1 What is Pet Owners Anxiety? 2 What can I practically do when I suffer from it?
3 What can I do when dealing with an anxiety sufferer?
4 Conclusion 5 Practical Resources
This article has been written for Guinea Pig Magazine issue 62 in May 2021 and is shared on this forum with the permission of the magazine. The copyright for this article remains with Guinea Pig Magazine.
We are all often in equal measure excited and scared at taking care of a new pet or pet species, and frightened when our beloved guinea pigs are severely ill or when the time comes to say goodbye. But when does this go further and what can we do to make sure that we not only worry about our piggies but also enjoy our time with them as much as possible?
The last year with the pandemic has been frightening and hard for everybody, so it is not surprising that there has also been a surge in people channelling their stress and their fears into a new direction.
1 What is Pet Owners Anxiety?
When your daily life revolves around hovering over your guinea pigs, anxiously checking all the time for the tiniest sign that something could be out of order; when you feel the need to health check and weigh on a daily or even several times daily basis and even the smallest change sends you into a full panic, heading straight for the worst case scenario and when you worry more about your piggies than you are enjoying them, you may want to consider whether you could be suffering from pet anxiety.
Like Pet Bereavement, Pet Owners Anxiety can happen to anybody but people with pre-existing mental health issues tend be somewhat more prone to it; both are acknowledged mental health issues.
The first reaction is generally instinctive denial, which is a real pity because once you can be honest with yourself that you are no longer really enjoying your time with your piggies because you are constantly looking for what is wrong and immediately jumping to the worst possible conclusion, you can then start to work around it and seek support from others.
2 What can I practically do if I suffer from pet anxiety?
There are actually quite a few things you can constructively do:
Delegate the weekly health and weight monitoring If you have a partner or family, ask them to do your weekly weigh-in and body once-over for you. You can take pictures of the body as reference to check whether there are any changes in the long term. Use them as your gauge as to whether there is really something to worry about or not.
Concentrate on creating happy interaction
Ask your support person to encourage and remind you to concentrate on enrichment and on spending time just watching your piggies being piggies doing what they love best.
Set out to give your piggies a happy piggy life but not to spoil them rotten. Happiness doesn’t lie in how much money you spend and having the poshest cage that looks great in a video but in how much joy you create for yourself as well as for your piggies – and the best things in enriching a piggy life are thankfully not expensive. This is not a competition in being lavish, unless you mean shared time and species appropriate interaction. Discover what piggies see as fun and allow yourself to be drawn into their own life; it is a whole new world for you, one full of naughtiness and personal quirks that make you laugh.
Please always keep in mind that social media are entirely driven by what humans consider funny and cute but that it very often is not at all a real representation of guinea pigs or real-life ownership.
Don’t set yourself unrealistic expectations that mean you can only fall short of or fail completely.
You do not have to the best owner ever and you are allowed to grow and develop as an owner, make mistakes and learn from them. Most deeper understanding comes actually from getting things wrong and having to figure out how to correct them. If you only ever skim the surface of perfect pet ownership with never putting a foot wrong right from the start, you will never discover the underpinning rules. You will be able to follow the ‘How’ to the letter but never evolve to discovering ‘Why’ things are as they are.
Some lessons can be harder than others, but they also give you a much deeper insight into ownership as well as into yourself. If you can never work through an issue to forgive yourself and turn it into a constructive experience, you prevent yourself from growing as a human being and you will retain a distorted view of others. None of us can ever get through life without putting a foot wrong. Most of adult life is spent in stumbling and getting up – and it is the getting up that allows us to become more emotionally mature and tolerant of others.
Take the 'Cavy Approach' to life with guinea pigs
You can never control all aspects of life; especially not how long you have your pets for, what they fall ill with and how long they will live. Try and see pet ownership as renting your pet from a higher authority that can cancel your contract at any time without warning; these things are beyond your control. A set life expectancy is an entirely human concept.
Guinea pigs measure their own life in happy todays, so focus on giving them those. Every day is a new opportunity to create a little more happiness. The more you yourself live your ownership in happy todays and not getting stuck on fixating on The End or on what could go wrong, the more you actually fill the available time with positive content and the less you waste it by worrying about what is not in your control. This is perhaps the biggest lesson our piggies can teach us; we humans could really be more like them! Build on the daily little positives and discoveries, allow your piggies to be your teachers and become less driven but happier yourself in the process.
Avoid anxiety promoting 'rabbit holes'
If you are prone to panics and obsessing on details, please avoid any home testing equipment but the kitchen scales, home treating on spec and using supplements as much as possible. Being ‘extra good’ by overdoing recommendations is not always the best thing.
Testing equipment like urine strips usually only add your own anxiety and can trigger obsessive testing but they do actually not really contribute anything to a health issue that is being seen and treated by a vet.
Too much vitamin C and overdoing anything good in their diet can for instance lead to the body to become accustomed to those higher-than-normal levels and to react with scurvy symptoms if there is a sudden drop even though the levels are still higher than in normal guinea pigs.
Another area to stay away from is online research; be aware that what you inevitably get are all the horror stories and the miracle cures, but never the vast majority of perfectly normal but unexciting recoveries. There are a number of urban myths that are being happily perpetuated, even if they have been long since debunked. It is all too easy to cherry pick symptoms and end up with completely the wrong diagnosis because of lack of medical background.
Organise and provide for vet visits early on
Try to find a good vet and save up for vet care as part of the daily maintenance, as you are more disposed to see a vet somewhat more often. Any vet is generally much happier to see a piggy from a concerned owner too soon rather than too late. You may also want to have your piggies given a half-yearly or yearly check, not just for your pets but also for your own peace of mind.
Take a friend or family memberwith you so they can listen in full to what the vet has to say in case your brain goes into panic mode or ask any necessary questions on your behalf.
You are also welcome to confirm a diagnosis, medication and care advice with the clinic afterwards when you can think straight again or ask your support person to speak to the vet for you so they can repeat the advice and information to you as needed.
Safe and friendly online places
There are a few friendly online places, like for instance this forum, where members are welcome to ask any questions they may have (little as well as big ones) and where they will get a friendly, practical answer as well as ongoing care support during illness; the quality of the support can however vary - especially on social media.
3 What can I do when dealing with a person with anxiety?
Pet anxiety is not just about the affected person; it is also about what anybody can do when coming across somebody suffering from it in real life or online. That is as important and that is where everybody can really help to make a difference; especially in a traumatising or stressful time like the current pandemic.
Firstly: BE KIND!
Acknowledge that if somebody is asking a question that they have a real need for an answer, whatever the question. Answer it in a friendly and factual way. You have also started out from point zero without knowing what is normal and what not. Always keep in mind that the poster could have mental health issues and treat everybody with the same respect and politeness you would use when face to face. There is never any excuse to be rude or demeaning.
Be patient with anybody in an obvious panic unable to think straight and take in much of what you are saying. Say it firmly but always politely and keep repeating it until you get through. It may take some time, especially when the fear of bad news or loss is overwhelming everything else; including seeking necessary veterinary help.
The crucial thing is that you can help the other person to work past their own fears to put their piggy’s needs first.
Be clear, keep it simple and be practical.
Dealing with somebody in a panic is not the time to show off your knowledge of all possible complications that could open a completely new can of worms. Aim to force the mind down onto the next step that needs to be taken and focus it on just that one step.
You can talk anybody through anything, including a loss at home, if you keep their mind on that next one step. Keep telling them what they can do at any stage and be practical but honest and supportive throughout it all. Assure them repeatedly that they are doing all the right things and that they are not failing their piggy.
Give somebody who is struggling something constructive to do at all stages.
It really helps with keeping the fears down – helplessness is one of the worst and most paralysing feelings, so you want to counter that.
If there is nothing more that can be done medically, you can always concentrate on focussing the mind on simple, little things in care that can contribute to comfort, like keeping a very ill piggy warm but not hot and support feeding a piggy that cannot be seen by a vet immediately with fibrous feed.
If the person cannot be with their piggy (as we all know, waiting for news from the vet is the time where all our worst fears come to the fore and we need to face them down), you can always encourage calming Mindfulness exercises or just ask somebody to send gentle healing and loving thoughts to their guinea pig instead of clouds of emotional turmoil.
Keep the perspective.
Remind a person who is really badly trapped by their own fears of loss and bad news that failing to have their pet seen by a vet because of their own fears is ultimately much more damaging to themselves and their self-esteem in the long term than putting the needs of the being they love before their own fears.
The same also goes for people who focus too hard on keeping their piggies going past every reasonable expectation because of their fear loss.
But always do it kindly, with understanding of the emotional abyss under their feet and showing concern for both piggy and owner; and never with disrespect for somebody unable to jump over their own shadow. Unless you have walked in their shoes you cannot know what they are up against.
There is always time to cry afterwards – and there is also help available.
The knowledge of having conquered seemingly insurmountable fears for the sake of another feeling being is one of the biggest gifts you can ultimately make yourself, especially when you suffer from low self-esteem. Please remind the person of this. If you cannot be always strong for yourself, you can always be strong for another soul. That is the power of the love that you carry in your heart if you dare to look deep enough.
I hope that these considerations and practical experiences from my work as a moderator on this forum can help you, whether you suffer from pet related anxiety or whether you are supporting somebody suffering from it. There is nothing like the joy and love our guinea pigs bring us when we can experience them without the need to fret. There is also nothing like the feeling when we could help to ease somebody’s burden in their in their hour of need by being kind and being there for them. The existential fears that the pandemic has woken in us may linger but we can hopefully counter them by being more understanding of ourselves and kind with each other.
Free mental health online/phone UK charity crisis support
- Mental Health Crisis Support UK:Contact a Samaritan - Pet Bereavement Support (Blue Cross UK):Pet bereavement and pet loss
For pet bereavement in other countries you may want to see the last chapter in our bereavement guide or google for local charity services. Access is unfortunately somewhat haphazard or non-existent in other countries.
Helpful Guinea Pig Magazine articles
More information on mental health aspects for pet keepers: in Guinea Pig Magazine issues 42 and 43; Pet bereavement/loss and grieving (with resources) in issues 45-47; Lots of enrichment ideas for all senses in issue 34.
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