A Day in the Lives of Three Cavies
July - September 1996

• Sundae and Wheeker's Home - 20 Jul 96
• The Two Sides of Our New Buddy! - 20 Jul 96
• Introducing Truffles! - 28 Jul 96
• The Making of a Piggie Palace - 09 Sept 96

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Here is a picture of Sundae and Wheeker's cage (the little one is in quarrantine for a few weeks and has her own place). We made it using two 15 X 22 inch Rubbermaid clear blanket boxes and ten 12 X 12 inch cubical panels (ones you can use to construct storage cubes). We attached the panels together with twist ties you get with rolls of garbage bags. It is easy to clean and is lightweight.

The Two Sides of Our New Buddy!

20 July 96

Welcome our new addition to our guinea pig family! We found her on Wednesday (July 17, 1996), but we did not bring her home until yesterday (Friday). Since PetsMart opened in San Diego about a month ago, we have been looking at new cavies every week but we found this little one at the newest Petco in Carmel Ranch.

She is quite small ... only five ounces (140 grams) and is already eating us out of house and refrigerator! She has eaten almost everything we have given her (timothy hay, alfalfa hay, oat hay, lettuce, carrots, parsley, radicchio, and even a Mazuri pellet). We have not seen her drink any water yet, but we are giving her liquid vitamin C orally to make sure she's getting enough since she's such a small little one. She does not have a name yet, so if you have any suggestions, please e-mail them to us at buddies@buddies.org. We cannot allow her to remain nameless for very long.

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As of July 26, 1996, here's a list of the name suggestions received for our newest buddy:

Terpischore - Greek muse/goddess
Polyxenia - Greek muse
Cassandra; Roxanne and Alexander - the Greek conqueror and his wife
Cicero, Cato, Marcus - Roman orators
Telemancus; Zeus; Cedric and his real son in English history, Wilfred
Penelope, Andromache - (who gave the ball of string to Odysseus to go down the labyrinth to slay the minatour)
Aurelia - gold
Melissa - goddess of honey
Mellona - protector of honey
-- Greek names submitted by Phoebe and "Phoebe's mom"

Salad
Candy
Sand
Ballet
(They aren't fancy names, but they all go with "Barr.")
-- submitted by Cyrano and Penelope the guinea pigs

Arizona
-- submitted by Erin Torpin

Sofia or Sophia
Maja/Mayya/Mia
Roxanna
Alexandra
Larissa
Marina
Isabel
-- submitted by Susan

Sweet Piggle
Candy
Pigglet
Snookums
Jellyroll
Pookie
B'dup
Wigglet
-- submitted by Tex Green

Shrimpenstein
Lucy (for Lucille Ball)
-- submitted by Peter and Alisa Spivak

half-pint (small carton with some milk in (on) it!!)
-- submitted by Lisa F. Leard

Emma
-- submitted by Laura Braz

Juliet
Fudgie (looks like a hot fudge sundae)
Fudgena
-- submitted by Jasper the guinea pig

Cutie Pie (CeePee for short)
-- submitted by Debbie Otero

Rainbow
Vista (because she's a beautiful view)
Ashanti (the name of an African tribe, I just like the way it sounds)
Waterfall (with that white blaze down her face)
Neskahi (the name on someone on my Paul Winter CD)
-- submitted by Karena Kliefoth

Karena also suggested that I put all the names in a hat and let her pick one out. She said the only drawback might be that she might eat it before I could read it. With the way her little mouth moves, it would be a definite possibility. 8-)

Peanut
Peaches
Baby
Sweetums (she also looks like a little sweetie pie)
Sweet Tart (keeping with a food tradition (except for Wheeker))
-- submitted by Judi Lainer

Munchkin
-- submitted by Barb Rokitka

Introducing Truffles!

28 Jul 96

Sundae, Wheeker, and their humans are proud to present Truffles, their new friend. We would like to thank you all for all of the names you suggested. Several of you suggested that we choose a name after a food we like or a hobby we have, and since I am quite fond of chocolate and the little girl looks like dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and white chocolate, we came up with the name "Truffles". She is now six ounces (170 grams) and is more vocal than Wheeker is! She is either talking, eating, or sleeping. She is fairly fearless for such a small little girl. She is not easily frightened by noises and will eat from her humans' hands. Although she is much too young to talk, much less learn to spell or type, Sundae has graciously agreed to answer her mail for her. If you would like to write to Truffles, please drop her a note at buddies@buddies.org.

The Making of a Piggie Palace

09 Sept 96

Wheeker and I were getting quite cramped in our small house, so we asked our humans for a larger place. After all, we knew they were planning on putting Truffles with us as soon as she got better. This past Friday, our wish came true!

The thing that papa brought home did not look all that great. It was covered with paper and was dirty inside. We did not think we wanted to live there. Here's a picture of it.

After papa left for work, mama started working on cleaning it up. She took off the paper and cleaned out the inside and outside with bleach. Then she dried it off. It started to look much better, but we still did not want to live there.

Mama went shopping to look for things to put into our new home. She was out all day! And when papa came home, they went out to look some more! When they came home, they set up our house and let us all see it. Here we all are in our brand new house! You can see me in my house. Wheeker is in the see-through house. And Truffles is in our brand new tunnel.

After we were all settled in, papa did more shopping and now look what our house looks like! Click here or on the picture for a better view. You cannot really see us, but I am in the see-through house. (You can see the top half of me a little.) Wheeker went into my house. (You can see her head peeking out.) And Truffles is in her purple tunnel.

So, now you have seen our new home. If you are ever in our neighborhood, come by and see us. Our house is on the left right after you enter the front door. If you pass a television set, you have gone too far.

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