Search and Rescue

Pinni and a new friend

After we lost Bertie, I knew that Pinniped needed a friend.  Achieving that turned out to be more of a task than I had anticipated.  Pinni seemed quite content on her own and did not pine for company like Vicky or Willow.  This was good, because there almost no guinea pigs in the shelters at the end of the year.

As some guinea pigs appeared on the scene early in the new year, it turned out I wasn't ready for another piggy.  Added to that was an upcoming vacation and my desire not to subject my pigsitter to the potential upheaval of two pigs sorting out their social order.  So I waited:  I perused Petfinder.com while Pinni got bored (and received more squeezes on a daily basis than she really wanted).

Several sows were listed on Petfinder in early March, and I found myself considering adopting one of them.  I had been hoping for a single adult sow near Pinni's age, but many of the older rescued pigs in the area were bonded pairs.  My trio experience has been less than stellar and the thought of dealing with two cages for several years was not appealing.  Then I saw that Nevin's Farm acquired more than a dozen guinea pigs, all part of a breeder dump.  There were several sows, and although they were younger than what I was looking for, they were not all paired up.

A member of the Boston Pignic Pig Patrol works at Nevin's on Sundays, and he contacted me with a possible match for Pinni.  So we packed her up and drove to Methuen in hope of a new friend.  When we arrived we got a quick peek of all of the pigs up for adoption, then we were whisked off to a private room to let Pinni meet the candidate.

The candidate was a very young (somewhere between 6-9 months old) short-hair/teddy mix.  She had been living with two other sows, but they had bonded with each other, and she was the third wheel. 

Initial introductions went very well.  Pinni was thrilled to interact with another pig, and the little one was very interested in Pinni.  There was lots of sniffing and burbling and pig trains and stuffing themselves into a hidey house.  We left them together for nearly an hour before I decided this looked like a good thing and asked for the adoption paperwork.  In typical guinea pig style, they waited until I was out of the room to have their first scuffle.  Evidently the little one wished to have the hidey house to herself, and after a yelp and a possible bite, Pinni was ousted.  Their second scuffle occurred after I paid the adoption fee.  Really?  What bad pigs!  Regardless, I packed the two of them in their separate carriers and went home to continue the introduction process.

Up Next:  A new home and a new name.