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.