigs when I got mine.
 

rabbitsncavyluv

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Many people do know about adopting though and still choose to buy from pet shops and breeders unfortunately. Not saying you in particular but many others ...
 

barbanderson

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I was actually thinking of buying from a pet store but now I know not too! I have checked all the SPCA's in my area and they have no piggies. I ahve also looked on rescue sights but I am looking for a female, and they are mostly males. I also read somewhere that if you want to have 2 piggies you should introduce wone of them as a baby. I have been looking for shelters with baby piggies and I cannot find any! Please help!

I hope you found a rescue organization to help you get a couple female pigs. If you mention WHERE you are from (even just a state if not a city) I am SURE someone here could point you in the direction of a rescue/shelter in your area. I had SIX babies go to such a place and FIVE were female so somewhere NEAR you, there IS a place to go for your two girls. I sincerely HOPE you found them there and NOT a pet store now that you KNOW better. I know if and when I need to find another piggie or two, I now know WHERE to go :) I hope someone helped you too cause this IS the site to GO for help :D
 

PiggieJewel

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I think no matter what type of animal someone is looking for, there will be rescue groups. One just has to really look and do their research before adopting an animal. My piggies are rescues, the newest one is from a shelter that had two piggies for adoption. Be patient and, unfortunately, a piggie will turn up in rescue. Much better to be patient and do rescue than to just go and buy a petstore piggy. Ly brought up a very good point in one of her earliest messages - adopting a shelter piggy means you won't be supporting a pet store by buying one of their sick piggies.
 

kavykeeper

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Buying from a pet store will only encourage pet mills to breed more animals to supply to that pet store. There are so many abused and abandoned guinea pigs that there is no reason to ever buy one. Just check out Petfinder and you'll see hundreds at any time.
 

MomTo4Boys

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Sadly I'm also one of those who didn't know that there were guinea pig rescues. I had never even heard of them. I bought the 2 boys we have from Petsmart. 1 week before I found this site while researching large cages and looking for safe veggies to feed them. We are lucky that they were both perfectly healthy. Thanks to this site, I now know better then to buy from a store.
I won't be adopting anytime soon since we can't afford, and don't have the room for any additional piggies. Once the time comes, we will adopt from a rescue. I have found some, but they are 1 and 2 hours away, but I know it'll be worth it in the end.
 

KingBoris

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Unfortunantly I was also another person who went to the petstore.
Sorry about the long story, its hard to explain otherwise.

It all started with my sister being given two boars from her fiance, one of them had a URI from the petshop which was treated thankfully by the good guinea pig savvy vet i use now,
She was going on a long holiday and asked me to care for them.
I knew nothing of piggies, she did however drop petshop fact sheets over thinking that was the correct information.

Basically I followed the horrible advice which included feeding them small amounts of veg 1-2 times each week, no mention of hay, advising bad seed food and housing them on shredded paper.

I thought I was looking after them really well, I woke up one morning to find Sprite laying on his side struggling to breathe, I rushed him to the nearest as i know now non piggy vet where they told me he was having full organ failure(they did no tests to prove this).
It was decided that he couldnt be saved so the put him to sleep.

The next day I knew I had to find Pepsi a friend as my sister had told me they get very depressed without one, so off I went to my nearest petshop.
I picked out a crazy haired guinea pig and named him Bandit,
Only the very next day I found Pepsi dead on the bottom of the cage, so off I went again to get a friend for the new and now alone Bandit.


I found Smokey and at the same time my partner picked up the biggest piggy I have ever seen.
We decided to get him as our own and took him home, we named him Boris.
So now we had 3 boars 2 x 3 month olds and an 8 month old in a hutch indoors big enough for barely one guinea pig, all this was the advise of the petshop!

Boris had a fall at the petshop and the very next day was dragging his legs, we took him to the same bad vet who xrayed him to find he had 3 fractured vertabrae, a few days later I found a UK guinea pig forum who taught me all about guinea pigs, I upgraded them to a C&C cage,got better food, hay,veges twice a day and all the rest.

He was put in a splint and during that 6 weeks suffered many issues including impaction, bumblefoot, internal and external fungal infections he fought for 3 months in total(during this time i had brought a lonely pig named Basil from a petshop to befriend Boris when he was better).

The bad vet put him through hell with incorrect treatments and I didnt know any better, by the time I realised with the help of the forum it was too late and Boris had given up, he was PTS as he just couldnt go on any longer.


When my sister returned she stayed with me and didnt feel the connection with Smokey and Bandit, she neglected them severly so I took them off her and became a proper guinea pig owner.
I also at that stage had Basil and had recently learned about rescuing guinea pigs, I then got Ralph-Saffron as a friend for Basil through a lady who had unknowingly brought a pregnant sow.
I also informed her of petshops/breeders being horrible.

After that i adopted from a guinea pig rescue Zanzabar and Baker, I also got Windsor-Duke for another accidental pregnancy( I drove 14 hours round trip to get him, I also adopted Cooper-Beau at rescue to befriend him)
a few months after that I adopted Blade,Rajah,Prescott,Panda and Prince
and now I am in the process of my final adoption for now which is 9 piggies, I know its alot all at once but I am very good friends with the rescue lady, i am also providing a great home for all these boys.

So my first four guinea pigs were from a petshop which I regret so much.The other 10 were from accidental pregnancys and rescues.
Basically the moral of my story is I got bad information which I think contributed to the first piggies dying, had illness and injury and wasn't giving my piggies the best life possible, this was all from a petshop who were aparently reputable!

A few months ago the lady from rescue asked me to do an inspection of a lady who wanted to adopt as the lady lived near me and the rescue is 5 hours away.
I went around to her house expecting a great setup, what I found was very wrong, the sow they needed a friend for turned out to be a boar, he was riddled with fungal/mites and had bumblefoot.
He had no hay/bad seed mix and was housed in a hutch in the rain outside, his hutch also had wire flooring and access to wet grass.

I explained to the family that his living conditions were horrible and he was very sick and they would not be allowed to adopt, I then spoke with them about treatments for him and they instead chose to tell me " he cost $10 we arent paying that much for him".

The had also informed me they had gotten him from that same trusted petshop only a week before for the 9 year old son.
They ended up giving me the guinea pig and I took him 5 hours drive to the rescue, while there I rang this petshop and informed them that the past guinea pigs they had sold would have most probably mites and fungal and would get very sick, I also said they needed to clean there tanks out to avoid them getting sick, basically they ignored my advice and chose to ignore or hang up my phone calls when I tried to contact, all they were interested in was making a quick buck not the care of the animals.


In the end Trypp stayed on as a resident at the rescue and now has two good friends so thats tory worked out okay but its the many others I worry about that get sold to people like Trypps original family who couldnt care less,
Anyone can walk into a petshop and buy a guinea pig but it takes someone special to adopt!
For the record i will never even set foot or buy in a shop again and haven't since I learnt the true ways of rescue.
 

kavykeeper

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I was actually thinking of buying from a pet store but now I know not too! I have checked all the SPCA's in my area and they have no piggies. I ahve also looked on rescue sights but I am looking for a female, and they are mostly males. I also read somewhere that if you want to have 2 piggies you should introduce wone of them as a baby. I have been looking for shelters with baby piggies and I cannot find any! Please help!

Check the Petfinder site. There are always a lot of guinea pigs listed. Please consider an adult, though. Those are the ones that have less chance of finding homes. The benefit to an adult is that you usually end up with a lap pig. Rescue adults tend to be socialized already so you get a friendly pig.
 

Cogni

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Ignorance - that is, not knowing any better - is one of the main reasons that people buy from pet stores. On top of this there is impatience--they get the idea they want something and don't want to wait weeks or months for it. Many of us live in an 'instant gratification' culture and if you can just go to a store to get something a lot of people will do just that. Then there is the idea of having something 'new'-- a baby piggie, or an adult piggie from a store, that is not 'used'. These feelings are hard to eradicate but step by step, education and knowledge changes a culture and I think some day it will be generally understood that buying animals in a store that stocks them like inanimate objects is a terrible practice.
 

Pig.Piggie

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When I bought my first guinea pig I had no reason to research because it was a spur of the moment type thing and hubbies idea. I think that is how it mostly happens. People go to look for a pet, bring a piggie home and don't know there to go from there. I on the other hand have OCD and sat on the computer for *hours* reserching my new pet that I knew nothing about.

I now will never buy from a pet store again. I want to think that I did "rescue" this piggy from going to a temporary home but I can't fool myself. We are getting our second pig in 3 weeks from Utah wich will be a 2 hour drive. I can't wait.

How can we as a group of people get information into peoples heads to go to shelters and rescues for guinea pigs and other pets so they don't encourage breeding and pet shop pets?
 

Sekhmet

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I was fortunate enough to have stumbled onto this website before getting my 2 piggies from a rescue. I use to camp out a lot at Petsmart near the small animal cages where they store their small animals. I felt so sorry for those piggies... especially when I had to complain to a few of the employees that the pigs do not have any hay to eat. I wish I had gotten these peoples pay checks because they weren't doing what they're being paid to do!

I eventually found a rescue Crazy Cavies Guinea Pig Rescue nearby and I manage to rescue my kids (broken link removed)

I still think of the pigs and it almost seemed like they were putting out new cavies each week... I wonder if some died? poor things.
 
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