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FIVE MORE
Guinea Pig Myths Debunked
By Whitney Potsus
A couple of years ago, Pets Press published the first list of guinea pig myths that needed to be debunked. In the time since, we’ve sadly found more being perpetrated in online forums and blogs run by inexperienced owners — myths that prevent some guinea pigs from finding homes as quickly as they should and cause others to lose the homes they’ve had for a long time.
So, in honor of Adopt a Guinea Pig Month, we offer a new batch of myths that desperately need to be dispelled.
MYTH #1 Pregnant Women Can't Be Around Guinea Pigs
We've get a lot of inquiries from pregnant women wanting to know if they had to surrender the family guinea pig(s) before the pregnancy proceeded any further.
This likely stems (somehow) from the prevailing concern about pregnant women and cats, due to the risk of exposure to toxoplasmosis. (By the way, if you or someone you know is pregnant and has a cat, you might want to read more about this before you take kitty to a cat rescue.)
We've checked with the vets at South Wilton Veterinary Group and Pieper Olsen Veterinary Hospital — as well as several OB-GYNs in southern Connecticut — and the consensus is that pregnant women have no need to be concerned about being around guinea pigs.
They added that if women still have residual concerns, basic common-sense hygiene practices — washing one's hands, keeping cages clean, and so forth — should lay those concerns to rest. If all else fails, have husbands (and/or older children) clean Piggy's cage during the pregnancy.
MYTH #2 Small Cages Don't Do Lasting Harm
Sparky came to us by way of a thrift store, an abandonment case that involved pre-teens who were not taking proper care of him and a newly pregnant mom who thought she couldn't be around him. Sparky turned out to be a beautiful black Peruvian-Abyssinian mix with a swipe of white on his nose. Despite the commotion of the thrift store, he was remarkably even-tempered. He was sociable, clean, healthy, and overall well cared for — except for his cage.
The cage was about 22" x 14", thinly lined with pine bedding. The wire cage top was falling apart every way that it could fall apart and was held together by binder clips and twist ties. Sparky was sitting on the right side of the cage; his food dish, water bottle, and pile of hay was on the left. He had less than 10" of space for moving around. And no hidey house.
When I brought him home to foster, he was placed in a C&C (cubes & coroplast) cage. For three days, he stayed on the right side of the cage...not venturing more than six inches in any direction. I spent an evening coaxing him to be a brave piggie and walk around the cage. For several days, I had to artfully place veggies to encourage him to move around his new cage, and had to continue doing so to some extent for a month. And he was obsessed with hiding in his new waffle-block house.
Once he was comfortable with the cage, I put him in a play area that was bigger than his cage. Again, he would not venture more than six inches in any direction. Even the girl piggies in the neighboring play areas could not lure him out. Strategically placed veggies didn't either.
After several days, I put my male in the play area with Sparky. In a few minutes, they were doing a piggie train around the perimeter and criss-crossing back and forth across the middle. The next night, though, Sparky forgot what a brave little piggie he'd been the night before. So we repeated the exercise, and had to for several more nights.
I eventually got Sparky to the point where he'd run around my dining room or, at least, around the perimeter. Whenever he was introduced to a new environment, he reverted to his old habit — right side of the cage, six inches in either direction. Eventually, he found a roommate in a younger, fearless male and seemed to finally conquer his fears.
It can’t be stressed enough that pet store cages do not give guinea pigs enough room to live and play. The single best cage environment that you can give guinea pigs is a C&C cage. Your pigs will love you for it!
MYTH #3 Guinea Pigs in Easter Baskets & Under Christmas Trees
We've published our own treatise on the idea of "pets as gifts" or, more specifically, "pets as a child's gift." The short version of that is: Pets of any kind, no two ways about it, need to be a family commitment, with the adults taking the primary responsibility for their care.
- Guinea pigs are a commitment with a lot of responsibility.
- Guinea pigs are a commitment that can last 5 to 8 years.
- Guinea pigs are not low-maintenance, put-them-in-a-corner-and-forget-them-until-it's-convenient-to-pay-them-some-attention animals (NO animal is). They require daily interaction and care from you.
- Because of their instinct to hide symptoms of illness as long as possible, detecting illness is a matter of recognizing the early warning signs, such as changes in behavior, changes in eating and drinking habits, changes in bathroom habits, and so forth. Recognizing these signs is a product of careful observation — which only adults can do.
- Guinea pigs need a gentle hand and a soft voice. They need big people who can teach little people how to have a gentle hand and a soft voice.
If you are thinking of adopting guinea pigs and are wondering if they're a good fit for your home and your lifestyle, check out the list of questions at http://www.ctguineapigrescue.org/adopt/aregpright.html.
MYTH #4 Wait & See Is A Good Approach
Guinea pigs, being both communal animals and animals of prey, will hide illness quite well out of instinctive fear that they'll be abandoned by their colony and targeted by predators. This means that once the signs of a problem are visible to us, it has advanced to a stage where immediate, if not urgent, veterinarian help is necessary.
At The Critter Connection guinea pig rescue in Durham, we’ve heard of, and have been asked questions about, many different situations involving guinea pigs’ health. Things such as sounds of loud and frequent teeth grinding, crying out while trying to urinate, blood in the urine, partial loss of appetite, total loss of appetite, hair loss, crying out while being handled (or even at the prospect of being handled), and several others. All of these situations require immediate medical help. For example:
- What sounds like the grinding of teeth may be congestion in the nasal cavity (also known as an upper respiratory infection). If not treated quickly, the condition can advance to pneumonia (often fatal). Or, the pig may be grinding its teeth as a result of a rear molar problem. Either way, immediate medical care is needed.
- A guinea pig crying as it is peeing may be an indication of a bladder infection or, worse, bladder stones. Guinea pigs also can become "blocked" if there is a small stone in the bladder and it becomes dislodged; this is extremely painful for the guinea pig and dangerous. In both cases, immediate medical care is necessary.
- Not eating at all, or only eating very small amounts, is also a sign of a potentially serious problem. Waiting to see if the pig will start to eat again is not the best approach. Again, immediate veterinarian care is required.
Because guinea pigs can be so vulnerable, the wait-and-see approach is not in their best interest. Rescue workers, while happy to offer advice based upon their experiences, are not medical professionals. To ensure a speedy recovery for your pet, an appointment with a veterinarian should be made at the onset of a problem. If you need to find a vet who treats guinea pigs, there are vet finder lists on GuineaLynx (http://www.guinealynx.info/vet.html) and Seagull’s Guinea Pig Compendium (http://www.aracnet.com/cgi-usr/seagull/vetfinder.cgi). A list of adopter-recommended local veterinarians is also posted on our site at http://www.ctguineapigrescue.org/care/exoticvets.html.
When a guinea pig is having problems or is in full-blown distress, it is not the time to be posting questions in forums on GuineaLynx or Yahoo! Groups or calling every rescue you find on Petfinder until you find one who answers the phone. We frequently monitor online forums to help field guinea-pig-related questions and, on any given day, a good third of the questions were from owners whose pigs were clearly in a state of distress (e.g., heaving sides, crying out while urinating, extreme listlessness, blood in urine, diarrhea). Their comments were littered with phrases like "I probably should go to a vet but..." or questions like "Should I go to vet?" Several folks said they'd been asking questions in a Yahoo! Group and/or in some other unidentified forum(s) for a couple of days asking the same questions.
In every case, there were respondents who advised, directed, ordered, begged, pleaded, and cyber-YELLED at the owners to get their guinea pigs to a vet immediately. In the cases of the folks who'd been asking around in forums for days (and still hadn't gone to a vet), there were respondents criticizing them for "wasting crucial hours" by firing up the computer, logging into online forums, posting questions, and then waiting for answers. As one member put it, "If you're concerned enough to be asking whether you need go to a vet, then you absolutely should go to one."
Guinea pigs, like all species of animals, have a list of critical, need-to-go-to-a-vet-ASAP symptoms. Guinea Lynx's Emergency Medical Guide (http://www.guinealynx.com/emergency.html) is the most complete list available online, and is a page that all guinea pig owners should add to their Favorites/Bookmarks lists.
To be clear, there's nothing wrong with going online to ask for help in reliable forums when the symptoms you're seeing are (much) less severe, or when a vet has already diagnosed and started treating your guinea pig. Forums are a great place for information on everything from sparking the appetite of a sick guinea pig to identifying the nuances in behavior that can help you tell if you're dealing with a guinea pig who's being finicky or who's not eating as much as usual because a larger problem is brewing. But when the symptoms you're seeing are on the emergency list, get thee to a vet. In these circumstances, every hour counts.
MYTH #5 Allergies To Cats/Dogs Ensures Allergies To Guinea Pigs
Allergies come in degrees of severity and dormancy; some reveal themselves instantly, some take time (hours, days), some take a lot of time (years). The variables for reactions are endless. Some allergies are controllable with medication. Some folks with can load themselves up with Zyrtec, Singulair, and Flonase for days at a stretch and still can't be in a room with a cat, with pine, or with hay for more than 20 minutes without an attack starting.
Being allergic to one thing doesn’t guarantee that you’ll be allergic to something else. What it does tell you is that your body is pre-disposed to being overly sensitive to things in your surrounding environment. It means that some decisions have to be approached with a different thought process than someone who doesn’t have allergies; the more allergies you have, the less likely you’ll want to leave things to chance. Some people can have existing allergies to guinea pigs without even realizing it (because they’ve never been around them), or can develop allergies to them over time. Other risks for allergy sufferers considering guinea pig ownership are the bedding and the hay.
CareFresh bedding, or recycled paper bedding, is the best bet for people with allergies because it has very little dust and no odor of its own. It should be noted that occasionally you find a guinea pig that is allergic to pine or that develops an allergy to pine over time (in ten years, I've had two guinea pigs with pine allergies). For these reasons, CareFresh is the #1 recommendation of vets and is increasingly getting recommendations from allergists/immunologists. Another option is to line the bottom of the cage with layers of fleece (which can be bought by the yard at any fabric store for $6 to $9 per yard) — if you’re willing to wash that laundry every couple of days.
People with existing grass allergies are more susceptible to having an allergy to timothy hay or developing one over time, but existing grass allergies don't guarantee an allergy to timothy hay. We’ve seen folks with allergies to multiple types of grass, who can't be around alfalfa hay for five minutes before they start having breathing problems, but who have no problems with timothy hay, orchard grass hay, mountain grass hay, or bluegrass hay.
There are things you can do to try to avert a problem.
1) Seek allergy testing for guinea pig dander, pine, timothy hay, other types of hay, and wood pulp. This is more expensive, but the fastest way to find out if an allergy already exists. (But if you don’t test positive now, that’s no guarantee that allergies won’t develop two years down the road.)
2) Ask someone who has guinea pigs if you can borrow some bedding and some hay. Put an open container of bedding in a space that the family uses a lot. Give it several days, and see if there's problems with stuffy noses and sinuses, itchy and watery eyes, scratchy throats, chest congestion, and/or the fatigued feeling that allergy sufferers are accustomed to feeling with attacks. Then, clear the bedding away, give the space a day or two to air out, then repeat the same exercise with an open container of hay. Having passed these two tests...
3) Ask a friend with guinea pigs if you could pig sit for a weekend. Allergies cannot be counted on to reveal themselves in a short period of time, like 15, 30 or 60 minutes, especially allergens to which a person has had no...or almost no...previous exposure. Sustained exposure will shake out an allergy, if it's a sensitive one.
If you have a lot of allergies, or a few severe ones, allergy testing is the best way to find out if guinea pig dander, cage bedding, or hay is also on the list. Waiting to find out runs a great risk of a heartbreaking pet surrender for your family, and stress for the guinea pigs who have the upheaval of changing homes multiple times in a short period of time.
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