Success

Update: I successfully took care of the pig while Kaela was away, or so I thought.

He doesn't usually eat his normal food, because he loves hay so much more. I didn't see any of the normal food and figured we were out, so I didn't worry about giving him any of that. Apparently we did have some and I just deprived him of it for a few days. He's still alive, no big deal.

I also realized one day that his water was gone. I wondered how long it had been gone, but filled it up and he was ripping the dispenser out of my hands before I could even reattach it. He proceeded to drink water for the next 5 minutes, so I think it might have been a little longer than I initially thought. He's still alive, no big deal.

Rephrase: I somewhat succeeded in taking care of the pig while Kaela was away.

The Parent Test

As I have previously mentioned, I'm not the most gifted animal care taker. Kaela is going out of town from tonight until Saturday. I have to remember to feed both the pig and the cat. Especially the pig, because if Bella runs out of food she will just eat paper or bugs and if Stud runs out of food you'll never hear the end of it.

Let's hope I pass the test.

Birthday Celebrations

When Stud Muffin was adopted he unfortunately didn't come with a birth certificate. So we don't know when his exact birthday is, but we decided to make it during the month of May, because that's when Kaela adopted him (plus May is just a great month). We're going to go with May 15. Conveniently my birthday is on the 12th, so we are planning joint festivities. Although poor Muff won't be able to accompany us to dinner or out on the town, we plan to make his special day really great.

He will be a whopping 1 year old, so it truly is a special day. Since cake isn't really an option for guinea pigs, we're going to get him some sweet treat, since he has recently boycotted Yo-Dips. We'll have to check out the pet store for some options. Also, I would really like to get him something special, maybe a new decoration for his cage or a little outfit (I guarantee we could fine something that was meant for a cat or one of those dogs that's the size of someone's foot). He's a little large for his age/species, so I'm sure we could me something work.

I believe a song/dance should be prepared, so we're going to finish the lyrics to our "Guinea Pig" spin on "Lollipop" (not the Lil' Wayne version, but the good ol' Chordette classic), and maybe we'll add some choreography, although I'm sure he'll be so frightened by all the action that he'll just retreat to his igloo anyway. Maybe we'll even get him in on a little bit of the dance action. We have always wanted to make a video of him dancing, he's really great at it.

Pictures will be posted following this fun day. Get excited.

I Am Loved.

Today I played with Stud Muffin. I took him out of his cage and let him run around, fed him a carrot and best of all, he didn't pee or poop anywhere! It made me feel better about my failure as of late. I think we bonded on a fairly high level and I felt a sense of forgiveness from him. I think it's going to be a good day, maybe even week.

P.S. I'm pretty sure Muff's birthday is coming up soon (at least the birthday we have given him). Surprises are in store.

Tweakin' Out

Popcorning. I have mentioned this little acrobatic phenomenon in previous posts, but anytime Kaela or I has witness Stud doing this it was because he was just so happy he could hardly contain himself. We have seen behavior that may or may not contradict this previous notion.

His cage is a pig sty (no pun intended), this much we already know. Yet he was jumping around ecstatically as if it were the greatest day of his life. If I couldn't tell the difference between hay, poop, food and bedding I don't know that I would be acting so joyful. I tried coming up with a few possibilities for his recent elation. They're neither extensive nor legitimate in any way.

1. He's happy to be alive. The sheer joy life brings him is enough to put a little hop in his step no matter what environment he is living in.

2. He likes living in filth. Maybe all this time we've wasted hours and energy cleaning his cage when he really does enjoy a home that I like to call "lived in."

3. Popcorning has multiple versions/meanings. A bad popcorn could very well exist, and in this case my 2 previous reasons would be completely inaccurate.

4. He wasn't popcorning at all. Maybe he was just so god damn pissed that we FAIL as caretakers that he couldn't hold it in and decided to run amuck fervently in the 2' x 2' cage he calls a home.

My best guess: #4. Again, I have accepted my shortcomings as qualified to care for animals.

Yes, we're horrible parents.

I've re-evaluated my parenting skills and come to the conclusion that the reason I have nothing to write about for this blog is because Kaela and I have paid continuously less attention to poor Stud Muffin. We don't clean his cage to the point where it's difficult to distinguish between food pellets, poo, hay and bedding (these 4 things look nothing alike). Not only do we let the pig live in filth, but the cat has began to live this way as well. We haven't emptied her litter box for over a week. I can't believe I'm admitting this to the world.

Also, we don't play with poor McMuff. We take him out for two seconds and give him a little pet, but then put him right back in his cage. It's no wonder he's overweight and squeaks all the time. However, taking him out and letting him run around is such a process. We have to set up a barricade because he tries to squeeze his little body in the most unlikely places. After we set up a larger cage, we have to make sure we're watching him at all times, because as mentioned in previous posts, Bella will take a swing at him. Then after all of this preparation he hardly runs around and pees and poops all over the floor. It's not like our carpet is in mint condition, but it's still pretty unsanitary. My point: way too much prep for very little excitement and he doesn't even act like he likes it.

What else am I supposed to write about? He has the brain the size of a peanut! I'm sorry Stud, I really do love you, but sometimes you're a little boring.

Heat Stroke

There hasn't been a post in a while. Why you ask? The pig has done nothing! He has been hardly entertaining and not even a little annoying. During this low point, I have decided to do a brief outline of some of the experiences he's had over the past couple of weeks.

1. Kaela took the little guy home for spring break and apparently he is not a fan of the sun. He was in his cage in the back seat of her car and getting a little fresh sunlight, which he doesn't see often. He starts panting and tries burrowing underneath his bedding to avoid the heat from the sun. At this point, Kaela feels bad, turns on the AC and covers his cage with a blanket or jacket of some sort. Moral of the story: pig hates nature.

2. The other night we decided to switch up his mode of eating hay, and instead of giving him handfuls, we fed him directly. By "directly" I mean Kaela put the hay in her mouth and let him chew and slowly pull it into his. If this isn't true love I don't know what is. The scene was straight out of Lady & The Tramp (I'll let you decide who is the lady and who is the tramp), but I am truly upset I didn't document it to show you. Needless to say, this didn't last long and Kaela became unsatisfied with the taste of hay. Moral of the story: hay is not for humans.

3. The pig now smells lavender fresh. The pet store was out of his regular bedding, so he now has bedding with a lavender scent and real dried flowers! Exciting, I know. He seems pretty into it and apparently the flowers are edible, which I know he loves. Maybe this will become a recurring purchase, we'll just have to see. Moral of the story: the pig isn't picky.

This is truly everything I can think of. Hopefully I'll be back soon with something a little more exciting to report. We might just have to get him out and make something happen..wait and see!

Poop

As an addition to the previous post I wanted to update on his situation. This might not interest some, but I find it absolutely astounding. I'm not sure the average number of times a guinea pig poops per hour, but Stud Muffin has pooped 17, YES 17 times in the last 2 hours. Two of these little dropplings are located in his food dish. Apparently the saying, "Don't poop where you eat means nothing to him."

That is all.

17 times.

The McMuffin Menu

As we cleaned his horrendously disgusting cage, I held the pig and Kaela cleaned (this is usually how it goes). As I held him, wrapped in a warm fuzzy towel, he looked so cute I had to start taking pictures. Eventually these pictures evolved into a full menu of food items.

Initially, Kaela's mom came up with "Muffin Soup" because he flips over his igloo and then sits in it. Don't even get me started on him flipping over his igloo and then freaking out because he has nowhere to hide. However, this little number is really pretty cute.



Next on the menu is "Guinea Ragoon," a slight moderation to the always popular crab ragoon found at many Chinese restaurants. I am a fan of crab ragoon, but I'm not sure how cream cheese with guinea pig would taste. Side note: guinea pigs are served as a delicacy in some countries. So glad they're not here, or these menu items could very well be true (very disturbing)!



Next we have the "Pig Taco," which lacks some of the core ingredients to a taco, such as cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, etc, but I have a feeling the yummy flavors of Muff will do just fine to make up for the shortcomings in additional ingredients.



Obviously, we had to include Stud as a muffin. It just makes logical sense, and sometimes when he wads up into a ball he can appear pretty compact. What kind of muffin you ask? A stud muffin of course.



Finally, after Kaela clipped his toenails the white and red towel was replaced with a lime green one. Once wrapped in this I thought he looked like a cute little lettuce wrap. During my attempt to catch this adorable candid moment the unthinkable (although, completely thinkable) thing happened: he peed on me. Yes, he peed on me. The top of my leg felt a sudden rush of warmth and there was a little wet spot on my pants. As you may have predicted, I lost track of taking adorable pictures to scream and feel totally disgusted by what had happened. So, unfortunately I don't have a picture of the "Stud Lettuce Wrap," but hopefully the description is enough.

Disclaimer: We have no real intentions of eating our guinea pig, please have no fear.

Is that a nose blow I hear?

Who ever thought blowing your nose would make the pig go crazy, because it does. Kaela blows her nose every morning when she gets up (allergies) and the pig associates this with food. Food, his one true love. Naturally, we feed Muff every morning when we get up, usually around the same time, but like most people we do the same things every morning when we get up. For Kaela, its an alarm clock, out of bed, a solid nose blow, maybe a bathroom break and then food for the pig. HE KNOWS THIS.

It's like clock work. Every morning, the second he hears Kaela stirring in bed, the alarm clock go off, or the infamous nose blow he's squeaking like he's about to starve to death. This squeak is not a little, I'm so happy, good morning world squeak; it's ear-piercing. It sounds like someone is torturing him. I can be in my room, with the door shut and still hear him. It's ridiculous.

Want to hear it? I went to this website with a bunch of different guinea pig sounds. Apparently this noise is an "alarm call" and it can happen when guinea pigs are confronted with other guinea pigs or if they are afraid of something. I have NO IDEA what he could possibly be afraid of at 7am, but I'm sure it's not the mounds of hay we give him.

http://www.jackiesguineapiggies.com/guineapigsounds.html

This is the link with what he sounds like. Scroll down and click on Clover (apparently she does a pretty good alarm call). I don't know who has the time to make a website like this...as I blog about my guinea pig. Now, I want you to imagine this "alarm call" as you lie in bed...and it NEVER ENDS.

NEVER ENDS.

Until we give him hay of course.

Food Coma

Hay. His favorite thing in the entire world (except for Kaela and I of course). He craves it in the morning, afternoon, night. He dreams about it and I don't think he even has an interest in the female guinea....just hay.

Naturally, whoever wakes up first will feed the pets: scoop of food for Stud, hay for Stud and a scoop of food for Bella. Except McMuff doesn't understand that if he still has food left after a day, or even a few hours it's still OK for him to eat it. I'm pretty sure the hay at the bottom of his "hay holder" (I'm not really sure what else to call it) is days, maybe even weeks old. It also might be due to the fact that once it gets too far down he can't reach it.

He gets so excited about hay, he actually overdoses. Hay is his Thanksgiving meal, except every day. Naturally, as I do, when it's Thanksgiving, you eat until you can't eat anymore...and then you sleep. This is what Stud Muffin does EVERY SINGLE DAY. We will walk upstairs to find him passed out right next to his hay (to give you a little insight, a normal nap/bedtime would be spent in his igloo, but food coma's happen almost instantly). He literally is so full that he can't make it back to his igloo, so instead he just gives in and takes a nap.

I have tried my hardest to stalk him for the last couple of weeks to get a picture of this, but I can't, of course! So, instead here is a picture of a potential food coma.

And here is a picture of just how much he loves hay.

My new best friend.

As many may know, the 111 N Mills residence has turned into a zoo. New resident: Bellatrix Lestrange (her name didn't begin as this, it was Isabella, a much cuter/pleasant name, but behavior has influenced the name change). Why you ask? I'm not going to make this blog about her, because I think it might upset McMuff, but maybe I'll have to start one up in the future.

This post is however about the newly developed relationship between Bella and Stud. This may come as a surprise, but they are best friends, although we were a little nervous after the first few days. Their friendship went through stages, rather quickly I might add, and it began quite unpleasantly.

The 1st night Bella was here she tried to eat him. It was a bit scary, but for some reason Stud had a "no fear" attitude about the whole thing. Although he viewed the situation fearlessly, Kaela and I decided to save his life and hide him in her room for the rest of the night. In fact, she was standing on top of his cage sticking her paws, claws out, into his cage; the only thing protecting him was a fragile plastic igloo. You are welcome Stud.

After a few days of us running up the stairs anytime we heard a noise to make sure we didn't find a half-eaten guinea pig, Bella started to realize he probably wouldn't taste so good, probably pretty fatty, not so lean. So instead of sticking her claws into his cage, hoping to snag him, she would just sit on the stair ledge right next to his cage, or on the plastic tub right in front of it. She went from clawing to staring, with the occasional mouth water, she was moving in the right direction. But Stud still had no fear. Pictured below: the evil glare in Bella's eye; Muff is unaware.

Now she's generally pretty uninterested. They've actually become besties. She will sit in the same spot on the plastic tub and put her nose up to his cage and he will put his up to the edge of his cage too. It's pretty damn cute, we might have to start watching for inter-species mating, instead of half-eaten guinea pig. Love is in the air.

Get your hands off me.

The title of this post is the thought that continually ran through his head all night. He needed a good cage cleaning, so we decided to make a spa night for the pig. We pampered him, fed him carrots, trimmed his nails, reorganized his cage; the list continues. What respect does he show us? None. Listed below are the series of not-so-likable behaviors he showed us tonight:

1. Biting. I was feeding him a carrot (number 2 i might add), and after he tried to rip it out of my hand the whole time, he bit me. He doesn't have razor-sharp teeth or anything, but I must say he broke skin. Thank god I didn't start bleeding, he might have tried to drink it.

2. "Don't touch me" head jerk. This may be confusing, but sometimes you are petting the top of his head and he thrashes it up and throws your hand off as to say "If you don't stop touching the top of my head, I will pee on you." After this lovely gesture, he received no more petting.

3. Frantic spinning. As Kaela slaves away to clean his cage, which includes new hay, a fresh rug, vacuumed surroundings, fresh bedding and a feng shuied living space, he can't even be thankful. On top of the spring cleaning and remodeling, I am attempting to feed him yummy Yo Dips, which are a healthy yogurt dessert he has recently stopped enjoying; apparently he is too good for them. He won't sit still. He keeps running around in circles all over my stomach and I can't help but think he's situating himself to just pee right on me. Yes, he has done this, but to Kaela, I'm not really looking for a repeat. Thankfully he doesn't, but we had him out of his cage for maybe 10 minutes (which he should be appreciative of) and he couldn't relax.

Three strikes and you're out Muff. I put him back in his cage before he had his igloo back in there, which freaks him out as well. So he ran around in circles until he got that shelter back. I've never been so happy to have his cage clean, I think I might be happier than him.

Pictured below: His frantic "Get me out of here" face; a very clear sign he wanted a cage cleaning. The things we do for him.



At the end of the day, we still love him, although sometimes we truly wonder why.

P.S. Tomorrow is Groundhog Day. Groundhogs are a distant relative of the Guinea Pig. He's pretty excited for the festivities we have planned. He likes all the attention he can get for just about any holiday minorly related to him.

Oops, I peed.

Stud Muffin's biological mom is Kaela, my roommate, but I like to think I am his adopted mom. Her and I like to let him out of his cage to exercise often, because we don't want him to suffer from guinea obesity (an epidemic truly sweeping the population). Tonight was a night we chose for him to spread his little legs, although they don't spread far from his body.

He LOVED it. He was happy for a solid 30 minutes. We fed him carrots, lettuce and he chewed on the occasional wood door trim or cardboard box. We need to look into it, but I'm pretty sure he suffers from a severe case of Pica.

Exhibit A:


Notice the chewed off bottom portion of the cute kitty we had on his cage to keep him company. Apparently he doesn't like cats.

During his exploration this evening he performed a few, not-so-likable, behaviors. First and foremost, he peed. Right on the carpet in our hallway. Needless to say we were somewhat dissatisfied, but his adorable sensational "popcorning" made up for it. Guinea pigs "popcorn," which means they hop up and down energetically to show when they are happy. Of course he couldn't do it at times when I was recording him, but I'll try for next time. It's the cutest thing you've ever seen.

Here are a few pictures of tonight's adventures.



He will go anywhere for food, even into the stinky old slipper.

He smells food.

Welcome Pig

This blog is dedicated to my cute, cuddly guinea pig Stud Muffin and his daily/weekly escapades. He is not quite a year old, but acts like a moody, demanding teenager.

Never a dull moment.