Anyone else have a Guinea pig that looks like a squirrel? What breed is she? I thought American but are the colours right for American?


Gorgeous piggy!

Your piggy's breed is actually called a crested (with the rosette 'crest' on top of the head) and the particular shade of two-tone hair coating is called silver agouti.
Your piggy has too many white areas in their coat to be a full agouti (in terms of breeds). So I would stick with silver agouti and white crested as the best description for your piggy.

Americans (UK: short-haired smooths) include technically all shorthaired guinea pigs that do not have any rosettes, either on heir head and/or their body and that do not have fuzzy rexoid hair or are bald. There are however a number of sub-breeds that have been bred out from smooths; the oldest of them are likely going back thousands of years. Agoutis, who resemble most their wild ancestor species, are one of these sub-breeds.

You may find our illustrated breeds guide helpful which explains agoutis as both a distinct breed and our guide to coat colours explains the different agouti coat colour shadings resulting from varying combinations of tip colours and base hair colours.


 
American refers to the fur type (basically short and smooth) and they can be a variety of colour. Your piggie is a silver agouti, which basically means white and black ticking on each individual hair. Agouti pigs definitely have that squirrel fur look!

Misa is a lemon agouti, she definitely has a little squirrel face!
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When we bought Misa, we pointed her out to the store staff and she said, "You want this one? You want Beaver-Face?" So apparently she looks like a beaver too! LOL! We still call her Beaver-Face sometimes.

She has very long hair, my kids say she is part beaver, part squirrel and part mop.
 
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