Post Punk Kitchen Forum

My guinea pig Terrie, who I adopted from a guinea pig rescue last week is sick. The vet noticed that several of her lymph nodes are extremely swollen, she tested for bacteria but didn't find any so then thought it was quite possibly cancer. The results came back today, it is not cancer (yea!!!) but something is still making her sick. She had diarrhea the other night as well, but her poop is starting to come back to normal after some critical care, benebac, pedialyte, and feeding her some of my healthy guinea pig's poop (very gag worthy).

I am very worried about her. And also angry that the rescue sent me home with a sick pig, the vet said she believes for how bad she is that she had to have been sick when I adopted her. I emailed the rescue and they said I am welcome to bring her back and get another, but what's to say I wont have the same problem. I don't want to take her back, I don't know how well she'll be taken care of and she is a sweet little girl and she gets along great with my other pig, Cookie. I really can't afford this right now either, when my last pig was sick I spent about a thousand dollars over a few months before she passed away. For now, I'm going to try to find out what's wrong with her and care for her in which ever way is required. I hate that I'm in this situation, what's an appropriate response regarding the rescue?

I would tell them that while you appreciate their offer to return your pig, that is not what you are trying to explain to them. Your main concern is the fact that they have adpoted out a sick pig which should not happen, ideally they should be nursing the pigs back to health before adopting them out or at least informing the potential adopters.

Maybe this will give them the kick in the pants they need to realize that they are supposed to be the proffesionals here, and adopting out sick pigs could easily result in a decreased quality of life for the animal or even death. A rescue should know better and I really hope that they will revise their adopting policies after you have brought this to their attention. Best of luck to your and I'm sorry to hear your little guy is sick but at least he is in a good home and will be treated properly.