[Gpdd] MISC: Ten Year Old Piggy

[pat schuett]

Hi everyone,
I have not had such an old guinea pig myself, but a few months ago, I met a nine year old guinea pig in the waiting room at my vet's.  I  am always the only person with a guinea pig in the waiting room so of course, I had to strike up a conversation with these folks!
The people with the piggy were a mum and her son, who looked to be about seven; the piggy had originally been the pet of the older son and the little boy had "inherited" him when his older brother got into high school and felt he was too old for piggies.  The piggy was securely wrapped in a towel and sitting calmly on the little boy's lap.  They had just brought him in for a general check-up; the mum said he seemed to be slowing down a bit and they wondered if he had arthritis or something like that. 
When the mum told me the piggy was nine years old, I must have looked quite surprised because she insisted on having the vet staff confirm his age --- the first record of the vet seeing the piggy was indeed over eight years before.  
One of the interesting things to me was that though the piggy had obviously been well loved and cared for,  he had never had any special treatment.  The mum told me they knew about Vitamin C supplements and they had always given him some veggies as well as his pellets, but they had only found hay he liked and would eat a few years before so most of his life he had not even had hay.  That piggy must have had wonderful genes.   
She did ask me for the addresses of some websites with good piggy information which I wrote down for her, but they were the ones who had been taking care of him through his long life, so I wasn't actually sure if it was not me who should have been asking them for advice!
Pat and the Prairie Pigs