Potential piggie owner/former cat owner question

[JinATL]

Hello! I am new to this forum and am a potential first time piggie owner. My husband and I owned a wonderful cat who died last summer at the age of 21. Our daughters are now asking to get another pet. I don't want a dog or another cat. So we are considering guinea pigs. I have done a lot of research and already know that I need a large C&C cage, more than one pig, constant hay, plain pellets, etc. what I don't know is this...will guinea pigs eventually love us? My sweet husband was very attached to our darling cat. He misses him terribly. He is hoping for an animal that will look forward to seeing us, enjoy a snuggle, and appreciate affection. We have only had cats and dogs. So, I need an expert opinion. Do you believe guinea pigs can be the snuggly, sweet, affectionate pets we are missing? Thank you!

 

[bpatters]

The short answer is no. The longer one is that if you have a lot of patience, they can become pretty tame. Some will enjoy snuggles, more will not. They're prey animals, and as such, they're very skittish.

If you want something that runs to greet you when you get home and enjoys long snuggles, a guinea pig probably isn't it. But they are very cute, and a lot of fun. They're well worth the time it takes to get to know them, and I enjoy mine enormously. But I'm not sure they're what you're looking for.

 

[JinATL]

Would you say they are more like fish in that they are a pleasure to watch but not necessarily interactive?

 

[Kenna18155]

Oh, piggies are interactive for sure. You can feed them veggies, watch them interact with one another, give them different toys to chew on, make hideys and sleeping bags for them to snuggle with, give them hay piles to run through, hold them, pet them, and so on. I even managed to train mine to do a trick!

But they aren't always lovey, snuggly pets. A puppy or kitty might smoosh up against you and cuddle -- a guinea pig is more likely to pee on you or squirm around nervously.

 

[bpatters]

They're much more interactive than fish, and much more enjoyable. They'll talk to you, take food from your hand, wheek to be fed, putter around in their cages, and provide endless hours of amusement. You can train them to do tricks.

What they won't do, unless you have the one pig in ten million that thinks it's a cat, is come running to get in your hand and be picked up. Once you do catch them, and with a LOT of time and patience you can teach them to walk on your hand for that, they'll sit in your lap, or crawl up on your shoulder. But they have much less bladder capacity than a cat, so after 10-30 minutes they'll want to go back in the cage.

 

[FionaMae]

I'm a fairly new piggie owner, I've gone fromone piggie to four piggies in about a month and half. I've always hadcats in my life since I was about 12. (I only have piggies right now). One of my girls wheeks as soon as I get in the door, when I walk up tothe cage she comes up to check me out, gets a chin rub and then takes off. Two others wheek as soon as I enter the room and run over to me as I walkup and sniff my hand but as soon as they realize I don't have food they takeoff. The 4th one rarely wants anything to do with me - not in a "i hateyou" way just a very indifferent way. If you're looking for thefurrball that will know when you are sick and in desperate need of snuggleslike my cats always did - piggies are not those furrballs. Only one of mypigs will let me snuggle her and have lap time, the other 3 are really notinterested. I do not regret getting them though. They are the cutestlittlest things and I enjoy watching them interact with each other. BUT -to me, they are a LOT more work than my cats ever were. So you will need to beprepared for getting the veggies ready daily with incessant impatient wheekingfrom the time you open the fridge until you drop the veggies at their stompingdemanding feet, (I rather enjoy that part actually) spot cleaning the cagesdaily and full cleaning at least once a week - which is more work than thelitter box ever was, cleaning up hay constantly (that stuff gets everywhere nomatter how careful I am!) and if you decide to use the wood pellets and fleececombo in your cage then there will be the maintenance/laundry of the fleece. AND if you have seasonal allergies at all - you may want to bring a bagof hay inside the house before you get piggies and open it up for a few daysand see if you have any issues with hay being in the house. I'm nottrying to discourage you at all - i love my piggies - but I have read wherepeople didn't realize how allergic they are to the hay and have had to givethem up to a rescue. I'm very allergic to hay and was not thinking about thatpart when I first locked eyes on Fiona and fell in love with that little face -but I'm taking my allergy meds and dealing with it because I can't stand thethought of her or the other three being dumped off at a rescue. To be honest (from one cat person to another),as much as I love my little piggies, they really do not replace what I'mmissing from my cats. They're a whole different animal. I don't know if thathelps at all?

 

[JinATL]

Your reply was very helpful. Thank you! Ironically, the reason I don't want another cat is that I am allergic. Our cat was my husband's cat when we met 19 years ago. I just kept a clean house, took allergy meds and delt with the allergies. I think I got used to it because they got much better over the years. I know guinea pigs aren't the same as cats and dogs. It just seems that the people on this forum enjoy their piggies so much I wanted to find out if it was more than the show they put on. It seems that it is. We really enjoyed getting to know and understand our cat's personality and it seems that you all do the same with your piggies. That certainly is reassuring. Thank you!

 

[bpatters]

@JinATL, since you're allergic to cats, you probably would want to find out if you're allergic to hay before you invest in guinea pigs. The pigs themselves are pretty non-allergenic, but quite a number of pigs are allergic to timothy hay. You can buy small quantities of timothy, orchard, meadow grass at a pet store. It would be worth rubbing a little on your arm and sniffing the hay to find out if you're affected.

 

[JinATL]

Great idea! I will try that. Thank you!

 

[lunarminx]

Would you say they are more like fish in that they are a pleasure to watch but not necessarily interactive?

Yes, I watch mine a lot. I have a mini herd of six, two will come to the side of the cage to get petted, some act like they want petted but only stay for a second or two. I think you would do better with dog or both. I have a dog, 3 cats, 6 piggies and a hermit crab. And yes two of the cats get in the cage, they do not hurt the pigs. If i am using hay boxes at the time, one will sleep in it, the other eats the hay off and on during the day.

Edited to change cat to dog. When you do the hay hold it for like 15 minutes. I can only hold and pet my pigs for 10-15 minutes before my hands start to burn. I wash my hands and all is fine.

 

[librarychick]

If you want to do a good allergy test this is what I recommend when I have people come visit my foster kitties.

Use your nails to scratch the insides of your forearms, and your neck. Scratch enough that it turns red, but it shouldn't hurt. What this does is irritates the skin, so that if you are allergic you'll be more likely to get a quick reaction. The skin in these areas is thin, which also makes it more susceptible. So - scratch the skin, then snuggle some guinea pigs and rub on the hay.

As for your main question - what pet to consider - there are low allergen cat breeds. You can try contnacting your local shelters to look for breeds like norweigan forest cat, Bengals, Devon or Cornish Rex, or maine coons - but you have to get a purebred, ideally with papers, or what you'll likely end up with is actually a cross-breed or a pure mutt cat with some breed characteristics, cats like that are great but unlikely to have the low allergen properties you'd need.

If you're very interested in guinea pigs, and you pass the allergy tests, then they would be a good pet to consider I think. They're quite personable, and if you give them time can definitely warm up to you and enjoy a cuddle.

 

[bpatters]

Actually, @librarychick, that test won't tell whether she's allergic to hay or to the guinea pigs. She needs to test the hay without the pigs. If she passes the hay test, then she can handle the guinea pigs and see if she's allergic to them.

 

[JinATL]

Thank you! I will try both tests. One for the hay then for the guinea pig.

 

[librarychick]

Actually, @librarychick, that test won't tell whether she's allergic to hay or to the guinea pigs. She needs to test the hay without the pigs. If she passes the hay test, then she can handle the guinea pigs and see if she's allergic to them.

True, but if she's allergic to either then having pigs would be much harder. Especially if she's in a location/situation where flying in expensive hay isn't an option. So, IMO it's a moot point, and you might as well test both at the same time.

 

[Arkin]

My husband is allergic to cats, dogs, and pretty much everything animalwise He doesn't react to the guinea pigs nearly as bad as he does to our cats - but he does take zyrtec daily.

We have two cats. One is very soft and mellow, but she is skittish and doesn't like being held. The other loves attention, but gets overstimulated easily. I've had cats my entire life, and I love that each cat has its own personality and quirks. Some cats are more cuddly than others.

We've had our guinea pigs less than a month. I've never had guinea pigs before, though I did have a hamster. one of our guinea pigs - Link - likes to sit on our lap and watch TV. The other, Moose, seems more like a rambunctious toddler. He will chirp and make tiny squeak noises if we hold him, nudges us with his nose, but he wants to be running all over. He *loves* when we make a "towel" cave on our laps and he can burrow around in it. He's an Abyssinian and only likes to be pet a certain way because of the way his hair is. Link loves (or at least doesn't seem to care?) being pet - he's a silky. Neither is really quite as interactive as a cat or dog though. It's very different with a cage-animal. Like you're not just going to sit on the couch and one come running up. You're not going to have it follow you around the house. If your husband is seeking that kind of pet - might be worth checking out hypoallergenic dogs that are smallish? Before we got our guinea pigs, we had thought about getting a small/medium dog as a therapy animal for our daughter because it would provide a social animal that is cuddly (our cats are lovely, but they don't really serve therapy purposes for our daughter lol)

The guinea pigs require a bit more maintenance than the cats - but we have fleece bedding so it's pretty easy still.

But we are quite smitten with the guinea pigs They aren't as cuddly as dogs or cats, but they are fun, our daughters love petting them and taking care of them, and we enjoy watching them. Right now they hide/sleep a lot in their cage - but I'm hoping as they get more used to living here they'll warm up