My Friend and Her Rodents...

A friend of mine...well, among other various pets, has 2 guinea pigs, two rabbits, and a turtle. The turtle is in a 10g, probably a 6inch shell diameter, and maybe 5 inches of water. Not good! She rarely cleans the tank out.

The guineas, the rabbits, and the turtle have their own room. They are all in cages. The rabbit cage is like..a plastic bottom and wire top, maybe 3feet by 1 foot, and the guineas is smaller, and square. She dosen't clean the cages out very often-I really don't know how often, maybe once every few weeks, and the whole room REEKS of urine. I mean, I can't walk in there. She feeds them pellets-and just pellets. When she first got them she would get hay from petsmart and stuff and did real good, but now she dosen't hay them at all. She dosen't give them, or the turtle, fresh veggies or anything. She dosen't have a job, her parents give her $20 a week, but she spends that on other things. She dropped out of high school too.

She used to have two other guineas...they were given to her by her teacher or something..and probably a month or two ago, one of them got really sick..wouldn't eat or drink, had diarrhea. Well...you need to go to the vet...give it fluids...it eventually passed away. She was "so upset" and crying. A week later she had to force feed the other guinea because it was "heartbroken" and it too passed away. She believes they were getting old, they were only 5 years old. I think they can live to be 10? So what did she do? She went down to the store and bought two more like 6 week old babies. She selected one of them because it was pregnant! It's been like a month and a half...the pig is very tiny and petite but her belly is HUGE. She said now the pig has lost the hair off it's head. But she "can't afford" to go to the vet-why did you get them in the first place? I don't know how to tell her-that how she keeps these animals is wrong!

I have cleaned up her mistakes before (Dallas, the rottie puppy, and an emaciated horse that she "rescued"), but I can't do anything for those rodents (well..lagamorphs and cavys :) ). She would get very defensive if I were to tell her straight up how I felt. It's got to be sneakier, lol. Any suggestions?

She also has 3 dogs (min. poodle mixes and a boston) that aren't in very good shape-fleas, and she has no clue what heartworm medication is. The boston's eyes pop out of its head and are dry, hes mostly blind. I educated her on it and she got really quiet. She has a munchkin cat that disgusts me to pet because it has all those flea scabs all over its body. She dosen't live much better. She does live with her parents, but she is mainly responsible for the small pets.

A very sad situation. It sounds like the best thing to do might be to call your local SPCA! :(

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Originally Posted by kimlovescats

A very sad situation. It sounds like the best thing to do might be to call your local SPCA! :(

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Agreed!!!

Agreed too!

My thoughts Exactly, some times being a good friend comes with hard decisions.

Agreed. :(

But will the SPCA even bat an eye at it? I mean, they have food, water and shelter, just not...the greatest. They're not thin or anything, it's just that I worry about the respiratory problems being created with the stench in the room, and the lack of health care. I don't know if the SPCA would even care. I don't think there's anything saying that you have to prevent fleas on your dogs and cats either. If their old dog was there I definately would...she was in horrible condition, tons of hairloss and blind/deaf. But they put her to sleep finally. I could go there and steal the rabbits and guineas but...I don't know.

I don't mind losing her as a friend, it dosen't really bother me much. She's done enough to me that I don't care what happens to her, but she's there so we hang out often.

She also claims that the turtle dosen't know how to swim :confused: , so therefore he should only have the 5" of water. She was going to get a Chinchilla too and stick it in that room. :rolleyes: She used to have two 2 foot plecostamus fish in a rubbermaid container...she would throw ike three algae discs the size of a quarter in there and was "surprised" when they weren't dead after awhile. And she wants a goat in the backyard.

She had a thoroughbred horse that she got for free...stuck it in her "dog pen", because her grandma would be mad if it was roaming around the yard. And she was only getting $20 a week...and she smokes...so the horse was getting maybe a half scoop of feed daily and a tiny bit of hay. No farrier to come out, no shots. She tied a tarp thing on it when it rained. She would I went down to a lady I know and she went to her mom and we got the horse out. And then with the puppy Dallas, it's just been kind of ridiculous. She had also gotten a shih-tzu mix puppy from a friend of mine (before all the other animals were there) and she "gave it to a friend of hers". I don't really know what happened.

She kind of makes me sick sometimes. It's like...the reason I have (and have had) so many dogs and "rescue" animals is because of people like YOU who can't take care of their responsibilities.