Wednesday, November 7, 2007

A Happy Adoption Story pt. 1

It's time for a Happy Adoption Story, a feature I began on the original blog with this entry. Today's story is in honor of Adopt a Senior Pet Month. PooksiedAnimals, the author of these stories, described adopting her two and half year old and three and half year old guinea pigs as the "best thing [she] ever did."

As this is a longer story, I'm dividing it up between the two blogs. The first half is here, and there is a link to the second half at the end.

Part One: Athena (L) and Vicky (R)


"I have two adoption stories.

"The first was when I first heard about adoption. I found Victoria and Athena online through petfinder at the Brockton, MA shelter.

"I had recently lost a pair due to cysts and heart disease. I missed having pigs in my apartment. My future plans were somewhat in flux, so I decided it wasn't wise to take the commitment of a pair of young/baby pigs, so I opted to look for an older pair. At the time, Vicky and Athena were 2.5 and 3.5 years old. Turns out they'd been at the Brockton shelter for three months (probably passed over because of their age), and had been originally surrendered at another shelter, and moved to Brockton due to space constraints. Poor unloved pigs!

"I went just to look. I wasn't sure if I should adopt so close to the loss of Teddi. But I went, and fell in love. They were the wuzziest pair of pigs I had seen. I filled out the paperwork, said I'd come back for them, and they said, take them now! (I had figured they may have wanted to check my background, first). I honestly don't know who was more excited about this. I literally hopped up and down. And one of the girls at the front desk, discovering that the pair had finally been adopted, jumped up and down with me. She was thrilled they finally found a forever home.

"Best thing I ever did.



"The girls took 6 months or so to really settle in. Athena had picked up a habit of screeching loudly when being picked up - I think she developed this in the shelter so she wouldn't get picked up. They were terrified of floor time at first. But eventually they realized how good life was, and they really were a lovable pair.

"Athena, unfortunately, had some kind of mass in her lung cavity, that could not be operated on. She passed away quietly. Soon after, Vicky developed bad bladder sludge that stumped the vet and myself. She also was never quite the same after Athena passed. She really missed her cagemate. Vicky persevered for quite a while, but eventually passed away, too. I had them for roughly two years. Their passing was hard, simply because I had them for such a short time. I loved having adopted an older, laid back pair, but I don't know if I could do it again. I felt cheated of my time with them.

"Funny stories - I was warned when I adopted them that Vicky tipped over pellet dishes if they were over 1/2 full. Two seconds after putting her in their new cage, she runs over to the pellet dish, and dumps it. I nicknamed her Tricky Vicky with the Black Bandito mask."


Click here for Part Two and two more guineas!

NY-Craigslist-bonded boars

* If responding to a Craigslist ad meet in a public place, or go with a friend. Google the phone number of the poster to ensure
it matches the name he or she gives *

LISTING REMOVED.
Selden (Long Island), NY: Two boars being dumped for fr33 without much information. They come with cage, bedding, and food. One is black and one is tan and white. Owner can't take care of them anymore. By this posting it seems like she gave up awhile ago.


416

NY-Lollypop Farm in Fairport

A new members of the Lollypop Guild:



LISTING REMOVED. Pretty-boy Rooney! He is a small young boy, and that's all I know. But look at that cute little pink nose! Ohh, I want to hold Rooney to my chest and coo in to his soft ears.


414

PA-Montgomery County SPCA

The Montgomery County SPCA has two new guinea pigs available for adoption. They're shown on Petharbor, a search engine which is similar to Petfinder. You can find these guinea pigs on Petharbor by searching by ID number. I'm also going to feature past Montgomery County SPCA guinea pigs which are till available for adoption.

This post is dedicated to Oreo, a Montgomery County, PA guinea pig, who recently lost his cage mate and is now looking for a new friend. Here's to wishing him good luck in finding his mate, wherever he or she may be.

Abington Facility

LISTING REMOVED. American is quite a handsome young boar. He's six months old and gets along well with other boars. He is the only one to have a Petfinder profile.



Conshohocken Facility

LISTING REMOVED. Daisy is a beautiful brown and white wow. She's thought to be a year and a half old. Her ID is #A157486.




LISTING REMOVED.
Peanut is a cute pudgy little sow, thought to be a year and a half old. She is a brown tri-color, and her ID is #A157487.


LISTING REMOVED.
This boar is a no-namer, but he's very handsome. He is a white and brown abby thought to be three years old. His ID is #A156108.


Perkiomenville Facility

LISTING REMOVED. Hope doesn't have a picture up yet. She's a young girl at just four months old, and is a black tricolor . Her ID is #A158050.

LISTING REMOVED. Squirt also doesn't have a picture up yet. She too is four months old, and is white and gray. Her ID is #A158051.

LISTING REMOVED. This guinea pig only has a number for a name, but her photo proves she's beautiful. Her ID is #A154723, and she is a white tricolor thought to be five years old.


NY-Erie County SPCAs

There appear to be multiple SPCAs for Erie County, and not much information on either of them. They don't write summaries of their guinea pigs either, which can really hurt their chances to get adopted. But any first time guinea adopters reading this, please know that guinea pigs can be sweet, loving, playful, subtly but deeply entertaining, and so rewarding to rescue. Even though there aren't bios, I have no doubt that there is almost definitely a guinea pig at these shelters which could be your perfect pet.

SPCA Serving Erie County (Angola Location) has the below three guinea pigs available for adoption:

* LISTING REMOVED. Winston, a small baby boy. Please disregard his bio (the lone one), no offense meant to the shelter. Guinea pigs do need space for floor time, can have large vet bills, and require quite a lot of care when sick. Because there are fewer vets trained in exotics it is often more difficult to get them help. I understand the approach of the bio in order to get the guinea pigs adopted, but sometimes this can result in owners not knowing what they're getting in to, and then they don't keep the pig.
* LISTING REMOVED. Slim is a small young boy.
* LISTING REMOVED. Leroy is small baby boy.

Erie County SPCA has the below guinea pigs available for adoption:

* LISTING REMOVED. Scrabble is a small young boar.
* LISTING REMOVED. Eclipse is a small young boar.
* LISTING REMOVED. 2470214 is a medium sized young boar.
* LISTING REMOVED. 2470236 is a medium sized young boar.
* LISTING REMOVED Greg is a small adult boar.
* LISTING REMOVED. Peter is a small adult boar.
* LISTING REMOVED. Barbados is a beautiful small adult sow, and one of the few guinea pigs with a picture. Her face is so unique--her markings remind me of a tiger eye rock:

* LISTING REMOVED. Marianne is a small adult sow.
* LISTING REMOVED. Joker is a small adult male with photographic evidence that he's adorable:

* LISTING REMOVED. Julia and LISTING REMOVED. Ronnie are both small adult females. I'm not sure if this is a mistake, but they both have the same picture: (eta--this is Ronnie's picture now, Julia no longer has a photo)

* LISTING REMOVED. Deidre is a small young female.
* LISTING REMOVED. Dennis is a small cute young boar.

* LISTING REMOVED. Dolly is a small baby girl.
* LISTING REMOVED. Dannie is a small baby girl with a very confusing picture! Looks like she's a hay lover. * LISTING REMOVED. Calvin is a small adult male.

NY-Amiable Animals

Amiable Animals is a New York rescue composed of foster homes. It primarily rescues guinea pigs. They have loads of information on their website about volunteering and donations (not just financial), so if you live in New York, this is a good place to look for that good deed of the day.

Right now on Petfinder they just have one guinea pig, but his listing seems to imply there are more in the rescue. Contact them for more information. All I can tell you about is the awfully cute Drake:


ADOPTED! Drake is the striking short-haired fellow on the right. Unlucky and lucky Drake--he was pulled from a shelter by a local House Rabbit Society member, then Amiable Animals took him in. He's lucky that he was helped, but it would have been much better if his last home had been a forever one. What about yours? Drake has to live with another spayed sow or a male guinea pig, as he's gotten used to company in foster care. Maybe he's the best friend for your lonely guinea!

SCROLL DOWN FOR NEW GUINEA PIGS


NOVEMBER is adopt
a senior pet month!

Click here to see what senior guinea pigs are available for adoption. Check your local shelter or rescue too!

NJ-West Jersey Volunteers for Animals

West Jersey Volunteers for Animals is an amazing group. It was formed less than ten years ago by four volunteers. They worked tirelessly to reduce euthanasia rates at the West Jersey Animal Shelter. In four years they had reduced euthanasia rates for dogs from 300 per year to five. For domesticated rates they reduced the number euthanized per year from 400 cats to 50. How is that relevant to this blog? Well, one of their fosterers and her family are taking care of some guinea pigs! Click on the link to see contact information, in order to find out more about them.

PA-Western Pennsylvania Humane Society

The Western Pennsylvania Humane Society is a great open door shelter. That means they take in every animal, every time. This amounts to 415 animal a week! An excellent way to help them out is to adopt one of their amazing guinea pigs.

The WPA has a new brother and sister pair named LISTINGS REMOVED. Reggie and Lizzy. Their bios don't say very much, but they are very cute! They're young and small.




And don't forget three other guineas who were already at WPA. Read about them in my first post.

PA-Animal Rescue League of Western Pennsylvania League Inc.-sow

Animal Rescue League of Western Pennsylvania is a shelter with a wide variety of animals, and is in need of volunteers, especially during the winter. They're also in need of an adopter for this sweet girl:

ADOPTED! Coco is a beauty. She was dumped at the shelter by her owners, and they don't know how old she is. She is small though, so they're guessing she's young. One thing's for sure; she needs a forever home!





Look at those beautiful whiskers! I've never seen whiskers so long!