Surrogate Mother

Just in case you were wondering (and obviously you were) I’m done with the guinea pig sitting now. My short spell as surrogate mother to the three furry wonders came to an end on Sunday and I am most relieved to say that we all made it through the experience alive.

Guinea pigs were a new realm for me. I remember wanting one when I was young only to have Mum declare that they were smelly (an accusation I have frequently heard thrown in their direction, I can confirm they do not stink. Or else my nose doesn’t work.) and I couldn’t have one but could have a hamster instead.

And so Bunty entered my life. Yes that’s correct, I named her Bunty after the weekly comic that I would get from the Newsagents next door.

I would love to paint a glorious picture for you of how I’m such a huge animal lover and really I think I am but I hated that hamster. I hated it. She was nippy and bitey and I developed a complete phobia of picking her up in case my hand fell off. My only real pleasure came from cleaning her out and giving her a nice fresh cage, only to be horrified when she messed it up (a problem I also had with the guinea pigs admittedly, can’t they be trained to use a litter box like cats? Do they really just have to crap everywhere?). Smudge and Belinda, our cats at the time, used to sit either side of her cage, watching her swing from her bars like a pirate and there would be just the teeniest, tiniest part of me that would sort of, kind of wonder what would happen if one of them got hold of her.

Bunty finally came to pass 2 long years later. I don’t really know what she died of, we came down one morning and she was lying in her cage sort of rocking/shaking and not long after that she died. I did cry, I’m not a complete heartless beast, and she was even given a full burial service, thanks to the fact that my Dad was tongue and grooving the downstairs toilet and had some spare wood to make a coffin. Bunty still (as far as I know) resides under a tree in the back garden.

I will still linger outside the cages of hamsters at Pets At Home but my favourites are really the guinea pigs, despite the way that they scurry about and try to get away from you when you desperately try to reach into the enclosure to touch them.

I am happy to report that these guinea pigs lived up to all my expectations and more. They are basically a perfect size, not too small that they creep you out but not so big that they scare the hell out of you (I must be the only person on earth to be massively a little bit scared of big rabbits). You can sit them on your lap and they won’t move and are happy to just sit there and be petted, unlike cats which will only tolerate petting for so long. All they’re really interested in is grubbing about and just being guinea pigs. Brilliant.

I have to say however that the whole cleaning out of the cage would begin to wear thing after a while. Much as I like animals I can be a bit of commitment-phobe at times, probably why I like cats so much. Guinea pigs are a commitment, you need to be there to give them their fresh stuff in the morning and change their water bottles and you need to be there at night to clear out any muck and let them have a little run around in their outdoor run. It’s kind of a big responsibility and whilst it was one I was happy to do for one week in the middle of summer, having to do it in the dark and the rain in the depths of winter doesn’t sound as appealing to be honest.

Much as I would like a guinea pig, I don’t think I’m ready for it just yet. I’d rather wait until I was a parent and let my child have one. That way I could pass cleaning and general care responsibilities on to said child and dress it up as a ‘learning experience.’

Wait a minute.

It seems strange that I’ve just said I would rather get a child before a guinea pig. Not living in reality? Me? I don’t think so.

(If you were wondering, Apple is the brown one, Blossom is the white one with evil red eyes and Poppet is the sandy coloured one and, quite frankly, my favourite. How could she not be given this picture...?!)