Our Guinea Pigs and Dog

Hey, dog, jealous much? Our dog of 11 years didn't know what to make of the guinea pigs that I gave my wife for Christmas. I call them Nibbler and Quibbler. Nibbler likes to....well, nibble, on our clothes and fingers (never hurts) when we hold him. Quibbler wants to argue about everything, at least it sounds that way from all the sounds they make.

By now they are much more trusting and love to be held. They make purring sounds and are very affectionate. This is not borne out by the pictures. They look like nothing more than rodents in the pics but they really have wonderful personalities. I did not ever think I'd like guinea pigs, nor did my wife, but we took care of a friend's while she was traveling and we liked it enough that we got our own!

Our dog at first looked at them with hungry eyes - yum, dinner! After all, we've not stopped him from chasing rabbits on our property, so why should these be any different? And, I'm sure he was thinking, what's the deal with my humans that they should suddenly show affection to my dinner? Well, we've taught him with a lot of "kiss the baby" invitations to have him at least not show aggression toward them. He hardly ever exhibited aggressive behavior toward them, but we wanted to make sure he never would. Now he tends to ignore them or he'll come over and lick them HARD. They don't seem to mind and it seems to give him the outlet he needs.

By the way, I wrote that *I* call them Quibbler and Nibbler because my wife likes to change their names every day. Not that it matters - they don't seem to know the difference!