About Us
My name is Heather Jones and I have been interested in animals and pet care since I was a small child. There is nothing more exciting than picking out a new pet, bringing them home for the first time, and making them a part of your family. It is incredibly satisfying to see how your family will come together and bond over the care and personality quirks of the newest member of the family. I also find that I also really enjoy seeing my children gain hands-on pet care knowledge and responsibility for the first time. The benefits of adding a pet to the family are too many to count.
However, what I have not enjoyed are the unexpected problems and health emergencies that come up just when you are most stressed out and busy from work, or even worse, after I have paid all the monthly bills and money is tight. Since it is my job to manage the household and teach my children how to care for animals responsibly I have had more late nights than you can imagine looking up critical information on the internet and trying to find a solution to ongoing nagging problems.
My family got started on guinea pigs when my then kindergarten age son Conner volunteered to care for the school guinea pig Skittles over the summer. Skittles came to us in what I thought then was pretty typical guinea pig set up, a 1ft by 2 ft aquarium tank with a bedding of fragrant wood shavings and toys aplenty including an exercise wheel. Looking back on it, I shudder to think how little we knew about guinea pigs. I had never kept guinea pigs before so I was not sure what to expect. I found Skittles to be shy and not eager to interact at all. I felt like I never knew what he was thinking or wanting, and frankly it felt like a chore to clean the always stinky cage out. But I knew my children were excited so I was determined to make the best of the situation. When September came around, an unexpected family emergency came up and Conner’s kindergarten teacher was not able to stay in our area or take the guinea pig with her. My children, of course, were determined to keep Skittles and I let them, despite the fact I was concerned Skittles ongoing sniffles were getting worse and a disaster was eminent.
My worries were dead-on target. Within a few weeks Skittles was listless and not eating any food. Crying children in tow I brought Skittles in to see our local veterinarian. This is when we learned he was in the early stages of a respiratory infection brought on by what turned out to be really unhealthy cage conditions. I couldnt believe it! Almost everything we were doing was wrong! The veterinarian put us in contact with a local rescue group who was kind enough to take us in hand and share some of their best guinea pig care secrets. Since that time I have become really interested in guinea pigs and passionate about spreading accurate and up-to-date information to other potential or current guinea pig owners.
I cannot tell you how much these expert secrets helped our family! Now our guinea pig Skittles and his new cage mate Francis are really loving, interactive members of our family. A few tips on how to understand what our guinea pig was trying to communicate and some simple steps to gain his trust was all it took. We even worked out a really great highly stimulating cage setup complete with a corner litter box. Constant cage smell is finally a thing of the past. Sometimes we can let Skittles and Francis run around our living room in the evening while we spend quality family time.
Thankfully now, I can look back on those four long months and laugh. Hopefully, since you found this page (and probably others like it) you wont have to learn what we did the hard way!
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If you have any questions about guinea pigs or wish to contact me for any other reason, please use the Contact Us form. Thank you.
