Freedom Sucks for Guinea Pigs

Most people have heard of dogs running away, cats too. Yet, not many people have heard of a guinea pig running away. Well that's what happened last Monday. On my way home from school, I get a text from my sister saying she can't find Chester outside. Like any other person, I began to panic. I ask my dad where he put Chester hoping he tells me that he is hidden somewhere as some kind of joke, only for him to tell me that he put him outside in his playpen. Once I convinced my dad that my sister was not joking around and Chester was really gone, we rush home and begin searching the backyard.

So the search for my missing guinea pig began. My dad, sister, and I searched the background for about ten minutes until I tell my dad that my sister and I will walk around the neighborhood and look for him. My sister and I split up and walked around for a good 40 minutes until my dad calls me to tell me Chester had been hiding in my neighbors bushes. By that time, my sister and I had met up and began to run home. Once we got there my eyes immediately tried to find him. It turns out he had been in the very back of the bushes that grew right in front of my neighbor's front yard (they are against the wall of the house). When I saw Chester laying in the dirt calmly I felt a wave of relief wash over my, calming my nerves.

The next part of this eventful day was getting Chester back in his playpen. This turned out to be much harder that I thought it would be. See, Chester does not like being picked up so picking him up and expecting an easy submission was out of the question. Then my dad got the idea of putting him a box so that he couldn't run away. Since I honestly thought this was a good idea, I went with it and helped my dad get him in the box. This was a lot harder than I thought it would be; this took us a good 15 minutes. In the end he was in and that's all that mattered to me.

9/29  Photo taken by me.
Taken right before he made the jump.

Once Chester was safely in the backyard, I was finally able to relax and feel happy about him being back, that is until he tried to make a jump for it. The box was up to my knees, yet he was able to almost make it out of the box. He would have made it out except he tried to jump between my knees which ended up with him being squished between my knees and my sister pushing him back into the cage from behind me. After he was back in the box, my dad put a blanket over the box to keep him in there. After that was done, and his playpen was put somewhere where there were no holes for him to escape from, he was put back in there.

Since then, Chester has been much more tame and calm. I like to think he has learned that life is not easy, especially when you're a guinea pig. I mean, being a prey animal must not be easy and not everyone is going to feed him kibble and kale whenever he's hungry. I hope Chester has learned that freedom isn't easy to handle.

9/29  Video taken by me.