Hamish…

Hamish and Tara

“Hamish was adorable and clearly wanted to be loved too. Tara chose him as her new friend when she was already five. She was pretty set in her ways by then and it took a few days of rearing heads and chattering teeth for her to accept that he was now in charge but she did (most of the time!). Hamish wasn’t a piggy to assert his authority, but he wasn’t going to be pushed around. Once Tara said goodbye, we thought about returning Hamish to you, (Karen @ Reading Guinea Pig Rescue), but after a few days we decided that we couldn’t let him go.

He was due to go off on his holidays (to Bramble Bunnies in Somerset) for a few days and while he was there he got chatting to two girls in the next run who it turned out were looking fora new home. I decided to let him meet them to see if they got on well and he took to them straight away. Jessie was quiet (not the brightest!) and Florence was lively and fun (and very pretty). Hamish and Florence were like mum and dad to Jessie. While he had been on his own he had been more sociable with us but we were aware that he was spending a lot of time in his run on his own. When he brought the girls home it was as if he wanted to show them off to us – he seemed quite proud, running over to us in his run and chirping away. We noticed that when we picked one of them up to start towel and sofa time, he would always start squeaking loudly as if he was worried we were taking them away from him. He would immediately settle back down when they were back together. Jessie left us about 18 months later and Florence followed on about a year later. Hamish and Florence had clearly adored each other. They were always grooming each other and snuggled up.

After she died he went off his food straight away. We had to syringe feed him Oxbow critical care for a few days. We agonised over whether he was becoming too ill for a new friend or whether he was just feeling lonely and needed a companion. After a couple of weeks when he seemed much better (but still wasnt eating with much enthusiasm) we contacted you and then Julie and we took him to meet Violet. They hit it off immediately – both placid, friendly pigs. The difference in Hamish even the next day was amazing. He would run over to the front of the run in the morning, wheeking away, his appetite had returned (maybe because he was now competing for his share of the greens) and each time we picked one of them up he would be wheeking again wanting to make sure they wouldn’t be apart for too long. We knew we had made the right decision.”

A big thank you to Steph, Hamish’s Human, for this story. Hamish has seen a lot of guineas come and go and Steph commented on how he handled each death differently.