Saved a Life

A friend and I were at Petco yesterday. We were just going to run in and out to pick up some guinea pig food. But of course we get distracted by the many pets running around in cages on display, hoping that someone will buy them and take them home to make a part of his life. There were rats, mice, hamster, ferrets and guinea pigs. My friend has a guinea pig, so logically we stopped at the guinea pig cage because that is what she was most intrigued with.

If I were by myself, I probably would have just peered into the cage and then continued on with what I came there to do. But my friend noticed that there was something wrong with one of the guinea pigs. In this cage, there were about eight guinea pigs. The cage claimed that they were all females, but I was a little doubtful. There were two smaller guinea pigs and six larger ones. One of the larger ones was dominating over a smaller one. It was biting its ear so only half of the ear remained and was entirely mangled. It was biting its feet. It was biting its skin all over. The smaller guinea pig shook in the corner. To someone who doesn't know the typical behaviors of guinea pigs, I could tell that this guinea pig was not doing well.

We knew that something needed to be done to save this guinea pig because its life was in jeopardy. The logical answer would be to contact the manager of the store and alert them to the abuse that the smaller guinea pig is experiencing. My friend, based on her previous experiences with Petco, was doubtful that they would care at all and was almost sure that they would not move the smaller guinea pig out of the dangerous habitat as we had hoped.

Surprisingly, when we contacted the manager, he was completely understanding and instantly moved the guinea pig. He was very thankful that we had told him about the situation. He was also grateful that adults had witnessed that abuse rather than kids because it would have been absolutely devastating to the kids.

We saved a guinea pig's life that day. Or at least we gave it a better chance of survival. For that moment, my friend and I were the guinea pig's community - its voice - because it has no voice and is a helpless creature that was being eaten alive!