4boipigs
Forum Donator 2023/24
Decided to post here since I think the topic fits better than other areas. But mods move if needed.
There is a local rescue with a young male that was given up because a woman's husband was tired of their "hamster" and he was "going to kill" it if it wasn't rehomed. The pig is described like this -
"...a highly unusual guinea pig in that he will try to bite. Guinea pigs are not known to try to bite humans but when they do bite, they bite extremely hard. The possible reasons for this are either human hands may not have been very nice to him in the past or he's an extremely hormonal young male that just can't control himself. This is very possible as we have attempted to bond Bacon Bit with multiple other piggies several times and they all went poorly. For this reason, Bacon Bit cannot be adopted into a family with children under 13 and cannot be housed with other pigs...
We interact with Bacon Bit frequently throughout the day to help desensitize him to human hands. After a bit of chasing we are able to pick him up and hold him for short periods without incident and he's learned to take food from us with very good piggy-manners. While he is housed alone for everyone's safety, he is where he can hear and smell the other guinea pigs. He just can't see them as he can get very agitated if he does. "
This pig won me over about a month or so ago, so I donated and left it at that. Well, now I have some more room in my house after getting rid of stuff, so I was thinking about fostering or adopting. I've had only boys, and my current guys are all in divided cages (a 'pair' per cage) despite my attempts and a rescue's attempts to bond them. I've been bitten, I've dealt with abandoned guinea pigs, I've been thru numerous illnesses, and so on. I would up to taking on this kiddo.
So I'm wondering, has anyone ever worked with a pig like this? Did they ever get better? I'm not expecting to turn him into a cuddle machine or anything. I just feel bad for him and chances are a guy with a history/description like that is gonna need a special, committed piggy parent.
There is a local rescue with a young male that was given up because a woman's husband was tired of their "hamster" and he was "going to kill" it if it wasn't rehomed. The pig is described like this -
"...a highly unusual guinea pig in that he will try to bite. Guinea pigs are not known to try to bite humans but when they do bite, they bite extremely hard. The possible reasons for this are either human hands may not have been very nice to him in the past or he's an extremely hormonal young male that just can't control himself. This is very possible as we have attempted to bond Bacon Bit with multiple other piggies several times and they all went poorly. For this reason, Bacon Bit cannot be adopted into a family with children under 13 and cannot be housed with other pigs...
We interact with Bacon Bit frequently throughout the day to help desensitize him to human hands. After a bit of chasing we are able to pick him up and hold him for short periods without incident and he's learned to take food from us with very good piggy-manners. While he is housed alone for everyone's safety, he is where he can hear and smell the other guinea pigs. He just can't see them as he can get very agitated if he does. "
This pig won me over about a month or so ago, so I donated and left it at that. Well, now I have some more room in my house after getting rid of stuff, so I was thinking about fostering or adopting. I've had only boys, and my current guys are all in divided cages (a 'pair' per cage) despite my attempts and a rescue's attempts to bond them. I've been bitten, I've dealt with abandoned guinea pigs, I've been thru numerous illnesses, and so on. I would up to taking on this kiddo.
So I'm wondering, has anyone ever worked with a pig like this? Did they ever get better? I'm not expecting to turn him into a cuddle machine or anything. I just feel bad for him and chances are a guy with a history/description like that is gonna need a special, committed piggy parent.