Auntie Liz bought two guinea pigs as class pets for her nursery group and as such had the responsibility for looking after them at weekends. It soon became apparent that one of the guinea pigs was with pups. (Male guinea pigs are called boars, female guinea pigs are called sows but that is where their porcine naming convention stops; baby guinea pigs are called pups). The school didn’t want the responsibility (or cost) of extra mouths to feed so there was a decision to be made about the pups. This was when Lucinda and I thought it was about time the Baguettes had a pet.
Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz had been down relatively regularly over the last few months and as this has been mainly at weekends, the guinea pigs have been regular visitors too. The Baguettes loved them and regularly asked to hold them, even if it was for only a couple of minutes before they got too nervous. It was also a good time for Lucinda to get used to holding them. Lucinda had never had small rodents as pets as a child and so was also unfamiliar with handling them. Since guinea pigs are relatively docile and not at all skittish she, and the children, quickly grew in confidence. Therefore when the pups arrived it was a no brainer that we would take them on. However, with the fireplace install on-going and thus a lot of dust in the air, not to mention the loud noises associated with building work, we decided to leave it until Christmas for their true adoption.
The pups had already been named by the children, for when they were born we asked them to think of names – part of our attempt for them to bond with them. The list was relatively long and had some more unusual names on there (Eric, unfortunately did not make the final list) but eventually the names Toffee and Frazzle were chosen and thus they were christened.
The Baguettes had no idea that there were going to keep the guinea pigs, even though for about a month before we finally took them in we were trying to get the Baguettes used to the idea of having them as pets. They were very excited when Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz bought them down for Christmas and even more so when Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz left leaving Toffee and Frazzle behind. Thus starting pet ownership in chez Bagnall.
Here are photos of the latest additions to the Bagnall household.
