Did your guinea pig come from a pet store?

I t d o e s n 't o c c u r to a lot of people that guinea pigs are out there homeless and in danger of being put to sleep, like dogs and cats. Wonderful animal loving people who want a guinea pig buy them from pet stores, because it's not common knowledge there are whole rescues devoted to these sweet animals. And once they have the pig they love it, of course. Pet store pigs aren't bad or inferior (though they are often malnourished, suffering from scurvy and mites, pregnant and/or missexed). Still, it's a difficult and sad problem--if someone buys a pig from a petstore or breeder they are making a new space for a guinea pig to be mistreated. And an animal in the shelter dies because that guinea pig loving lap has been taken up.

But so you bought a petstore pig, not knowing, and you can't adopt another pig. For whatever reason you can't volunteer at the local shelter or rescue. If you're feeling guilty about the homeless animal population, there is something you can do.

If you sponsor a guinea pig at your local shelter or rescue, you will be saving a life. Petfinder has these buttons on the profiles of animals within participating organizations: Click on this button to learn more information about their Sponsor-a-Pet program, or go to: http://www.petfinder.com/foundation/sponsorapet.html .

A n o t h e r s u g g e s t i o n is to donate the amount of the adoption fee to a rescue directly. An average adoption fee of $40 covers such a small portion of the care for an animal, so feel fr33 to pledge more! Whatever you can donate will be of great help and use. There is a link to area shelters on the sidebar.

This is not to say that it's okay to buy petstore animals so long as you make a donation--rather, it's just a practical way to reduce any guilt or worries about the high euthanasia rates of homeless animals across the country.