Okay, so my guinea pig, Peebee, got mites recently, and I took him to the vet. He’s on flea/mite/etc. protection (much like the stuff for cats and dogs), but he’s also taking liquid antibiotics and antihistamines to help with the itching and to prevent infection in the meantime. The vet says, “He should probably be okay with taking the medicine-- it’s cherry flavored.” I didn’t realize that him liking the flavor of the medicine would cause him to loudly demand in a guinea pig’s voice that I feed him as soon as I see him in the mornings and when I get home at night. (Seriously, he’s never yelled “fweet” so loudly for anything in the three years that I’ve had him. It’s shocking. :eek: ) I sincerely hope he doesn’t think this is going to be a permanent treat, as, well, he’s a butthead when it comes to giving him liquid meds with a feeding syringe and I’m not about to do this just because he likes cherry flavored syrup.
At least he’s not demanding to watch tv or to sit on my lap constantly. That’d be a nightmare.
I used to have a guinea pig. We’d give him grass from outside, and he got hooked on it. He’d hear the front doorknob rattle and start SQUEEEEEEEEEEing for all he was worth. And rattling his cage. I mean, he turned into the biggest asshole! Damn pig. His name was Piggy Sue.
My brother went to Peru recently, and he told me they eat them there; apparently, the area of Peru they visited is where guinea pigs are native. There are tons of them there. He claims not to have been weirded out by this, but I gots my doubts. He wouldn’t try one, saying that he didn’t wanna waste a whole entree if he didn’t like it. A wasted opportunity, I say. Where else ya gonna find roasted guinea pigs?
Even though I own a guinea pig as a pet, I’d try roasted cavy if offered.
As for him being weird and demanding, he does have his own fun tricks that he’s picked up regarding all drawers/doors/crinkly items in the kitchen, including the fridge. I honestly think he’s learned a new place/noise every week since he moved down here with me, and has used his interpretation of the noise as a reason to riot until food comes to him. Of course, I use this opportunity on occasion to confuse him by whistling back at him. Silly pigger.
I have a ferret who didn’t demand his medicine, exactly…
This ferret had surgery for an adrenal gland problem. My husband was holding the ferret and we noticed that he (ferret) was trying to get away from the rest of us in the room, nearly hiding behind my husband’s head while perched on his shoulder. The vet and tech were not favorites since they’d operated on him, etc., and I wasn’t favored at the moment since I’d been the one to give medications and do other medical necessities at home. Well, I decided that I was going to be sure to give him treats after I did anything else unpleasant, as I didn’t want him to associate me only with yucky medicine, pain, fear, etc.
One of the things I had to do post-op was to help the ferret urinate - he’d had a swollen prostate due to adrenal issues, and this would go down within the next weeks but for now, he needed some help. To do this, I had to grab his lower abdomen on the sides, find the bladder, and squeeze the sides to force the urine through the narrowed opening. I gave him some treats afterwards, each time, twice a day. I would check him at the appointed times and his bladder was full each time, so I gave him a squeeze. After a few weeks, I got puzzled - shouldn’t he be urinating on his own by then? The flow went much more easily than at the beginning, but he still had the bulbous bladder every 12 hour check that I did.
I called the vet, who after I told her about my method, suggested that maybe he was “holding it” for the treat. She said that on a day I would be home to watch the ferrets, don’t squeeze him. Apparently a ferret’s bladder can get to the size of a tangerine :eek: without real problems, and I should just check on him to see if he’s urinating on his own. Sure enough, a few hours after the usual time, he was in the litterbox letting fly all on his own. Little brat.
The guinea pig conditioned response can come in handy.
I had a boar named Eno who I kept in the basement for awhile. He came to associate the sound of the outer screen door closing with feeding time.
When he escaped into the wilds of suburbia I gave him up for lost (and a sure cat treat somewhere down the line). But shortly after his Great Escape I came home, the screen door closed and rodent shrieking was heard in a distant flower bed (“Feeeeed me”).
Ha! That’s a great ending to a potentially sad story, Jackmannii.
In going to the vet, I had my fears of being a bad Pig Mommy[sup]TM[/sup] mostly dissolved after being informed that this was the first time in weeks that the vet didn’t have to give a guinea pig owner a lecture on something they were doing wrong.
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Awww, guinea pigs! I call my husband my little Guinea Pig because he has really curly hair. On a good day I can make him go, “weet weet weet!”
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Here’s Guinea the Pig. The only time she yells is when she hears the hay bag rustling. Most of her time is spent perched on someone’s chest, chirping like a bird.
I hate to say it, but someday I may become the guinea pig equivalent of a crazy cat lady. But, you know, instead of cats everywhere, I’d have free range guinea pigs in the back yard who’d follow me around. (Imagine a bizarro Bo Peep situation, if you will.)
Marlitharn, I’ve never had a shorthaired smooth-coat cavy. Yours is super cute, and has some of the stripey tendencies that Peebee has.
Awwww! I used to have a guinea pig that looked exactly like Jay, ginger mohawk and everything. He used to like my rabbit’s ear medication, which is weird because it smelled really bad. He used to go stick his face in the rabbit’s ear after I put the medication in.
However, my recollection of the full-throated Cavy Cry goes more like this:
weeick weeeick weeick weeick, weeick weeick (hears crackling of plastic wrap being removed from head of lettuce) **Weeick! Weeick! WEEICK!! **(ears flap like baby Dumbo) WEEICK! WEEEEEICK!!!
What was great about Jay was that, not only was he a fat monster guinea pig, but he would greet you with friendly chitters instead of the normal “bwoop” that you’ll get from most guinea pigs. (He was a barn pig who was decommissioned from breeding when we got him. Fat, complacent, and sweet, but always seemed a bit annoyed that Peebee was not a girl.)
If you think that one’s bad, I had to give my first guinea pig (sorry, only good pic I have left of her online) haircuts. She was like a little cooing, widdling Andy Warhol-esque wig with a face.
My husband often marvels at how guinea pigs have managed to survive as a species.
“Oh, no! A predator is coming! Whatever shall I do? Should I run away? Should I lie perfectly still? Should I camouflage myself? I know… WEET WEET WEET!!!”
My theory is the predators hear them, but have no choice but to spare their lives based on the sheer cuteness of their existence.
