To cut to the chase: photos! Unfortunately, my digital camera is crap and my SLR currently has $7.50-a-roll slide film in, so no good photos for a while. For now, you’ll just have make yourself content with this extremely un-cute montage. Little Guy is actually in a very photogenic stage right now because he just sits there… stock still… staring at me. I bet I could hold him upside-down by the hind legs like the trivia books say will make his eyes fall out and he’d still just dangle quietly. I think it’s because he’s scared of me
Anyway, I got him to keep Darcy (that’s the fat white one) company. I got him off a lady who accidentally bred her two pigs. The father is neutered now but stable doors and bolting horses and all that. He’s a cute little bugger though. Lively, too, just not around me :o
But the real reason I’m posting is because… I need to name him, before I start thinking of him as “Little Guy”. Any suggestions?
It’s decided! His name is P.D.Q. And I just took a bunch of photos of him for an assignment. They are on slides though. I will post them if I figure out a way to scan them.
We gave one of my Cavy’s offspring to a fanatical-animal-lover coworker of my mom. The day they brought it home, their elderly St Benard came over to take a sniff as the little cavy sat on the palm of a hand. Satisfied by the sniff, the dog then vacuumed the little guy right off the hand in one gulp. Everyone freaked and tried to pry the dogs jaws apart, but it was way too late.
I took some more photos of him. They look really great. Unfortunately they’re on slides and I haven’t got a couple hundred dollars lying around to drop on a negative scanner. So this is the best I can manage.
I would have taken pictures of the other guy, but he’s much too hyper to be a good model
Ours all say “wheeek” and are called “the wheekers.”
(I’m not sure why we have them, since we are apparently not going to eat them. They have less personality than any critter in the house (including our uromastyx and our Dumeril boa). They do not appear to enjoy being held. They are about as affectionate as dust bunnies. They make lots of noise.)
Not all pigs are like that. I have two, Magdalena and Penelope (aka Maggie and Penny or Mags and Pen) and they both have very distinct (and opposite!) personalities. They kind of remind me of the old dog/young dog in the Warner Bros cartoons: the older one (Maggie) is cranky and grumpy and ‘that’s mine!’ to everything and the younger one (Penny) is oh boy oh boy lookit that neat stuff can I see that hi how ya doin stuff is AWESOME!
In general pigs don’t mind being held, but they hate being picked up. Wouldn’t you if you were a prey animal and had a giant possible predator looming over you?
Guinea pigs are prey animals, so they will almost invariably run away when you try to pick them up. It’s just instinct. Once you pick them up hold them close to your body and in your arms, not on your hands. PDQ doesn’t like being held. He goes all quiet and still and gives me this evil stare and if I pet him for too long he grumbles at me. Reminds me of my friend’s brother, really And the noise is just their way of communicating with you (or each other). They have a very wide vocabulary of sounds and if you learn them you’ll know exactly what they’re after.
As for having no personality, they have tons! Give them a little attention and it’ll come right through. If they’re not doing much it could be because they’re bored or stressed. How many do you have and how big is your cage? Each pig is an individual, honest! And even if they’re not, they’re, uh, cute?
You asked (not really, but you know you want it) and my sister provided. Maria with an injured foot. This was right before Christmas, so the vet gave her a festive Christmas Stocking. Demeter The Cutest Cat in the World ™ “observing” Maria and her little friends Mouse and Molly…from the top of their cage, with a cute green Christmas bow.
And Demeter, TCCITW™, trying to catch a Mouse once she got the courage to enter their cage. Notice the use of a hay rack as both a hiding spot and a lure.
And just for the fun of it…Catin abox
