All donations and our portion of the funds from the store will go toward getting medications released to small animals that are otherwise left with medications no more modern than medications used during the Civil War.

Jefferey's Story Shop

Jefferey's Story

Jefferey’s parents were both haired guinea pigs (an American mix.) We had no idea that any of their litters would contain skinny pigs. His mother, Pink Floyd, had two skinny pigs from her first litter. Both died because we had no idea how to help them.

Jefferey was born in Floyd’s second litter, the only hairless one in the group. Pink Floyd ignored him after the first day. My mother had to raise him by hand. She fed him. When he started going blind she would give him water sometimes three times in an hour and slowly nursed him back to health. He finally seemed healthy.

His mother had one more litter before we were able to get his father, Pugsley (or Wuggles, as we call him), neutered. This litter contained two skinny pigs, Diva—who was named so because she would scream the loudest—and Tubby—who was named so because he spent 90% of the time at least sitting in the food bowl. We were about to sell these two when we found that Diva had a strange bulge in her cheek.

We took her and her brother home to tend to them, and found that not only did Diva have a bulge, but both of her brothers had similar bulges on their bodies.

Think of the worst boil you’ve ever had (everyone’s had one in their life.) Now, think of one the size of a quarter, and five times as thick on you. This is as big as their injuries had grown to. On a human, that would be considered unbearable. But on a guinea pig? The boil is as big as their leg.

Again, this would be important in a lab. It would help them immensely. But if a skinny pig is prone to have such things, they should never have been introduced into the pet world.

Guinea pigs are considered throw away animals to most people. We spent $600 on Jefferey. While even cats and dogs are allowed more modern medicine, guinea pigs are only offered medicine that we had available to us since the Civil War. They're not considered worth the time of companies that make prescription drugs.

Jefferey lived only 6 months. He died because he was in too much pain to eat and drink. No pain medicines or antibiotics were enough to save him. His sister and brother are still fighting. But the pain of losing someone that you treat so carefully for even that short a time is almost unbearable. Jefferey lived to teach a lesson: It is not wrong, but necessary, to have animals to test on in the laboratories to save people. But these creatures used for experiments who have had immune systems removed from their genetics should not be let out among pet lovers. It hurts too much when a beloved pet dies.

They are also there to remind us that they’re being used to find medicines for people. But once it’s proven to work on them, it goes into the human medicines, and the animals are left without. If it works, why not use it to heal animals? What would be so wrong about giving them the antibiotics or cancer treatments or other healing practices that they helped us find for ourselves? These animals gave their lives to help us. It’s about time we gave something back.

Update: Two months after this was originally published, Diva disappeared. Her brother, Tubby, lived until December 19th, where we found him dead underneath Dad's blanket.

--written by Angela Prien