So not sure best place to post. Just wanted to have a little vent about non piggy people.
I've just been laughed at for taking my guinea pig to the vet by a colleague! The rage and sadness I feel inside!
I explained that they are just as a pet as a dog and in fact lifespan isn't so far off compared to big breeds of dog.
In the end she said she felt bad for laughing and thought they'd only live for a year or 2. but think it was just her saying it. Also so what if their lifespan was 2years. But I hope deep down that interaction haunts her sleep lol
Vent over thank you.
If anyone has anything to vent about I'll be happy to read it.
HUGS
Irrespective of a species life span, laughing about anything that another person clearly holds dear shows not just sheer thoughtlessness and a lack of understanding but also very much a lack of basic respect and emotional maturity.
Unfortunately, when non-pet people catch you out at a very vulnerable moment, it really can get under your skin. Sadly, the old concept that a supposedly short-lived pet is not worth loving, caring or mourning for is still far too wide-spread, and lack of due care still kills disproportionally far too many young rabbits and guinea pigs compared to the young of other pet species who are also at a higher risk because of neglect/lack of proper care.
Half a century ago, the old saying that a dog's life span was 7 years still held sway, yet our first family guinea pig lived to nearly 10 years and he was by far not the only one I knew of within a mile's radius - or the oldest.
A goodly number of my rescue adoptees, not rarely from dodgy backgrounds, have lived long and fulfilled piggy lives. It clearly shows - as we all know - that the problem is not the pet but their owner's mindset and care.
Sadly, changing general attitudes is a fight you have fight single mind by single mind. You have to keep chipping away. It's a marathon. The problem is that lecturing won't get you anywhere; you have to make people stop and
think. That is the reason why quite a few of my guides and articles look at guinea pigs from a different perspective than a human-centric owner's one. They are there to make owners think and rethink.
I did get a lot of stick when I started talking about 'guinea pig whispering' and communicating with guinea pigs in their own body language and social concepts. As humans we really have a bad tendency to get stuck up on our 'we are the best and therefore everything has to revolve around us and our own desires and world view'; whether that is towards other humans, animals or nature. The difficulty lies in that so much is unconsciously learned from a young age by copying and internalising; we are not aware of it and often need a jolt. The big hurdle is always the internalised stuff that we have absorbed without knowing. It is also much tougher to change what you do without thinking and we are all guilty of that.
Trying to talk about it in a constructive and insightful way is the best way foward unless people are deliberately hurtful.
Good on you for fighting back and for making that person
think about their unreflected attitude,
@Ninarodders .
I usually console myself with the fact that these people don't have the first idea of the richness that they are missing out on in their lives. You can never win all minds but every mind won is a little victory.
and loving! I was shedding a tear over a very sad video of how a beautiful dog had been neglected for years on a chain in a shed and Truffle came across the cage and lay close beside me. I think most piggy owners have stories like that 
but online. 
