Usual goings on

So, on Friday, I got a call from someone on my facebook page saying they were at the local pet store and there was someone trying to drop their guinea pigs off at the pet store.  Apparently they were the daughter's guinea pigs, and she had decided she wanted a tarrantula instead.  Ooook.  So, first the person offers to bring the guinea pigs here, and the family doesn't like that idea... so then she says she'll get my address and give it to them.  So we do that and I go and give the basement a quick cleaning and set up a gp cage.  And wait... and wait.  Eventually I go back to FB and see that she's posted that if they don't come that day, they'll come the next.  So, here it is, Saturday night... no new guinea pigs in sight.

So here's what I find odd about this.  First: someone who's going to get rid of their guinea pigs cause the kid wants a spider clearly are feeling a little like pets are disposable.  Second: someone who's trying to drop their gp's off at a pet store clearly couldn't care less what is going to happen to them.  Cause, hello, it's a pet store.  Not like the buyers are screened or anything.  Third: these people didn't want the lady to bring the gp's here... yet, they were going to randomly drop them off at a pet store to be left to an unknown fate.  And finally: they never showed up.  Um... so where are these gp's now?  Did they drop them off at a different pet store?  See, things like this make me wonder if something was wrong with the guinea pigs, something that, maybe they thought could have gotten them turned in for cruelty?  Maybe not, but the thought popped into my head.  Not that I would turn someone in, but they never showed up, so that lets my creativity run wild as to why they didn't.

But I suppose it was all for good, because Friday night I cleaned just about every cage we have.  None of them were horrible but it was good motivation.

Lilly (our pedigreed female) is still looking like a beached whale.  No babies yet.

Today was productive though.  Took a lot of pictures of the rescues here, and posted just about all of them that will be ready anytime soon.  Our "for sale" page is actually quite long at the moment.  Now, I just need to get some more cages ready.  I have several ready, but I'd rather have, like, them ALL ready, so that people can pick and choose, rather than like go out and buy a FF cage, when we'll have one for sale... when I get it ready.  But today was re-newing all the ads on the various classified sites and putting up the new ads for all the newer rescues and all.

Made up more of the red/white/blue toys yesterday.  I must have 20-30 of them, I didn't mean to dye quite that much wood, but I guess we're going to have them for awhile!

Tallie and Lilly (bv rescue) are getting along swimmingly.  Very happy bout that.

Ok, so I am starting to think people don't read.  Ok, well I suppose I know that from working at Meijer, but it's more and more apparent every day.  So, case in point.  Tallie's ads say that she's a retired breeder that should be going to a pet home.  The ads also say, and I will quote: "We make no guarantee that Tallie will get along with your chinchilla."

So, I get an email - "I would really love to adopt Tallie, but I have a male chinchilla called Apollo. I was just wondering if she would get along with him, because if not I don't want to deny either of them attention." 

While I appreciate the consideration for the other chin.... what does the ad say about the retired breeder, and going to a pet home?  And about no guarantee that she'll get along with other chins?  Omg.  So I emailed the guy back, nicely (I swear!).  I told him we only adopt out our rescues and retired breeders to pet homes, and said that he wouldn't be a pet home because he would be intending to put her with his male.  So, he wouldn't be able to adopt her.  Also went on to tell him, there's never any guarantee that two chins will get along, that's just up to the chins.  Wanted to ask him if he'd even read the ad, but that whole getting along thing just bothers me.  And it's not just him, we get a lot of people that practically want a written-in-stone guarantee that the chins will get along.  I can't give that.  Sorry?  We let people bring their chins here to try it out and hopefully it works.  Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.  We've had chins get along here, and get along at their new home as well.  We've had chins get along here, and not get along at their new home.  We've had people bring their chins and we'll pull out chin after chin after chin until we find one that gets along with theirs, and it may work out.  We've had people refuse to bring their chins, and then complain when their chins don't get along.  Point is, we've seen it all, but people seem to just have this concept that the two chins are going to get along, no problem.  I've had people ask me about returning a chin if the chin doesn't get along - which is totally do-able by the way - but I always throw in the caveat - if our chin is dead, there's no returning of the adoption fee.  Now, it doesn't happen often that one chin will kill another before you notice, but it can happen.  We had it happen here, once -- everyone was fine one day until the next day it looked like we had a beige chin explode in the cage.  We've also had it happen where one chin turns on another and we come home to a bloodied cage.  Not super often, but it does happen.  I guess people think that cause chins are fluffy critters they must also be cuddly and love every other creature in the world.  Sorry, not the case.  One of our rescues once took part of the nose off my dog.  Cute and fluffy w/ sharp teeth is more like it.  I feel like sometimes chins don't get the respect they deserve.  We would never assume that two random people who've never met are gonna hit it off and become best buds, so why should we think that of chins?