Hello, Ludo here, with R is for Rescue in our A2Z Challenge. I think we’ve done pretty well so far, don’t you?

Rescues we have known

Nearly all of us have come from a guinea pig rescue. Some were unwanted/unexpected babies, some were found in homes that had been left by their people. A few were part of major rescues where someone had left their home get overrun with guinea pigs (and other animals), and boars and sows bred indiscriminately. Some were handed in by their owners in great distress, because they couldn’t look after them any more, and some handed in because the kids had got bored with them. How does that happen? How can any parent let that happen? But maybe the pigs were better off with someone new who wouldn’t get bored with them.

Norfolk and East Anglia

Mummy got Fred and George from Cheryl who ran the Norwich Rescue, but she stopped soon after as she couldn’t keep going. Auntie Sophie and Auntie Vikki and another person ran the Norfolk rescue after that, and Auntie Sophie relaunched it as the East Anglia Rehoming and Care centre when her kids were old enough. Mummy got to know Vikki and Sophie very well, and she had lots of pigs from them, including Midge and Oscar when Auntie Vikki had to reduce the number of her own pigs she had. Sometimes Sophie would see a pig come in and think it would be just right to come to us. Victor for example.

North-East Rescue

Roscoe and Neville had their pictures posted on Facebook by the North East Rescue in Newcastle or somewhere around there. After three months they hadn’t found a home, but Mummy had fallen in love with them, and asked if she could rehome them to Norfolk. She drove to the station on the main line to Newcastle (one hour), took the train to Newcastle (two hours), met the lady and her kids at the station and swapped Roscoe and Neville into her carry box, and got the train back again! Roscoe used to tell me that story. He said it was very comfortable, and not bumpy until the last bit of the drive home, and Mummy gave them cucumber and celery sticks so they didn’t get thirsty.

I seem to remember we had cucumber and celery sticks when Mummy stopped for a break when she took us from East Anglia to here.

Pets at Home

Percy is the oddest rescue. He had been handed in to a charity, along with his companion, a black rabbit called Mr Rabbit. Percy was called Mr Pig then, and they said he was five years old. The charity had them in Pets at Home. Mummy would never buy a pig from a shop, but she saw Percy in the small glass cage. He was black, very active, supposedly five, and it was coming up to Christmas. Who was going to adopt him under those conditions? Oh, well, Mummy of course. Lucky Percy, I say. Mummy said he was more like fifteen months than five years, and you can see how much he grew and got more boar-shaped when he settled in with us. (well, the us that was there then).

Jersey

Colman and Kevin were rescued along with their owner. She escaped from Jersey, where she ran a rescue, and went back to live with her parents in Essex. Thanks to the Jersey Greyhound Rescue people, all her guineas were loaded onto their van to bring them across from Jersey to Poole, and Pigpog and her dad hired a van to bring them to Essex. But there was no room there for lots of piggies, so most of them were rehomed by Pigpog. Mummy went down (she was in Norfolk still) and got Kevin & Colman, who Pigpog picked for her, and then brought three other carry-boxes of pigs up to that station on the main line, where she met Auntie Wiebke, who took the other carry boxes back on her train, and then two of those three went up to Liverpool a day or so later. I think everyone lived happily ever after, which is good.

Wheek and Squeak

The rescue Mummy supports in Hampshire is Wheek & Squeak. When she got us, we came from Sophie, because of Covid. The lady at W&S didn’t know Mummy and couldn’t do a home visit. And Sophie had lots of pigs needing homes, including Locksley and me, so Mummy went all that way to get us. And then after Roscoe & Neville died, Mummy waited for a few months to start thinking of another, and Sophie posted the pictures of Victor & Pippin, and that was that. But Mummy has been to W&S, because she took a nearly new bottle of Biggles’ expensive medicine to her since they had a pig who needed the one Biggles took.

Why Buy when you can Rescue

If you would like to take on a pair of guinea pigs, please, please, look at the Rescues first. There are all ages there, babies who have been born there and handled well (even Locksley), pairs who have been together for years (and therefore likely to stay together). All shapes and sizes and colours, and all adorable. And they will help you with any problems you have getting to know them.

If you have a good rescue, they won’t let you have anyone who has some emotional problems (like me) unless you have the experience and patience to cope with us. Hector and Humphrey had emotional problems as they had been abandoned and not found for a month. Although at least they were indoors. Locksley was found in a field. Colman had emotional problems because he had missed Pigpog, then found her again, and then Mummy took him away from her. That’s how he saw it. He came round and started loving Mummy about eight months later. Hector took more like three years, and so have I. It’s not easy learning to trust people again, you know.

Most pigs cope relatively easy with going into rescue and being rehomed though. It can’t be more traumatic than being put in a shop and stared at all day. And some breeders are not very kind at all to their ‘stock’. Just saying.

All the pigs in Rescue were bought or bred by somebody. Please give them a good home. And never sell a pig online. You can’t check where they are going, and lots of people keep snakes who like nothing more than a nice chubby guinea pig.

Thank you, from the heart

Ludo xx