Pets

[suzmicsoc]

We have a new addition to our pet family...today was my daughter's birthday...she got a guinea pig...here is a pic of him...his name is Patches

[luf100]

Aaaaw he's cute. His name fits with those colours.

My brother wants a guinea pig.

[gregrox]

Aaaw he's so cute. We had a hamster but my sister gave it away because he was "boring". And we had two lovebirds (thats the breed-ish thing) but mine was an evil little thing so we gave them away. Oh and we had a fish that my sister named the Purple People Eater but he died.... Right now I'm trying to convince my mom to let me get a cat.. or a lizard.

[suzmicsoc]

Luffy and Roxy...I think he's cute too...I just don't want to touch him too much

She made sure she got the crazy-hair one...she likes them better than the smooth-hair (don't know what the correct terms for these are, if there are any that is)

Roxy...I would probably go with the lizard. Especially, if you have any friends or family members allergic to cats. I'm not allergic, but the cat we have irritates me...his fur sheds everywhere. It makes my nose and face itch

[mirium]

Mar 22, 2009 1:53:55 GMT -5 suzmicsoc said:

She made sure she got the crazy-hair one...she likes them better than the smooth-hair (don't know what the correct terms for these are, if there are any that is)

Err....longhair/shorthair? Although apparently there are a couple dozen kinds of hair, and the differences are things that are extremely important to guinea pig enthusiasts and totally invisible to the rest of us. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_varieties_of_guinea_pigs (I do love Google. ) from the pictures I found, the color seems to be tortoiseshell.

I liked this site quamut.com/quamut/guinea_pigs, mostly because it has a table about Guinea Pig behavior that includes "popcorning", "rumblestrutting", and

Fluffing up the fur: An attempt to appear larger and more menacing to show dominance over another.

And they're so intimidating to start with!

Rox, if you can't decide between a cat and a lizard, how about one of these? www.catsofaustralia.com/sphynx-catbreed-profile.htm

[suzmicsoc]

Mar 22, 2009 19:16:07 GMT -5 mirium said:

Err....longhair/shorthair? Although apparently there are a couple dozen kinds of hair

Hahahaha...I guess it would be longhair...if you look at the pic, the hair has all these cowlick type things all over him...so the hair grows in all different directions making it "crazy hair"...that's what my daughter calls it anyway...lol

[mirium]

The websites said they're supposed to have cowlicks -- although they call them "rosettes," which sounds a little more elegant, I guess. And the names for different kinds of longhaired guinea pigs are mostly based on where the "rosettes" are and which way they tilt -- like, is there one on the top of the head and does it mostly swirl forward or backward.

Somehow, I doubt that the pigs know the difference.

[luf100]

So my brother did end up getting a guinea pig, too. xD It's a girl and he named it Blue because if you look close enough and in the right light, she has dark blue eyes.

i212.photobucket.com/albums/cc172/Caitie-1992/Home%20Stuff/GetAttachment.jpg
i212.photobucket.com/albums/cc172/Caitie-1992/Home%20Stuff/retg.jpg
i212.photobucket.com/albums/cc172/Caitie-1992/Home%20Stuff/fhb.jpg
i212.photobucket.com/albums/cc172/Caitie-1992/Home%20Stuff/rtygfd.jpg

;D

She hates me. If I go near her cage she runs into her log thingy. But my brother can hold her and everything. I try.

[mirium]

Love the third one, where Blue is sniffing noses with the dog!

I used to work with guinea pigs when I was doing medical research, and I gotta say -- guinea pigs are really, really dumb. Relax, we didn't do horrible things to them -- we gave them full anesthetic, took off a small (half inch by full inch, or 1x2 cm) piece of skin from their side and replaced it with a patch of artificial skin, which we hoped to use to treat burn victims some day. And then bandaged them very thoroughly, with antiseptic gel gauze and regular gauze and padding and the last layer being Elastoplast -- kind of like an Ace bandage that's sticky on the inside. It turned them into little tubes with legs, like dachshunds only less flexible in the middle.

Anyway, they must have gotten bored, because they kept seeing something interesting at the top of their cages and climbing up to look at it better, and they'd tip over backwards -- and get stuck with their head pushed against the top of the cage and their bottom pushed against the floor. All they had to do was relax and they'd fall over, but no -- they stiffened up and got even more stuck and started squealing. I had to go un-stick one 3 or 4 times a day. (The animal room was next to the lab, so I could hear them.)

They aren't vain about their looks, though. In order to do the surgery, we had to shave the spot; and when we found out that some of their hair would sometimes stick to the edges of the Elastoplast (although the hair under the bandages was safe), we started shaving them from armpits to hips, so they wouldn't get their hair pulled while they were recuperating. (It didn't make a difference to the experiment, but it made them a lot more comfortable.) And when we realized the stubble was sticking, we added a Nair step to the preparation -- again, purely for the pigs' comfort.

Which meant that on surgery day morning, anyone walking through the lab would see a dozen guinea pigs laying on the counter, sound asleep, totally bald except for tufts of hair on their heads, legs and butts, and occasionally emitting a gentle snore. Dang, I wish I had a picture! Anyway, they never seemed embarrassed by their odd haircuts when they woke up. I never even saw one seem to notice the change.

They are excitable, though, and for what it's worth, luf, they run around (or away) for no apparent reason. Occasionally, a tub of pre-prep pigs would get tipped over, and then we'd have a couple dozen of the critters running all over the lab bench, which had all sorts of bottles and equipment on it (especially on the other side; most lab benches have two counters, with sinks and shelves in between, and the pigs could run through the gaps between the shelving and get to the other counter.) The first time it happened, the other techs were trying to grab the pigs, which of course didn't work -- those babies can run FAST, and the techs were tipping over more things than the pigs were. I told them to just guard the edges of the counters so the pigs didn't fall onto the floor, and sure enough, in a few minutes they'd all fallen into one of the sinks and caught themselves.

So don't put too much credit on the opinion of a guinea pig, luf.

[luf100]

Ahahahahaa a lot of that made me laugh.

And I know but this one, I swear, just doesn't like me. Hmph.