Our slave's piggy earrings!

Our slave Mieke also has some decorative piggy pieces. Her latest additions are definitely the coolest. She was looking for some earrings and obviously they had to be guinea pig shaped. Browsing around on Etsy, she found this shop called jewelleryfurkeeps and among her super cute animal earrings, necklaces and bracelets she found a set of piggy earrings. She read in the description they are made to order, so she wondered if this designer would be okay with making a slightly different design. She send a message to the designer and she replied she would be more than happy to make an adjusted design for her. Slave said she'd like one of the earrings like in the original design and one with a piggy standing on hind legs. We think this designer lady had no piggies of her own so slave send her some pigtures of us standing on hind legs for veggies.
Eventually she made one set especially for our slave with one original piggy design and one on hindlegs. Our Cookie was the model for that one.

Look at these awesome earring studs @jewelleryfurkeeps made! I saw the ones in the first picture on Etsy. I read they were made to order, so I wondered if she could make them slightly different. Together we designed the piggy standing on hind legs on the second photo. I send anne, the designer and maker, some pigtures of my guinea pigs on their hind legs begging for treats. Pigture 3 is of Binky on hind legs or even on his toes, stretching out. Anne also made a version of Binky, and they are for sale in her Etsy shop! #earrings #guineapigs

A post shared by Mieke (@pandameisje) on Nov 4, 2017 at 1:45pm PDT

 And she made some extra based on Binky modeling for them:

I, Binky, was the model for these guinea-pig-standing-on-hind-legs earring studs. Aren't they super cool? Slave thinks they are adorable... And they are for sale in @jewelleryfurkeeps Etsy shop, how cool is that? Any one wants my image in their ears? *Proud boar* Did you see me? @mfug22 @blogparty @surreysqueakers @lobsanglei @paulinehovers

A post shared by Mieke (@pandameisje) on Nov 4, 2017 at 1:51pm PDT

Slave got a set of the Binkies as well, because then she could mix and match the with the other two earrings, and they weren't that expensive for handmade silver earrings. And how many slaves can say they have eating modeled after her piggies, or other pets for that matter?
She made 8 pairs of Binkies, slave bought one set, right now there are 5 sets left, so there must have been two others buying the 'Binkies'! Which also means there are still 5 pairs of Binkies left to buy for your slave!!!

Our Slave's Tiny Piggy Ornaments

Our dear friends, Eddie and Nugget asked on the GPDD if we could show them some photos of our Slave's collection of tiny piggy ornaments so here goes.

First of all there are these four fat piggies.

They are only one inch high and they came from a wonderful online store called the Winking Cavy. Piggies of all colours and breeds could be ordered and the man who made these could even make a model of one's own piggy from a photo. Sadly this store no longer exists.

Here is another trio of little porkers. The middle one was a gift from our pigsitter and the outer ones came from the Winking Cavy. It was hard to get a good photo of those two as they are made of glass, which reflected too much, They are both the same design but one is opaque and one is clear. The middle one is a little bit bigger than the first four and the glass ones are smaller.

Here are some more. The outer pair are Wade whimsies ( people in England might know of these ) and the one in the middle is from a German zoo set. Slave found him in a garden centre one Christmas.

We love these next ones. They are made of wood and are really tiny. Slave found them at the South of England show, where there were many stalls selling all kinds of goodies. There was a man who made Noah's Arks and hordes of different animals to go with them. Slave was amazed to find these piggies amongst the other animals and bought them all. We know that they should go two by two but she could not leave  any behind.

These are fridge magnets courtesy of the Winking Cavy. The white one does not show up very well but we could not reach the fridge to take them down.

These last ones are not really ornaments but we thought that Eddie and Nugget would like to see them anyway. Our Slave has a doll's house, for which she makes furniture and other items. This house has a garden full of flowers made from paper and Fimo, which is a modelling clay. The garden had to have piggies in it so Slave made this family and their veggies. They have a little pen and a hutch, of which you can just see a bit of the doors.

We hope that you enjoyed seeing these photos Eddie and Nugget. Does any other pig's Slave have little piggies that we could see. Please send us a photo if you can.

Slave does have a tiny silver piggy, which hangs from a chain and she never, ever takes it off so you will have to imagine it.

Slave's Guinea Pig Mugs

We had a request from Eddie and Nugget with Slave Cindy for a photograph of Slave's Christmas present piggy mug. We omitted to include this in our post about her piggy gifts so we are remedying this right now.

Below you can see the new one complete with matching spoon.

She has a similar one made by the same company in which she stores her paint brushes. She does not want to use them for coffee in case they get chipped. You can see them both below.

These piggies also appear on cards and calendars in the UK and we expect that readers from here will have seen them in shops or may own them too.

Whilst we had the camera out, an intrepid piggy climbed onto a stool to take a photo of Slave's row of other mugs on a very high shelf in the pig room. We thought that we would share this photo too. Here they are.....

A Piggy A-Z. F is for Fresh grass. The Finest Food for Piggies.

After a day when our grass was frozen, we were very pleased to have some lovely fresh grass for breakfast this morning. Fresh grass is the very best food for piggies and we all love it.

Above you can see Ivan Piggyfriend tucking in. " Eeek, Slave is going to take my pigture!"

" I am F for Full," says Magnus.

Look what Slave received at Christmas.

We wanted to share pigtures of some piggy presents that our Slave received at Christmas.

Her son, Sean, our pigsitter, sent her this card ( below ).

Santa Pig has goggly eyes.

A box of delights arrived from Connecticut from our erstwhile Junior Slave. There were presents for all but in her goody bag were these socks.

Whoever designed them must know about piggies because as well as pigtures of adorable piggies, there are carrots and............little piles of poo! Look below for a close up.

We do not think that Slave will wear them as she would not want them to wear out and, at the moment, they are pegged to the Dangermice's pen so that the photos could be taken.

She received this funny plushy piggy. His name tag says that he is called Norman. Apparently he was in a film. He has tiny, little pink feet just like us. ( pigture below ).

Aren't they cute? ( just like us again ).

Look at these tiny little piggies! They came in a box with their own pen, a pig cave, some lettuces and a carrot plus their very own Slave to care for them. They even have a water bottle.

Slave loves her silly presents to add to her vast collection of piggy plushies, ornaments and other delights. We hope you all had lots of lovely gifts too.

Happig new year!

Happig new year from us too!
Any new year's resolutions? We will beg for more treats and eat more veggies (wouldn't you want your kids to eat more veggies?)

Here is Binky giving you guys his sweetest smile getting his first hugs of the new year (@lobsanglei is one of auntie Janneke's pigs)

Spending New Year’s Eve with my man Binky 🍻

A post shared by Lobsang Lei (@lobsanglei) on Dec 31, 2017 at 4:35pm PST

The guinygirlz Raani and Cookie and boar Binky

Happy New Year Everyone!

All of the Piggyfriends want to wish our readers a very Happy New Year 2018!

We cannot all be in a pigture but here is Niamh at our party.

It looks like Algernon Rat had a good time anyway.

We hope you will all join us in 2018 to read more about the Piggyfriends, the Piggypals, the Guinygirlz and Binky. Take care everyone and stay safe.

Happy Christmas to our Readers

On behalf of all the Piggyfriends, Otto wishes you a very happy Christmas. We know that many of you have different holidays to us so we wish everyone a happy time whatever they celebrate. As you can see, Algernon Rat is here for the holidays.

My friend, Niamh, has joined me for this photo. Slave knew that I would still but Niamh disappeared amongst the tinsel before she would pose. Unfortunately we do not have an outtake as Slave had to put her camera down before rescuing her from the hearth, which is behind us in the pigture. Don't worry, the fire is not lit.

We hope that you all have a wonderful time with loads of yummy veggies. We were rewarded with parsley for posing for our photos.

If you have any holiday photos, we would love to see them.

Nollaig Shona Dhaiobh. Happy Christmas EVERYONE!

Helping.

Mimi aka Agent Diva 1 is helping with the Christmas decorations.

Friday video: Success! (Binky learned to spin as well)

And Binky also learned to spin! #guineapigs #spinning #clockwise #counterclockwise #tricks

Een bericht gedeeld door Mieke (@pandameisje) op 22 Dec 2017 om 3:39 (PST)

Have a great wheekend! Hope you all have lots of veggies for christmas Raani, Binky and Cookie plus slave Mikey

Thanksgiving Pigtures

The following pigtures of Apollo (brown piggy), Dmitri (mostly black piggy), and Dante Wigglebottom (white and black piggy) were taken for the Thanksgiving holiday back in November. Apollo has since passed on, but you can tell he was quite the ham in photo shoots!

The Piggyfriends' grass is frozen!

Slave cuts fresh grass for us every day but this morning she came back in and said that it had frozen!

"She offered us these cauliflower leaves instead. Much as we love a cauli leaf it is not the same as a pile of fresh grass but I suppose it will have to do" says Saoirse Piggyfriend in between mouthfuls.

Carter grabs a piece of leaf and rushes to eat it in the privacy of a box before his friends can steal it. "I love cauli," says Carter, " and I am so glad that our friend, Roly, grows lots of it on his farm."

"Well, I suppose there is nothing for it but to join my friends, " says Aoife, " before they have cleared up the lot."

"Don't worry piggies, " says Slave. " I have a whole bagful of leaves for you and maybe the grass will have thawed tomorrow."

Happy Birthday Louis Piggyfriend!

Hello Readers! Louis Piggyfriend here. It is my 6th. birthday today and Slave has given me my very favourite veggie. Sow thistle.

Do you like sow thistle? Slave grows it for us in her veggie garden but it finishes when the warm weather comes to an end. She kept this one growing under a cloche just for my birthday. Wasn't that kind of her?

It is so lovely and juicy that it deserves another photo.

After all that good food, I needed a nap.

"Happy Birthday Louis!" say the Piggyfriend herd.

Friday video: how to train your guinea pig

To do a spin! Hope you are not getting fed up with all our spinning piggies videos. We are now trying to teach our boar Binky to spin as well. In this video we show you how to do it.

How to train your Guinea pig: Do a spin. Raani knows how to spin, and demonstrates that first, though Binky is standing in the way a bit. Then we show how Binky will follow the veg. This is how you teach them to spin, at some point it will click and just saying 'Do a spin' will make your piggy do a spin. #guineapigs #training #doaspin #spin #trick

A post shared by Mieke (@pandameisje) on Nov 29, 2017 at 1:04pm PST

At first we thought Binky would not follow the vegetable at all. Raani and Cookie both spin clockwise. Binky would not do that. Then Piggy dad tried to make him follow the vegetable anti clockwise, as you can see in the video Binky can do that pretty well. Now I wonder does he not see the veg well when we try to make him spin clockwise, or does he just like to turn anti clockwise?

A Piggy A - Z. F for Fernando

A few of the Piggyfriends are not keen on having their photos taken. I am one of them. Slave tried to creep up on me and catch me unawares but I saw her coming and ran to hide in our wooden house. So she took our house and tunnel away.

Having nowhere to hide, I ran into the corner of our pen and sat with my brother, Martin, so you can see me, Fernando, on the right of this photo.

Here we are again so that you can see my other side. You saw me in the photos when we did the Taste Tests but I was more interested in investigating the new foods that day than watching sneaky photographers.

Friday video: more spinning...

Pig dad is trying to teach us the spin synchronized, he hasn't had much luck with us, though he does claim we can do it synchronized of camera...

Okay, still working on that synchronized spinning... #guineapigs #trick #spin #doaspin

A post shared by Mieke (@pandameisje) on Nov 15, 2017 at 12:44pm PST

Have a great wheekend!
Spinners Raani and Cookie
And boar Binky

I had to go to the vet.

Niamh Piggyfriend here. A while ago I was not eating very well and Slave could see that my incisors were growing diagonally. A sure sign that there was a problem with my molars. She took me to see our Rodentologist, Lynn from Palace Piggies, and she trimmed my teeth but said that she thought that I might have a tooth root abscess. Eeek!!! Our retired Rodentologist was an expert with abscesses and could have dealt with this himself but Lynn said that I should go and see our vet.

While she waited for the abscess to appear, Slave had to syringe feed me. I was very good and did not mind this but eventually the day came when the trip to the vet was necessary.

I had to have an Xray. Our vet put sandbags all around me so that I would not move and spoil the image.You can see it above. It is not a very clear picture but it is the best of several that Slave took. Our vet said that it shows that I have Osteomyelitis, which causes my teeth to grow wrongly into my jaw and this could have caused the abscess, which is visible in the full size Xray but not in this little photo. This does not look much like me does it? Where is my coat?

This is what I really look like. Here I am being weighed. I only just fit on the vet's little scale but the only other one that he has is for dogs and cats and does not register very well with a little guinea on it. I do not think that any of our big boars would fit on this little one.



The vet lanced my abscess and drained a lot of horrible pus out of it. Then he flushed out the cavity with antiseptic and saline. There is no photo of this event as Slave was holding me still whilst the vet performed the procedure. You would not want to see it anyway as it was nasty and smelly. I made a lot of noise about it but then I started making a noise before he put the scalpel in. The people in the waiting room could hear me.
 

We came home with Marbocyl antibiotics, a bag of saline and a lot of syringes. Slave had to flush out the abscess with the saline every day using the little hole that the vet had made and every week we went back to the vet for him to do it better. I started eating once the abscess had been lanced and Slave was very relieved about that. So was I.

After the abscess had gone flat, I thought that I was OK but then another one came up and we had to go back to the vet and start over. Here you can see our lovely vet examining me. His name is Etienne and he comes from Belgium. He has been the Piggyfriends' vet for nearly 20 years.

Finally the day came when Etienne said that I was all mended! Hooray! There is a possibility that I might get another one so paws crossed that this does not happen. I like going to see the vet but do not want another abscess.

Friday video: we've got another spinner

Hope you are not getting fed up with me sharing all these videos of spinning piggies, but Erwin managed to teach Cookie to spin as well

We thought Cookie didn't get how to do a spin, but she does get it. It just is she doesn't respond to the words 'do a spin' but she responds to the waving of the veggies in a circle above her head! #guineapig #spin #trick

A post shared by Mieke (@pandameisje) on Nov 8, 2017 at 5:52am PST

Look what our Slave was given for her Birthday

It was our Slave's birthday on October 29th. and look what she received. "A Guinea Pig Romeo and Juliet".

This is the fourth in a series of real stories rewritten with guinea pigs as the characters. Slave already has the Guinea Pig Nativity, Pride and Prejudice, Oliver Twist and now she has this one, Romeo and Juliet.

The books are full of wonderful photos of guinea pigs dressed up as the "people" in the stories with guinea pig sized props too.

She was also given this little plush piggy for her ever growing collection. This one is made by a company called Living Nature and best of all, when she squeezes him, he actually squeaks just like we do.

Isn't he sweet?

Here he is reading the lovely book. You can see one of the gorgeous piggy pigtures inside.

We hope that the publishers of the book do not mind us taking photos. We did the same when Slave had their other books and no one complained!

A word of warning. This well known tale does not have a happy ending but it is only a story after all and the piggy actors were all safe.

If any piggy person you know has a birthday coming up, they would love this book. Or it would make a perfect little Christmas gift.

Happy Hallowe'en Everyone!

Slave could not decide which of us would pose for our Hallowe'en pigture and Magnus, Agent Fluffypig, drew the short carrot.

" Slave picked me because I am orange, " says Magnus, " and she thinks that I look like a pumpkin! She could be right. "

Happy Hallowe'en to all of our readers. Stay safe.