Tuesday, July 24, 2018

Now She's a Lucifer to Light Her Fire: The Guinea Pig Romance

Lily the guinea pig has been leading a lonely life; her longtime companion, Scarlet, died of various tumors and an apparent infection a few months ago, so Lily's been moping around her cage and actually starting conversations with me, paws on plastic wall, rather than ignoring all humans, as is her normal modus operandi. My husband drove me to an animal shelter in the neighborhood that had guinea pigs but declined to let us know anything about their gender. Since we needed a male companion with no reproductive capabilities, we could not take the girls in the pen. Lily always fights with girls. She did not play nicely with the ones with whom she was once sent to live--when she returned, she gave me a baleful look--why had I sent her away? And to live with other chicks? Really. So we bided our time. I thought maybe she was the Greta Garbo of piggies, content to live on her own. Little signs of loneliness appeared--the odd, plaintive squeak, the signs, despite her efforts to be cool, that she had missed me when I was gone.
Yesterday, we got a call from another animal shelter. Yes, they had a young male, (tricolor in the video below) and yes, that young male had been rendered infertile. You'd never know from his reactions to Lily. He's clearly under the impression that he still has all his junk. She didn't rip his head off or, in fact, draw blood, as far as I could tell, although she affected to complain when he single-mindedly turned his attentions to her, waggling his hips, growling, and then clicking his teeth when she did not immediately agree to his terms. That teeth-clicking has stopped, as of today--it sounded like "helicopters" according to my son; I considered it saber-rattling. Today, things seem smoother. He chases her--he is, alas, only a fourth of her age: it's the middle-aged lady (Lily's four or five) and the young buck (Lucifer's one) scenario. But hey, how cool is that? Here are scenes from their courtship:
Three days later, they do not appear to agree about everything, but nobody's screaming. Dare I saw they seem rather fond of each other?
Down at the animal shelter, they'd named him, of all things, "Troll." A troll is a nudnik who  emerges from his cave only to be turned to stone. Or, in the Harry Potter version of things, to be felled by his own club. So I have re-named our little guy Lucifer. Besides--as he's nosing around her (Lily calmly snatching a carrot) doesn't he remind us all just a tiny bit of Tom Ellis?

2 comments:

  1. I'm so, so glad Lily got a companion! In this video, though, she seems to be body slamming him every time he tries to move. I don't get the sense that HE is the aggressor, even if he is named Lucifer! The noise I heard on the video sounded like dogs barking outside and far away. Was it those two?

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  2. Lily is bigger and every time Lucifer tried to mount her (he seems unaware that he's lost his junk) she batted him away. He then rattled his teeth at her. She insisted on the right to eat food in front of him first, while he respectfully watched. They've now been together since last Sunday. He still tries to mount her and she runs away. He whines. She says, "Not tonight: I have a headache." As soon as he's a little bigger (he will grow! Oh, he will grow!) I think they'll get along even better. Now, the point is, nobody is injured and some of their conversations sound harmonic.

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