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dating and being a guinea fanatic

kalrik

Well-known Member
Cavy Slave
Joined
Jan 1, 2005
Messages
315
My boyfriend is allergic to guinea pigs and their hay. He has severe asthma and gets annoyed when he's in my room. I have done a lot like move my tv to the basement so we can not be in my room(even though I hate it down there) and gotten an air purifier, and changed to fleece. Once one of my pigs bit him, and that was that. He hates them, and it sure puts a lot of guilt on me.

I am of course not going to get rid of them because I love them and I'd hold it against him forever. So I am just left in this really crappy position. It makes me feel a little depressed sometimes. Can anyone else relate?
 
I'm sorry. Can you talk to your boyfriend about how he makes you feel by acting resentful of your pigs?
 
Well it is hard having someone with allergies and asthma ontop of it all. But there is no reason for your boyfriend to hate your piggie just because it bit him once. If this was me I would say sorry I love my animals and gotta have animals just go or deal with it. But I am not saying that to you to do it at all. It is how I would do it if it was me. I would never give up on none of my pets at all.

Sorry to sound harsh. I hope you can work something out with him. Talk to him and work with him.
 
If I was in your position, and he was talking about how he hated them so much just because they nipped him, His butt would be out the door. Haha. I just love my pigs too much.
 
I'm sorry to hear that your boyfriend is acting that way. If I were you I would just talk to him about how he makes you feel when he puts the guilt on you, etc, etc.

I hope everything works out.
 
Honestly... I don't know. Disliking someone's animals is kind of like disliking _them_, for me... But for some people, it's not like that. Guinea pigs could be dealt with - put them in their own room, or something like that. A dog or a cat? If they can't live with the big, cageless animal, it's a no.

My brother and sister-in-law almost didn't get married or even date because at first, he didn't like her dog (of course, now Mei has her own couch, tons of toys, and my brother built a special drawer for the remotes so she won't chew on them because "she doesn't know any better, she's only a little dog!" XD). In my situation, my boyfriend has HORRIBLE allergies and asthma. Whenever he comes over to my apartment, he's always sneezing and wheezing. Even still, though, if I'm out of town, he'll come over and hug and snuggle my piggies and give them their daily doses of love, feed them, refill their water bottles... the works. He knows I love my piggies (we call them "piddos" for some reason XD just a weird, affectionate nickname for them), and he knows they're very important to me. I mean, I *love* having extra money to spend on books and video games, but I'll go into debt to keep my little piddos happy!

So, I don't know. You'll have to handle it in your own way. What my boyfriend and I did was move things over to his apartment (like the cable internet and TV), and just spend our time together over there. Or we stay out in the living room, since the pigs are in my bedroom. Even still, he'll go into my room to say hi to the pigs... I can't believe him, sometimes. He's allergic to either them or the hay, but he loves them! He's always cuddling Pumpkin when he's using my computer ^.^

You'll have to handle it your own way, but for me, (FOR ME - I'm not saying break up with him!!) I couldn't be seriously involved with a guy that was against having a zoo for a home ^.^

Currently, we only have fish and guinea pigs, but next come sugar gliders! XD
 
Well ill give a mans side of this case . Well it sounds like you need to get the piggies to like him or have him pet them .If hes new boyfreind and hes not serious or hes a jerk i would breck up with him or if he is serouis or old boyfreind relocate Gp's to another room and keep him outtta that room .Use glad plug ins those work.
 
My husband is allergic to seemingly every variety of grass. He's especially allergic to Timothy, so I keep the extra hay in my office closet and leave the pigs enough in their hay rack to last a day or two. I'm always in the room they're in, so it's never a problem to refill it. My husband doesn't come in here very often, so he's not in direct contact with the hay, which helps even though it's still in our home. He also started on shots this past December, so hopefully he'll continue to build a tolerance to it.
 
Has he been tested for allergies? There is a poke test to determine what one is actually allergic to... it might not be the pigs themselves but something around the pigs, etc.

If it doesn't show up as allergies in a test, it could be psychosomantic; like if he was abused by a guinea pig as a child or if he is suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome after being bitten by your pig it can have an adverse reaction on his health and other symptoms. In this case, have him see a psychologist as no other solution is going to have any effect.

Shots will typically take 4-5 years before having that much of an effect, but everyone is different.
 
Yep, sadly shots do take a while to work, but apparently a lot has changed since I took them. I took shots for about 15 years (in two different stages because my allergies changed), and it progressed from twice a week, to once a week, to every other week, to once a month...and that was over years. My husband's doctor barely kept him on twice-weekly shots for 3 weeks. Apparently this particular doctor gives a stronger dose at a quicker pace. I guess this works just as well, and hopefully Brett won't have to stay on them as long as I did.
 
I refuse to date a guy who doesn't like guineas. My dream is to start and run my own guinea holiday boarding home, then maybe extend to a rescue. So I would have to have a steady relationship with someone who I can trust to look after my little babies well. If only there was a cavy group who had regular meetings somewhere in UK...!
 
My boyfriend (who I live with) has never had a pet other than a goldfish in his life. His older sister had a rabbit (she is now 32!) who was eventually set free because it was wilder than a rottweiler. Our first pet together after we moved in together was an 8 month old hamster called Bam (who is still here 2.5 years later, albeit not as active as she was then!) and then another called Basil.

My boyfriend was never an animal person but he merely shook his head when I went to the rescue for another hamster a while after Basil died. A week later I came home with Bracken from the rescue rather than a hamster! He has since learned how to care for her and handle her, and in November we got Bonnie from a friend. Bonnie is VERY much a daddy's girl, and will in certain situations only be picked up by him. He is currently the ONLY person that can get her to sit still to get her nails clipped.

Proof indeed that they can be turned around to being animal lovers :)
 
I have allergies but I just put up with it. My boyfriend is terribly allergic to the hay. When he comes over, he can barely breath even though the piggies have their own room. He puts up with it for the most part. He ends up leaving in the middle of the night after I've fallen asleep. Once we put the air conditioners back up, it won't bother him so much.

Hope you can figure out something that will work for you.
 
My boyfriend has been around longer than the piggies, unfortunately he was here first. BUT that does not mean they will ever leave! He wants to share his side of the story:

The Boyfriend: OK guys... I know how you all love your piggies, and i know they mean the world to my girlfriend too, But it's really hard for me to like them when i can't breathe. I've gone from allegra to samples of allegra d (prescription strength), and even then it dosen't seem to work.

It's not like it's pets because i own 3 cats and they don't bother me. (Kalrik- it's definitely psychosomatic) I could just blame it on the hay, and even her own father is allergic to the hay, but that dosen't mean that I Hate the pigs. The grief she feels she puts on herself. I may joke about the piggies but I do tolerate them. I really appreciate all of the work shes gone through so that we can hang out in a normal environment (kalrik- piggie free environment is not NORMAL)

With that said I have to ask a question to all of the piggie fanatics. Ok it's cool and all to love your pigs and to give them huge areas to run around in... but is it cool to have pieces of hay and piggie poop all over your room emedded into the carpet and in your bed sheets as well? (kalrik- there is an occassional escaping guinea bean. . . my bed's next to the cage) I'm not the only one who asks her to clean her room because it goes weeks at a time that both myself and her father begs her to clean it. (kalrik- try cleaning the CAGE! much worse.) At the beggining of the piggie haven, I was the primary cleaner, if not the only cleaner.

I cleaned the room once a week FOR MY OWN HEALTH. (kalrik- I share my room with my piggies, and it's hard to keep up with every piece of hay that falls, and to be honest I am happy and so are my piggies so what's the big deal? Oh and did I mention he is a cleanliness FANATIC.) This is an interesting post lol. any who like I was saying the pigs are ok, but the living condition isn't. i just wanted to share my side of it so that people don't think i'm a piggie hater... I just hate messes and not being able to breathe.

Kalrik: I think there are some issues of cleanliness that he takes out on the piggies. I don't mind everything not being perfect, he blames the pigs for the mess my room is in; however, I have always had everything all over the place.
 
kalarik I think you should try cleaning up after the pigs better and why dont they sleep in your room also if piggies escape put a lid on the cage or make the walls higher.
 
This is confusing, I think if this person value's the relationship at all there should be room for compromise or how long will the boyfriend stick around if he can barely breathe when he's there?
How big is your cage and how many pigs do you have?? Maybe 2 weeks is leaving it too long between clean's and all the amonia fumes are building up making it worse?
It's not just him saying he dislikes the pig's, he has a genuine medical problem that if you care about him you would try to change somehow.
 
My husband HATES the pigs. He deals with it b/c we, the kids and I, love them. He is just nervous about them biting him, I think. Bad experience with a hamster or something. LOL

Anyway, he compromised, I don't make him love them, he doesn't gripe about them.
If he had a serious medical issue, he would, of course, come first. He is my husband, after all!

If you and the beau are serious, then find a compromise. If you are just having some fun, still find one, just not something of the permanent variety.

Good luck,
Marie
 
I think there was a misunderstanding. I don't go weeks without cleaning their cage! I go weeks without cleaning my room-> there are clothes and hay and the OCCASSIONAl guinea poo. They do sleep in my room, to clear that up. They can't sleep anywhere else because my dad is allergic to the hay. We realized after reading our post that it is an issue of my room and not so much the pigs. I keep their cage cleaner than my room.

My boyfriend and I are pretty serious. We make future plans together, and have been together for quite awhile. What bothered me so much was not mistreatment of the pigs, just statements that he would say about them.

I have agreed that if we are still together after my current bunch of piggies pass (I won't rehome them which he understands), I will not be getting anymore piggies. He's got quite awhile to wait as the youngest is not yet five months! I am satisfied with this arrangement, maybe my kids will want them down the road.

I didn't realize he had allergies to animals until after they had been around for awhile as he has cats, which makes me think he makes some of it up, haha. Now that I have them, he can avoid them (which is why I moved my entertainment area to the basement), but I cannot give them up when I know that the majority of people see piggies as more expendable pets. I would not trust them with just anyone.
 
I definetily don't know where the two weeks thing came from. But it seems that maybe it is working, he just needs to ease up a little. Maybe some piggy kisses?
 
But is it fair to ask him to just "ease up" when he said it effects him enough that he has trouble breathing? That said, I don't know what the solution is.
Although, if it the allergie was so bad, why would someone continue to put themselves through it, surely oxygen is more important than a girlfriend....
 
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