[Gpdd] [CARE] Dandelions and bathing

[DebJonSara at aol.com]

Dandelions are my "dolly mixtures"' favourite food! I buy them all kinds of 
delicious vegetables, and my partner and I gather wild dandelions every day 
when we go out walking the dogs - along footpaths where no traffic can pollute 
them, of course, and we always wash them well! Come dinnertime, the piggies all 
line the doors of their cages and eagerly await the day's offering. They get 
carrot, lettuce, cucumber, bell pepper, cauliflower, parsley and apple - but no 
matter what is offered, they never leave that open cage door until dandelions 
have been offered! I just feel as though they're saying, "yeah OK, we'll 
humour you and eat this other fancy stuff - but where's the real food, our 
dandelions?"! Hence you'll find me out in all weathers hunting the things down - even 
digging through the snow to find some!  And yes, they can eat the roots as 
well - a special delicacy, I read somewhere. I've even seen little pots of dried 
dandelion roots for guinea pigs on sale at a pet store! I wash those I find 
very well, of course. My little treasures eat the lot - they seem to especially 
like the flowers.

As for bathing, I'm also under the impression it should not be overdone. 
Certainly I wouldn't dream of bathing mine during the current cold weather - I 
would worry terribly about them catching cold. In the summer, I have bathed the 
rear ends of Sable and Soulage, the two longhaired ladies, after trimming the 
smelliest fur off - they go outside in the summer and I worry about flystrike. 
I use puppy shampoo. But I have never bathed them all over. And I have never 
bathed the short haired piggies - they never seem to get dirty or smelly. 

That "scrapies" thing Guinness died from was apparently an internal parasite, 
by the way - but I'm told the vet who made the diagnosis is off to a summer 
school this year to learn more about guinea pigs, so I wonder if she's maybe 
used the wrong term - this is France and she is French.

Wheeks to all the piggies, and condolences to all whose precious furbies have 
recently crossed The Bridge,

Debbie and the 13 "Dolly Mixtures"