In April 2009 my youngest daughter asked for a hamster. I agreed thinking if she decided she was "bored" with it I wouldn't mind taking care of it so we went to Petco. While in there looking at hamsters I told her "you know they only live a year or two", she broke down crying and said "then why would you let me get one?!" We left the store. A week or so later she decided that if she could at least give it the best 2 years it would be worth it.
We went back to Petco and while looking at hamsters an employee recommended we get a guinea pig instead. You can hold them, interact with them and they live much longer. They had a beautiful white pig with blue eyes and dark grey ears. We brought her home in a Super Pet cage with a bag of pellets and hay.
I am OCD and started researching right away how to properly care for her. I found GuineaPigCages.com and discovered C&C cages. I went on eBay and ordered a kit. In the meantime we realized Delilah was getting very fat. Soon after, I felt movement and discovered she was pregnant!
On June 1 we came home to 2 perfect little babies. A white one with red eyes and a tri-colored one. Within a few weeks I discovered the white one was male and the tri-colored female. I started looking into finding a home for the male, my daughter decided she wanted to keep the female as a companion. While reading about homing him I discovered that PEW's are hard to home. I was offended that anyone would not absolutely love this perfect little boy so I decided to keep him as my piggy.
Stewart and I bonded. He loved me so much. He knew the sound of me coming up the stairs. He would run to the bars to see me. He loved to poke his nose through the bars for me to pet him. He never ran when I'd pick him up. Stewart was Facebook famous, I'd post pictures of him wearing tiny hats for every holiday. He actually liked posing and would hold perfectly still so all I had to do was set the hat on his head and he'd wait for me to take his pictures.
Stewart passed away November 8, 2012. He had severely malformed molars, a missing incisor and unbeknownst to me had not been able to chew or swallow properly for a long time. The vet discovered under anesthesia that one of his molars had grown over, trapping his tongue, preventing him from swallowing. He came out of the anesthesia but fell asleep that night and never woke up. Looking back, he would always drink while eating his pellets and his dish was always crusted with pellets on the bottom. I think he would get a pellet and then some water to soften the pellets making them edible. Poor baby. I'm pretty sure he was a high functioning lethal. His mom is white but looking closely there are tons of black hairs mixed in, I believe she is a roan.
This is one of my favorite pictures of him. He'd run to me when I'd let him free in the living room.
