Creepy Video On Caring For Your Guinea Pig

One of our favorite humans alerted us to this lame video from the early 90's on caring for your guinea pig. While the basic advice in the video is solid, it's administered in a way that makes us cringe:

As a side note, we would like to point out that we'd much rather listen to Insane Clown Posse or Sleigh Bells than whatever mind-numbing classical garbage they're suggesting you subject us to in the video.

A New Place to Store Timothy Hay

The newest shipment of timothy hay came in last week from Hayloft! Last time, we had the humans order 15lbs of second cut timothy hay to see if we would like it. 15 lbs lasted us nearly three months, and we liked it so much that this time we ordered 25lbs! That's half a year's supply for around $50, which, if you compare with pet store prices, is very cheap.

So the package arrived and the humans decided that they needed a place to store this giant bale of hay. Rather than have the massive cardboard shipping box sit in the middle of the living room (which doubles as our spot for floor time), they invested in a wicker hamper from World Market. Check it out:

It takes up much less floor space, which means we'll have more room to run around.

Evil Guinea Pig Takes Over!

Our humans still haven't fixed the digital camera, so unfortunately our adorable images won't be gracing your computer screen until they get it repaired.

But we figured we'd post a status update on what's been going on with us lately. The humans fitted us with this terrible new device which we both hate. It's a small pet harness that they can use to walk us around outside on a leash. Why did they buy us this thing? Well, word around the water bottle is, the humans are gearing up for a pignic later this autumn in Maryland. We're excited to get out and see the world (and much on pesticide-free grass outdoors), but we didn't realize there'd actually be a harness involved. We were hoping to run around as we please. But more on that in a later post.

We've been watching piggie You Tube videos, and we came across this one which we thought looked cool:

You see that humans? If you keep trying to fit us into that awful pet harness, this is what we're capable of!

Humans: Can't Live With Them, Can't Live Without Them

We have been rather angry with our humans lately. First off, one of the humans dropped the camera he uses to take pictures of us doing adorable things, and now we can't update the blog with pictures until those klutzy bipeds get the camera fixed.

Second, today we woke up at 6:30am to find that the human who usually feeds us our breakfast of timothy hay and Carefresh Complete (mmmmm...) was missing. Where's our breakfast, human? We figured that after a while, the human would realize his egregiousness mistake and come running, but after several minutes of waiting, no human appeared.

So we wheeked and wheeked as loudly as we could until the human got out of bed and fed us. "Why, piggies?" he asked. "Why must you wake me up on the one day I get to sleep in?" Well, what are we supposed to think? You feed us consistently every day at 6:30am, so now we're trained to expect food at that time.

Anyway, the humans haven't been all bad. It turns out that when they ordered our Carefresh bedding online earlier this month, they also ordered a little surprise for us- a Super Pet brand Play Tunnel! Basically, it's a fabric cylinder with four nylon ropes with clips at the end that you can clip to our wire cage. We would upload some pictures of it but, well, you know...

They clipped it to our cage and put some treats in the middle to encourage us to use it. I figured Buffy would waste no time climbing into it, since she makes a habit out of sitting on top of the pigloos and jumps over obstacles in the cage when she can. Now, I have a fear of climbing so I never go on top of the pigloos, but I really wanted those treats inside the play tunnel. So first I tried chewing my way through the fabric. No luck. Next, I tried breaking the nylon ropes that held the tunnel in place, but soon I realized that it would take forever. Finally, I put my front two paws inside one end of the cylinder and the weight of my body caused all the treats in the tunnel to roll over to me! Ha! Work smarter, not harder, I always say.

So in the end, neither of us actually climbed into the tunnel as the humans intended. It's just too big and scary, and why bother when you can find a way to get the treats without having to work for it?

Product Review: Super Pet Sweet Dreams bedding

The humans got us a new product recently: Super Pet Sweet Dreams, which is supposed to be comfortable bedding. The back of the package claims: "Your fuzzy buddies will hop right into bed and cover up their heads with a bunch of Sweet Dreams Bedding." We should point out that even though we're both fuzzy and we'd like to consider ourselves great buddies, we don't seem to be the intended demographic for this product. The front of the package specifically mentions hamsters, gerbils, mice, pet rats, and "other furry friends." There's also some sort of cartoon "furry friend" on the front which could be a guinea pig, but it's not really clear. As a general rule, we think it's better to get products that are specifically designed for us, or at least where guinea pigs are specifically mentioned in the list of animals it's intended for.

It comes with two soft clumps per package in cotton candy colors.

What the heck is THAT?!

Here's the part where I bravely examine the strange pink blob. It's my job as the dominant pig to be brave, right?

Buffy, I believe this is some kind of food. I'll let you try some after I'm done.

The humans were not happy to see us eating this stuff and took it away from us. We didn't know it was supposed to be bedding! We'll give this stuff 1.5/5 stars. We weren't interested in it as bedding and it made a mediocre snack, but at least it gave me a chance to redeem myself after that embarrassing paper bag incident!

Can Guinea Pigs Eat Chayote?

Chayote, also known as choko, is a green vegetable in the gourd family. It's high in vitamin C. It's also kind of ugly-looking:

I think that chayote is mooning us!

You know what, though? It doesn't matter what a fruit or vegetable looks like on the outside. What matters is what's on the inside, and whether the humans give us enough of what's on the inside to fill us up. (We're still not over the blueberries, humans!)

Now this is a decent amount of food.

Crunchy!

Chayote squash is not the most flavorful food we've ever had, but it was still pretty tasty, and it had a nice crunch to it. We made short work of what was on the blue plate, and wouldn't mind having it again. 4/5 stars.

Can Guinea Pigs Eat Shoelaces?

As a matter of fact, we can! We especially prefer nibbling on the shoelaces of extremely expensive running shoes, like the ones in the picture below. Other things we enjoy chewing on: ipod charging cables, PS3 controller wires, important receipts- basically anything you leave on the floor while you ignore us during floor time.

Look what we did!

Let me explain: guinea pigs like to chew. If we see something on the floor that looks tasty, even if it's not food at all, we will rub our faces against it for a few seconds and then test it out with a little nibble. Most of the time, realizing that whatever we just tasted isn't edible, we'll wander off. But sometimes we will continue chewing on it because we like how it feels to destroy something. HAHA! That'll teach you humans to ignore us during floor time!

So remember humans: Always keep an eye on us when we're out of our cage, especially if you don't want us gnawing on your most valuable possessions.