One Friday, when I was in the 2nd grade, my teacher picked me to be the one to take home the "class guinea pig" for the weekend. I was so excited to be the one to care for it that weekend. But to tell you the truth, I was scared to death to pick it up...so my parents ended up caring for it. Maybe from the guilt of not fulfilling my duty, I had wanted one ever since. They are delightful pets to own. You don't even have to be a child or have children yourself to enjoy guinea pigs. If you love the little fur balls, and they are dear to your heart, make sure that you take the time to drop by Oinker Net. It is the most delightful guinea pig site I know.
We bought our first guinea pig, Pebbles, in June of 1988. The pet store told us that it was a little boy. As the days passed by 'he' got chubbier and chubbier. Jeff kept telling me I was feeding 'him' too much. Well after a couple of weeks we took our pig to the vet for a check-up where we found, much to our surprise and delight, 'he' was a 'she' and she was in the family way! From that day we began to call her "Momma Pig" and it stuck.
Our little Momma gave birth to her babies on August 22, 1988. She had "three little pigs" and to keep them straight we gave them the "temporary" names of Robbie, Chip and Ernie; but as with "Momma Pig" these names stuck too. Robbie was a girl, Chip and Ernie were the boys. We took pictures of all our little ones, but unfortunately only the picture of Baby Chip turned out; although the three pictures on the right (Robbie, Chip, Ernie) were taken not too long after they were born.
We did the usual offering of the babies to friends that we knew. But after the first person came to decide which baby she would take, I burst out in tears at the thought that she would take ANY of MY BABIES!! So, we kept them all!! Robbie was very shy, even with us. She did not like to be handled and preferred for us to pretty much leave her alone. Chip was my (Barbara's) boy, he loved me. Whenever I would call out his name, he would run to the front of the cage. Ernie was Jeff's boy. He was the runt of the litter, but was the most rambunctious, he ruled the cage. He had little pink ears and was cute as a button. He was also the most vocal. For the first couple of months after he was born he would squeal every time I opened the fridge...I thought I would go crazy!!
Unfortunately we lost Chip in January of 1990; Ernie in February of 1991 and Robbie in August of 1992. Momma had outlived all of her babies.
So that Momma would not be alone, in October of 1992 we bought Evie (to listen to her "wheeping" for some endive, click here). Her full name was Evangeline, but we called her, Evie, for short. Momma was very glad for the company and immediately adopted Evie as her own. Then in January of 1994 we lost our precious Momma Pig. At this point we decided that we didn't want to go through losing Evie and another pig, so we promised to never buy another pig. So in keeping with that thought...in September of 1994 we bought Dorie. Actually we were both out of the house so much that we really felt bad leaving Evie alone all the time, so Dorie was going to be her companion. Unfortunately, we lost Dorie (very unexpectedly) in February of 1997. Evie joined the others playing by the Rainbow Bridge in March of 1998.
