Furry Towers

Has it really been about three-and-a-half years since I last posted? That is both far too long and rather disconcerting - how quickly time goes by in the idiomatic blink of an eye.

So that I can catch you up with the flock it is probably more efficient to tell you which GPs we still have, rather than go into detail of who we have lost along the way. We now have just five GPs, namely Scruffy (Swiss), Leonard (Coronette), Fozzy (Peruvian), Dave (Short-hair) and, the official family favourite, Fluffy (Peruvian).

Since we last had any correspondence, dear reader, my family and I have moved house. We now have a larger garden that is predominantly grass, something more to everyone's liking considering we previously had a gravel ‘lawn’. When the weather is better than at present (extremely wet and windy in the UK) then the GPs can run around and stuff themselves with whatever takes their fancy but, and if you’ve read my previous posts you’ll understand why, lawn-access is timeshare only to avoid old scores being settled.  Times are good.

Our GPs live outside but, before you complain that has been known to (on occasion) get cold and wet in the UK, I should let you know that their accommodation has been substantially upgraded. Some background - I work for a technology company and my manager has previously somehow managed to see through my elaborate ruse to convince him that I’m a workshy layabout. He insisted that I received a bonus after a very busy year’s work and, despite my protestations to the contrary (oh alright, I snatched it out of his hands), I found some extra money sitting in my account one day.  

Now, I have two children so my thoughts obviously turned to getting them something that they would enjoy. It just so happens that a two-storey, wooden garden playhouse would fit just such a requirement. This was promptly procured, delivered, constructed (with a few naughty words being uttered) and much enjoyed (for a time) at our previous home. However, let me tell you of the largest phobia shared by both my offspring - spiders. Granted, the UK has very (very) few animals that would do a person any real harm and spiders just really aren’t one of them. However, phobias are what they are and within a few months, after seeing the myriad of different Arachnids that enjoyed spending time in the warm, dry building that had now appeared in their territory, despite my wife and I cleaning on a frequent basis, the playhouse fell into disuse. No amount of convincing would yield the desired result of returning life to the miniature enclave near the back fence.

Being a man in the prime of life (ahem) I initially started to get thoughts of a ‘man-cave’, complete with flat-screen TV and mini-fridge. However, enjoyable as it was to contemplate, albeit briefly, that would have been impractical for so many reasons. The playhouse fell silent until we moved, where it would undergo a transformation and become a desirable residence for new tenants of the squeaking and furry disposition.

Fast forward to a point when all of the boxes have been unpacked and I’m staring at a completely disassembled playhouse sitting in a pile on the lawn. I had ideas but, let me assure you, this was not going to be any great architectural endeavour. With the assistance of my lovely wife, a selection of power tools and good-old fashioned hard work, we managed to get the side walls and roof upright without too much effort. However, we were reducing the width by about 40% (to ensure that it didn’t take up too much room) so there was a lot of sawing in front of us, together with the liberal application of nails, in order to get a bespoke structure that didn’t look like it would resemble a witch’s shack from a child’s fairy-tale. Once we had achieved a reasonably aesthetically pleasing facade we continued on and divided the height into three. This was so that the lower third was allocated to the storage of supplies, sawdust, straw, hay, etc. and both of the other thirds could be used by pairs of GPs; our thinking being that this would isolate them from any cold arising from the ground. By the end of the day we had achieved something we could be proud off. We had successfully repurposed the playhouse into a very luxurious hutch where we could keep four residents warm and well catered.

Now, you may remember from the start that we have five GPs,  yet I’ve just informed you that four are securely accommodated in the high-rise structure at the end of the garden. So, where exactly where does the remaining GP spend his days? Well, Dave and Fozzy had previously lived in the two-story hutch that we had brought with us, and both Fluffy and Patch shared the penthouse in the newly-constructed des-res. The peace and harmonious living arrangement was not to last long and a battle was about to rage on the lawn of a simple suburban house...

Trouble In Paradise

It's certainly been an interesting few days here since I last blogged. There's been family politics all over the place. No, I've not been consigned to sleeping on the sofa; I am of course talking about our enclave of Cavia Porcellus.

Prior to adding the newer members of the herd, we believed that it would be possible to introduce smaller, younger GPs to the older ones. Whilst this has indeed been predominantly true, the effect on our first two GPs, namely Connor and Sam, has been slightly less than harmonious. To put it mildly, they can no longer be in even the same garden together without their teeth chattering like machine-guns.

Now, what could have brought on this behavioural transformation? We think it has something to do with the Peruvian GP, Jeeves. He has a rather confrontational attitude to the others and, whilst we realise that establishing the pecking order is normal, his tactics are akin to those employed by a dictator of a small third-world country. He drew blood from Connor and his scent gland has been used as a chemical weapon, sprayed everywhere indiscriminately, prompting us to air-out some of the fleeces that are used to keep them warm at night. This behaviour has seemingly upset the status-quo between the previously stalwart friends so we've had to separate Connor and Sam, with only one at a time being in any particular room or garden. Cris has tried to re-unite the pairing under more supervised conditions but, whilst Connor is seemingly amenable to the idea, Sam immediately starts chattering his teeth and lunging for Connor's rear-quarters.

Cue the internet search. Apparently, putting them in a situation where there's strength in numbers can be used to reinforce the bond between herd members. The recommendation is that taking them for a car journey might help as it will make them apprehensive with the end result being that hopefully that they will join together. The girls gathered the two warring factions and put them on the rear seat of the car (suitably secured I hasten to add) before we head out for our 'road trip'. Now, the last time I had to drive around town trying and calm some small little thing down was when my youngest daughter couldn't sleep. I had foolishly thought that those days were behind me until our newest family members arrived.

To cut a long story (relatively) short, it didn't work. Connor and Sam are still not the best of pals. We've now got everyone segregated into groups in an attempt to calm things down and bring peace and harmony back. Connor is living inside with the majority of the youngsters. Sam and Butch are outside in one of the big hutches and Jeeves unfortunately had to spend last night in solitary confinement in the other hutch whilst we attempt to sort out this mess. I think Cris wants to try some more tricks to get everything working again so I'll let you know how things progress. If you have any tried and tested techniques, now’s the time to shout out.  One thing's for sure though – I have a feeling that I'm going to have quite a few stories to share with you all.

We Lost One!

The day I chose to write the first post was also the day that we lost our first GP.  My eldest daughter went to one of our hutches with the intention of cuddling a piggy but came back to the house with a look of despair upon her face and cradling something very small.  Wooster, the Abyssinian we adopted alongside the Peruvian (Jeeves), was struggling.  It looked as though he was choking; his mouth was working as though to eject some foreign body from within, his head jerking back as though fighting for breath.  I took him and tried to the see if I could find the source of the problem but there was nothing immediately evident to blame.  The poor little guy was suffering and it was obvious that he needed a lot of help.

I tried to dislodge the thing that I believed was causing him to struggle for breath, massaging his neck and, as hard as I thought I could be without causing him additional discomfort, patting on his back to hopefully allow his lungs to take a full breath.  Unfortunately nothing was working so I passed the little guy to Cris and we rushed to the car.  Thankfully there's a vet only three minutes away so I pulled right up outside the door and Cris jumped out and went inside whilst I parked.  By the time I went inside he'd already been taken away by one of the receptionists and was receiving care.

We stayed in the waiting area until called into one of the treatment rooms by a veterinarian who informed us that he was receiving oxygen but that there was no improvement.  Apparently there was nothing that could be found that would constitute an obstruction and that this might be either the result of a neurological condition, i.e. seizure, or bacterial pneumonia.  We were given the option of either giving him a sedative which, if the cause was a seizure, might allow the body and brain to relax enough to bring him back, or euthanasia.  I confirmed with the vet that the sedative wouldn't cause him any more distress (it's pretty obvious now that it wouldn't as it's a sedative but I wanted to be sure) and then asked for them to try.  We both wanted to try everything but not at the expense of causing the poor little guy more suffering.  Apparently the sedative would take only a few minutes to work so we'd soon know if there was likely to be any improvement.  When I saw the vet come back into the room I knew the result; Wooster would have to be allowed to go on his way.

After signing a consent form the vet left and came back a few minutes later with a towel containing a little guy who didn't deserve to check-out so early.  Now, I'm a 38 year-old guy who could stand outside a nightclub as a bouncer but even I felt the loss of this little fella.  I've seen a lot of bad things in my time but losing a little guy like this didn't seem fair at all.  We took him back and have buried him in the garden.  The rest of the herd are being even more spoilt by Cris and I'm writing this with furry little creatures running around my ankles.

The Herd Gathers

Okay, as this is my first posting to this blog, let me first introduce myself.  My name is Mark and I'm the husband of a recently Guinea Pig obsessed wife, Cris.  Well, perhaps 'obsessed' is a tad over-dramatic but her love of these small and furry creatures is certainly up there near the top-end.  I wanted to write a blog to convey her experiences of keeping what I believe are affectionately called 'piggies', herewith referring to as 'GPs' for the sake of avoiding Repetitive Stress Injury.  She is writing her own account of the pleasures and problems of our new family members but I thought a proxy post would perhaps provide another angle on things.

We started off a couple of years ago by buying a couple of GPs for my eldest daugher on her 5th birthday.  Connor (a British Crested) and Sam (a Dutch).  They've since been very happy living in our garden which they explore during the day before being put away at night.  Recently though Cris thought that more GPs might be a nice birthday present for herself.  Off we went to Pets At Home to see if they had anything of interest...and we weren't disappointed.  After much deliberation, we came away with Patch (an Abysinnian) and Spot (a Smooth Coat), who were all about ten-weeks old.  We'd previously read that it was possible to introduce younger GPs to older pigs but not the other way round and, thankfully, there weren't any issues when we introduced the new members of the growing herd, who are all male by the way.  But, the acquisition process wasn't quite finished there; the family didn't seem quite complete so, the very next day, we headed back to Pets At Home and picked up 'Butch', another Smooth Coat.  Now, five GPs seem like quite a nice little group so that they've got enough company and none of them could ever be called 'lonely'.  However, the story doesn't quite end there.

As a responsible pet owner, Cris had been buying books on how to properly look after her new charges and one of the pictures in the book showed a Peruvian.  After I'd mopped-up the drool from the floor, the hunt was on for a Peruvian.  Except, finding one of these lovely looking creatures is rather difficult if you limit your searches to the traditional pet stores.  We searched on-line but, initially, didn't find anyone locally who actually had one but my, ever resourceful wife, did find a breeder in Biggleswade who had two male long-haired GPs, about five-weeks old, listed on her website.  The car keys were retrieved and the family packed up for the short trip up the A1.  We made the return trip with two new members of the family, Sheldon (a Sheltie) and Leonard (a Coronet) who were introduced and immediately accepted by the others.  I should add at this point that over-crowding was not an issue.  Since buying the new additions, Cris had purchased a two-storey hutch to compliment the existing hutch that Connor and Sam had been using before the influx of refugees.

I'm sure you can imagine that, although still very young, this number of mouths require more food than the two we initially started with.  It was during one particular visit to the pet store for a purchase of provisions that Cris' eyes settled upon the Holy Grail.  There, in the adoption centre, was a Peruvian that had just come in.  Sitting nestled-up to the Peruvian, was another Abyssinian who had also come from the original owner.  After chatting to one of the staff members it was discovered that they ran a 48-hour quarantine policy so we'd have to go back in a couple of days and pick them both up (well, we couldn't separate them now, could we?).  Both Cris and I have full-time jobs so we were sure that, by the time we could get back to the store in the evening, they would both have been given a new home.  However, we got extremely lucky and although I wandered into the store, expecting the worst, I walked out with another box containing Jeeves (the Peruvian) and Wooster (the Abyssinian).

The family is now complete, or so I'm assured.  All NINE 'piggies' have a loving new home and get spoilt something rotten.  Another reason for writing this blog is that I feel I'm going to have plenty of stories to share with you all over the coming months and years.  Each of the herd has their own distinctive personality and even I have my particular favourites.  I'll probably write more of a description of the individual members and describe some of the situations they find themselves getting into as this blog grows.  If you have any questions though, please ask them in the comments and either Cris or I will try and answer them.