Please forgive me for what is about to be a very long post. In order to explain the concern I have, it is necessary to give background information. I believe
the information, as much of it as I am about to type, is important to identifying the reason for the behaviour.
2 of my guinea pigs came to me about six weeks ago. I took them in as rescues from the humane society here in my city. I am not new to piggy care. I've got over a year's worth of experience with my other two piggies, whom I have had since they were babies. I was very confident when I adopted the two from the humane society. I went there with the plan to take in one piggy, but these two were together as a pair. The humane society even sent the cage home with me. He said they came in together but he knew nothing else of them. No background information, not even how old they were. Still, I asked to meet them. Both were calm tempered and showed no signs of skin problems or mites or fleas or anything. I hated the thought of them being in that place with no one to love them, and I brought them home.
What I saw upon much closer looking was disgusting. They weren't sick or anything, but the level of care was awful. Don't get me wrong - they were fed, sheltered and protected, but it ended there. I don't know how long the food sat in that dish but it looked and smelled terrible - we threw it away for fresh of course. The hygiene was horrible. The whiter one you could literally see dirt on him. Their nails showed horrible neglect. The quick was so close to the end I was afraid to clip them the first time. Gradually, every second week, I'm clipping tips off their nails and moving that quick back and working to shorten their long nails, hopefully making it more comfortable for them to walk. I had to bathe them, literally in warm water and baby shampoo. Poor Snickers, it was like he re appeared. He suddenly had very fluffy and white fur. The water after that bath was awful. The cage looked like it hadn't been cleaned in a year. They looked like they were on sawdust and the filth was inexcusable. The cage itself is tiny - they hardly have room to move. Why anyone would sell a piggy cage that small is beyond me. They are still in the cage due to the need to be housed away from the other two piggies (they don't get along, I tried to get them to play together), and anyway their cage can't accommodate two more piggies. Dad and I are working on a C & C cage, but are having troubles finding the supplies. The mission continues though, and they'll soon be out of that tiny one. It's such a pathetic cage, truly. I can't wait to toss it in the dumpster. Another part of the C & C cage will go to my other two guys. And, if all that work isn't enough, Snickers was terrified of everyone and everything. If you so much as accidentally made a sudden noise, he would hide his head and shake. I'd have him in my lap and even a sudden hand movement, he would bury his head and shake. I felt so very sad for him. He was soooo scared. Charlie was timid too but not to quite the extreme.
Snickers didn't even seem to know what a carrot was when it was set in front of him. He stared at it and would not move at all. I put him in the cage that time, and placed the carrot in front of him there. Some ten minutes or so later, he very slowly approached it and finally took a bite. He devoured it after that. It took me a long time to get him to accept a carrot from my hand. I had to rub the carrot in my hands so it smelled like me, and then put it in the cage so he'd eat it. Eventually I started feeding it to him while he was still in the cage. Then, he very slowly started eating it outside the cage with no one touching it. After even more time, he finally started to take it from my hand.
The first night he was home, I turned off all the lights to go to bed, and he went ballistic. It only stopped when I put the lights on, so I put a night light on where they are and that settled him. After a couple of nights, I was able to leave the night light off and the dark doesn't scare him now.
Before I go on to explain, I want to say, that Snickers is a different piggy now. So is Charlie, his cage mate. Snickers came to me named 'Frank'. He's so cute and that name just didn't suit him at all. I hated it, too. My dad named him Snickers, and Snickers he stays. Charlie came with his name and kept it. They are both very different from those first couple of weeks. Charlie will now approach you and lick you all over the face. He rubs his nose on Snickers now too. If it moves, he kisses it. He licks my glasses and everything, it's adorable. Your hand, your face, your nose, if he can reach it, beware of lots of kisses. I kiss him back and let him have his fun. Snickers has visibly relaxed. He now lets out regular squeaks at veggie and play time, and will even sneak up and yank a carrot from your hand, or from Charlie's mouth, and he doesn't shrink back in fear either. A whole lot of TLC and patience, and he is quite happy. Loud noises still frighten him, but that's not unusual for a piggy. I don't know their background, or how old they are, but I can't help but wonder if someone was mean to them before they came to me. Not at the shelter, but perhaps from where they were before. I don't know for a fact, but their behaviours would indicate, especially Snickers.
One night, I had a nasty cold. Since piggies can potentially get sick from this, I could not hold the piggies. That is especially hard for me - I want to, and I can't. I wash my hands immediately before handling their food and approach only to feed them. That one night, when it was very bad, I set up the playpen so they could at least get out of the cage and run around instead of being confined. I then kept my distance from the playpen to allow them their time. Well, Snickers started to visibly freak out about an hour after I put him in. He chased Charlie, he squealed his little head off, and ran around very fast. Thinking he had enough, I put him and Charlie back into the cage, where the behaviour continued. I then gave them their big pile of hay hoping he'd eat it and get distracted, but not so. At that point I wanted to pick him up and hug him and tell him everything was okay...but I was so sick, I didn't dare risk breathing on him. I washed my hands, turned my breathing away from the cage, and reached backwards and started petting him. It was going on 1am by now and there's me, petting this poor little guy and hoping he would calm. It took a long time, but petting him worked. I tried for a long time to find out what set him off, and my mum suggested maybe not being held disrupted his routine, and maybe he realized that he wasn't being held and it upset him. I left it at that, and didn't think anything more of it.
But, it has happened a couple of times since. It doesn't have to be dark but it's always at night. At least the last few times I wasn't sick and I picked him up to comfort him. He would be visibly shaking by then and so dead still it was like he was totally terrified, but of what I don't know. It comes out of the blue every time. One night I had about 5 other things on the go, and a friend took him onto their lap and calmed him for me. He did it again last night. I have hospital pads I put them on to keep them from peeing on furniture and people, so I put one on my bed and took him there with me, and laid with him until he stopped whining and stopped shaking. I just pet him and comforted him and he was alright. He's not sick - he eats like a horse, he's got energy and he's generally a content piggy now.
My question is, does anyone have any idea of what could be setting him off? This environment is controlled. I live by myself, in a one bedroom apartment in a building. People in here are not loud in general, and I don't crank up the music or the tv. If the fire alarms go off for testing or the smoke alarm goes, they all run and hide until it's quiet but at least then you know why, and that isn't very frequent either - once a month. It's just weird and I don't know what it is that's scaring him. I do not ever yell at him, and I have never, ever done anything like raise a hand to him or threaten him with anything. Never ever, to any piggy. No other piggy in the house acts like this. Well, I have one who does, but the reasons are very clearly different and, well, it's difficult to explain, but it's not the same. You'd have to know both piggies to understand why it's different, and this post is already way, way too long for me to go into why Sammy is different. Snickers is not exposed to the other two piggies. I used to try but they fight almost right away and it's not good. So, I have two cages, Sammy & Tigger in one cage, and Snickers & Charlie in the other. They're in the same room, they can chirp to each other if they want, but they have no access to each other. During play times, I pull out one pair at a time to keep the peace.
If anyone's got any ideas I'd love to hear them. He's not sick, that's for sure. He's scared of something, you can tell, but of what I don't know. Never have I met a piggy quite as scared as this guy. While he's great and doing very very well, he has these episodes and I just don't know what's doing it to him. I would like to know though, because I'd like to try to find out how to best help him and how to possibly stop him from becoming frightened like that to begin with. He's not exposed to kids or anything, so I'm totally clueless as to what is setting him off. You should see him, he gets quite worked up.
Sarah
2 of my guinea pigs came to me about six weeks ago. I took them in as rescues from the humane society here in my city. I am not new to piggy care. I've got over a year's worth of experience with my other two piggies, whom I have had since they were babies. I was very confident when I adopted the two from the humane society. I went there with the plan to take in one piggy, but these two were together as a pair. The humane society even sent the cage home with me. He said they came in together but he knew nothing else of them. No background information, not even how old they were. Still, I asked to meet them. Both were calm tempered and showed no signs of skin problems or mites or fleas or anything. I hated the thought of them being in that place with no one to love them, and I brought them home.
What I saw upon much closer looking was disgusting. They weren't sick or anything, but the level of care was awful. Don't get me wrong - they were fed, sheltered and protected, but it ended there. I don't know how long the food sat in that dish but it looked and smelled terrible - we threw it away for fresh of course. The hygiene was horrible. The whiter one you could literally see dirt on him. Their nails showed horrible neglect. The quick was so close to the end I was afraid to clip them the first time. Gradually, every second week, I'm clipping tips off their nails and moving that quick back and working to shorten their long nails, hopefully making it more comfortable for them to walk. I had to bathe them, literally in warm water and baby shampoo. Poor Snickers, it was like he re appeared. He suddenly had very fluffy and white fur. The water after that bath was awful. The cage looked like it hadn't been cleaned in a year. They looked like they were on sawdust and the filth was inexcusable. The cage itself is tiny - they hardly have room to move. Why anyone would sell a piggy cage that small is beyond me. They are still in the cage due to the need to be housed away from the other two piggies (they don't get along, I tried to get them to play together), and anyway their cage can't accommodate two more piggies. Dad and I are working on a C & C cage, but are having troubles finding the supplies. The mission continues though, and they'll soon be out of that tiny one. It's such a pathetic cage, truly. I can't wait to toss it in the dumpster. Another part of the C & C cage will go to my other two guys. And, if all that work isn't enough, Snickers was terrified of everyone and everything. If you so much as accidentally made a sudden noise, he would hide his head and shake. I'd have him in my lap and even a sudden hand movement, he would bury his head and shake. I felt so very sad for him. He was soooo scared. Charlie was timid too but not to quite the extreme.
Snickers didn't even seem to know what a carrot was when it was set in front of him. He stared at it and would not move at all. I put him in the cage that time, and placed the carrot in front of him there. Some ten minutes or so later, he very slowly approached it and finally took a bite. He devoured it after that. It took me a long time to get him to accept a carrot from my hand. I had to rub the carrot in my hands so it smelled like me, and then put it in the cage so he'd eat it. Eventually I started feeding it to him while he was still in the cage. Then, he very slowly started eating it outside the cage with no one touching it. After even more time, he finally started to take it from my hand.
The first night he was home, I turned off all the lights to go to bed, and he went ballistic. It only stopped when I put the lights on, so I put a night light on where they are and that settled him. After a couple of nights, I was able to leave the night light off and the dark doesn't scare him now.
Before I go on to explain, I want to say, that Snickers is a different piggy now. So is Charlie, his cage mate. Snickers came to me named 'Frank'. He's so cute and that name just didn't suit him at all. I hated it, too. My dad named him Snickers, and Snickers he stays. Charlie came with his name and kept it. They are both very different from those first couple of weeks. Charlie will now approach you and lick you all over the face. He rubs his nose on Snickers now too. If it moves, he kisses it. He licks my glasses and everything, it's adorable. Your hand, your face, your nose, if he can reach it, beware of lots of kisses. I kiss him back and let him have his fun. Snickers has visibly relaxed. He now lets out regular squeaks at veggie and play time, and will even sneak up and yank a carrot from your hand, or from Charlie's mouth, and he doesn't shrink back in fear either. A whole lot of TLC and patience, and he is quite happy. Loud noises still frighten him, but that's not unusual for a piggy. I don't know their background, or how old they are, but I can't help but wonder if someone was mean to them before they came to me. Not at the shelter, but perhaps from where they were before. I don't know for a fact, but their behaviours would indicate, especially Snickers.
One night, I had a nasty cold. Since piggies can potentially get sick from this, I could not hold the piggies. That is especially hard for me - I want to, and I can't. I wash my hands immediately before handling their food and approach only to feed them. That one night, when it was very bad, I set up the playpen so they could at least get out of the cage and run around instead of being confined. I then kept my distance from the playpen to allow them their time. Well, Snickers started to visibly freak out about an hour after I put him in. He chased Charlie, he squealed his little head off, and ran around very fast. Thinking he had enough, I put him and Charlie back into the cage, where the behaviour continued. I then gave them their big pile of hay hoping he'd eat it and get distracted, but not so. At that point I wanted to pick him up and hug him and tell him everything was okay...but I was so sick, I didn't dare risk breathing on him. I washed my hands, turned my breathing away from the cage, and reached backwards and started petting him. It was going on 1am by now and there's me, petting this poor little guy and hoping he would calm. It took a long time, but petting him worked. I tried for a long time to find out what set him off, and my mum suggested maybe not being held disrupted his routine, and maybe he realized that he wasn't being held and it upset him. I left it at that, and didn't think anything more of it.
But, it has happened a couple of times since. It doesn't have to be dark but it's always at night. At least the last few times I wasn't sick and I picked him up to comfort him. He would be visibly shaking by then and so dead still it was like he was totally terrified, but of what I don't know. It comes out of the blue every time. One night I had about 5 other things on the go, and a friend took him onto their lap and calmed him for me. He did it again last night. I have hospital pads I put them on to keep them from peeing on furniture and people, so I put one on my bed and took him there with me, and laid with him until he stopped whining and stopped shaking. I just pet him and comforted him and he was alright. He's not sick - he eats like a horse, he's got energy and he's generally a content piggy now.
My question is, does anyone have any idea of what could be setting him off? This environment is controlled. I live by myself, in a one bedroom apartment in a building. People in here are not loud in general, and I don't crank up the music or the tv. If the fire alarms go off for testing or the smoke alarm goes, they all run and hide until it's quiet but at least then you know why, and that isn't very frequent either - once a month. It's just weird and I don't know what it is that's scaring him. I do not ever yell at him, and I have never, ever done anything like raise a hand to him or threaten him with anything. Never ever, to any piggy. No other piggy in the house acts like this. Well, I have one who does, but the reasons are very clearly different and, well, it's difficult to explain, but it's not the same. You'd have to know both piggies to understand why it's different, and this post is already way, way too long for me to go into why Sammy is different. Snickers is not exposed to the other two piggies. I used to try but they fight almost right away and it's not good. So, I have two cages, Sammy & Tigger in one cage, and Snickers & Charlie in the other. They're in the same room, they can chirp to each other if they want, but they have no access to each other. During play times, I pull out one pair at a time to keep the peace.
If anyone's got any ideas I'd love to hear them. He's not sick, that's for sure. He's scared of something, you can tell, but of what I don't know. Never have I met a piggy quite as scared as this guy. While he's great and doing very very well, he has these episodes and I just don't know what's doing it to him. I would like to know though, because I'd like to try to find out how to best help him and how to possibly stop him from becoming frightened like that to begin with. He's not exposed to kids or anything, so I'm totally clueless as to what is setting him off. You should see him, he gets quite worked up.
Sarah
