Preserving Life's Moments: Our New Family Member

Meet our new family member....Guinea, or GP, Hot Potato, Pig or Hamster. He seems to go by a lot of different names these days, but none-the-less he is slowly settling into his new home.

An acquaintance from the Mom's Group I am in posted that she was looking for a new home for their Guinea Pig. They had a puppy in the house that just wasn't getting use to being around Guinea and it was distracting to his training to be a helper dog to her autistic daughter. Plus, GP wasn't getting the attention she felt he needed.

I jumped at the chance to have him. I always pictured getting the kids a "caged" type animal and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. Kenny said he wanted nothing to do with this whole thing, but I think he has grown a little fond of her new family member.

The first day was chaos and I quickly wondered what the heck I was thinking. I had attempted to put GP in the living room so that he would be around us more (Guinea Pigs are really social animals). The dogs could not handle this at all and poor GP was just stressed to the max (they are also super sensitive animals).

I finally wised up and put him in Shane's room. We made sure to talk to him sweetly and feed him treats, but he just wanted to hide out in his little house the moment you walked into Shane's room. Around the third day he came to the cage and sniffed my fingers. I was so excited! Over the next few days he got more relaxed and didn't high tail it into his hiding spot as soon as he saw you. I also was finally able to pick him up and cuddle him. Yay! Another success.

The days went on and Shane was able to hold him. We even changed his cage out and gave him some time roaming Shane and Adalyn's bedrooms. The kids were so happy and didn't want to put him back in his cage. GP was ready for a break though. I found him napping after that big adventure.

Now every day when Shane has quiet time Guinea comes out to roam. Today Shane didn't want to be done with quiet time because the Pig and him were cuddling and singing songs together. Stinkin' cute!

Yes, having the extra animal around the house is more work for me. I stress over if he is getting the things he needs to make him a happy and healthy Guinea Pig, but seeing the kids with him and their love for animals and the skills they develop by caring for and living with animals is all worth it in the end.

This was his original location....as you can see Sadie just wants to eat him.

The dogs have gotten a bit more use to him.

I did find Sadie taking a nap in the middle of Shane's room one day,

she got tired after standing up staring at him.