Particularly interested in hearing from mice and tarantula owners. I don’t really know what there is to like about those specific pets, and it would be nice to hear it from an owner of those pets.

  • @NABDadEnglish
    18•1 year ago

    We have two guinea pigs:

    Daisy:

    Rose:

    A couple things:

    1. Guinea pigs are probably one of the most fragile pets you can have. They are instinctively afraid of just about everything for good reason (just about everything they might encounter could eat them, including people). Despite that they have no qualms about yelling at the two giants they live with whenever they feel they aren’t getting enough treats.

    2. They are smarter than I knew. I taught them a simple trick. They turn in a circle whenever they get a treat. It took them about 1 week to get the idea, and then they immediately turned the tables on me by making circles whenever they wanted more treats. It is almost painfully adorable.

    3. They are litter trained. They have trays they go into to pee, and when you are holding them, they will let you know when they need to go back to pee.

    Daisy will sit with you for up to an hour and won’t pee on you, despite the fact that guinea pigs are said to have to go about every 15 minutes. When she needs to go, she’ll start to quietly wheek to let you know.

    When you hold Rose, she will immediately lay down and go to sleep as shown above. She can’t hold it as long as Daisy, so when she wakes from her nap, she’ll need to go right back. She’ll take your shirt in her mouth and tug on it to let you know she needs to go.

    1. When they are happy, guinea pigs do something called “popcorning”. They literally jump for joy almost uncontrollably when they are delighted by something. It’s one of the most amazing things to see. Such an immediate and rewarding confirmation that you’ve done something right. They will literally jump up on the air with all four feet off the floor. When we put them in their playpen, they’ll run around doing zoomies and jumping in the air as they go.
    • WugmeisterOPEnglish
      1•1 year ago

      Your girls are so adorable!

      I haven’t really grokked the fact they can be litter trained, but I suppose the fact that my fiancée’s little potatoes have never pooped or peed on me should have tipped me off that it was a possibility lol

      My favorite piggy behavior is rumble strutting. When we got our newest pig (Coffeecake) it was hilarious to see our older pig (Oreo) attempting to assert dominance with his awkward rumble strutting. I could practically see them talking to each other:

      Oreo: “Hey, um, I’m the big boy around here. Um. So. You’d better get out of our, I mean my food bowl. Please?”

      Coffeecake: “Starve, grampa!”

      Poor oreo has bottomed for every cage mate he’s ever had. When my Fiancée first picked him out, he had been separated from the rest of the herd at the pet store because they were worried they others wouldn’t let him get to the food bowl at all. But after 3 years of hard work to become the biggest, fattest piggy (and after Coffecake got neutered and settled down) Oreo has finally become the dominant piggy as of a month ago. I think he deserves it.