Farewell to a Lovable Menace
It feels like we’ve been through the wringer with our short journey into guinea pigging. We saw ourselves as fairly competent pet parents - we previously had two dogs for 17 years who threw a lot of surprises our way, and we felt prepared for other types of pets. We understand what it means to commit to pets, to make them part of the family, and to love them deeply. Guinea pigs should be easier than dogs: no required walks throughout the day (a bonus when our average summer temps exceed 100 degrees), and good small companions. A lot of cleaning, but one of us gladly accepted that caveat. We knew to buy an appropriately sized enclosure, set up an emergency kit, and researched the right foods. We watched all the YouTube videos, and we adopted from a rescue rather than buying. We were so confident in our future success that we set up this website. We even set aside a healthy amount of money for vet bills. Little did we know almost all of it would be used within three months.
The problem is, guinea pigs each have their own feelings about who they care to share space with. We had learned that pigs sometimes have personality conflicts, but we truly did not comprehend the level of hostility involved. We also did not realize that pigs who currently get along may not always get along. This isn’t the first post we’ve made about personality clashes. We wrote about the boys’ first big fight here, and wrote again about the ongoing chaos here, describing how Meander had to be returned to the rescue, leaving Tangent alone with us to recover from a fractured palate and missing teeth. Despite everything, we know he is good inside, and we hoped that if we gave him enough personal life coaching, the lovable menace would drop the menace part of his nickname.
After a few weeks totally alone, Tangent was still having sniffing episodes, and even worse, seemed to be getting more and more depressed without other pigs nearby. We consulted the vet and the rescue, and decided to try pairing him with two three-year-old spayed females. The thinking was that the older ladies might be able to take him under their wings.
Enter Starla and Stella, who will be getting a proper ModPig introduction soon. We knew it would be a rocky first day or two and felt resigned to seeing the bonding process through. Tangent went absolutely bonkers in his first-ever interaction with girls. The ladies were at first gracious in tolerating some attention, but after a while, Starla (the more dominant female), ran out of patience and they ended up getting into a furball fight. It didn’t seem as intense as the one we’d seen previously, so we decided to separate them to let tempers cool, and to give them time to get to know each other’s scent through the divider for a couple of weeks.
That turned out to be a bad idea. We were woken up by the most dreadful noises in the middle of the night - Tangent was so agitated at not being able to get to the girls that he was beside himself with angst and had broken his teeth again biting the divider. The next day, we decided to try bonding again, hoping for different results now that they sort of knew each other. It was now or never. We steeled ourselves for the unpleasantness and gave it another go. And it certainly was unpleasant - it’s hard to watch those poor girls getting incessantly chased. And then suddenly, we could see a switch flip in Tangent’s head, and he began to heed Starla’s warnings. It seemed there was peace.
So we set them all up in the same space and thought we were good. Such relief. A couple of days went by, and Tangent continued to respect Starla’s boundaries. He was still rumblestrutting 24/7, but he was backing off when Starla reminded him to have manners. We felt that was all good. Until it wasn’t.
At some point Tangent’s testosterone-laden brain overpowered his better judgment, and he simply would not relent. He pestered and harassed Starla, trying to hump her constantly. She finally had enough and there was another big furball fight. No blood though, so we tentatively tried keeping them together. But the next day it happened again with even more intensity, and after that they were in a standoff with hackles raised, backs hunched, teeth chattering, apparently with no plans to get along again.
And that’s the point where we decided to be done. We were not cut out for this. We separated them and made plans with the rescue to return Tangent. For so long, we’d rooted for him, been so sure we could make it work, and sending him back felt like a gut punch - like we’d failed him. We know that we did the right thing, choosing what was best for all of us, but making that call was agonizing. He is now living with a foster, and we are still rooting for him to settle down and find happiness.
Despite Tangent’s antics and constant chaos, there is a side to him that we haven’t had much opportunity to write about. During morning snuggles, while we were still wearing our robes, he would nest inside the sleeves. Other times he might snuggle into our necks. At bedtime each night, he gladly tolerated us singing lullabies to him while stroking him. And he was a neat freak, always used the litter tray, and kept his enclosure so orderly. During floor time, he would play with us, and would bravely climb onto us to investigate.
Goodbye buddy, we love you.
Our plan is to move forward with the girls, cautiously optimistic that things will be smoother from here on out, with Tangent always in our hearts.
