NEWS AND COMMENT: This is another regrettable story of the abandonment of a companion animal and sadly it was done in a reckless and irresponsible way. There is no need to abandon pets this way.
There are many animal charities, rescue centres, where you can take your pet if you feel that you can no longer care for him or her for whatever reason.
I don’t think they question people as to the reason. People shouldn’t be embarrassed to do this. Perhaps they abandoned their pets at a tube station in this instance because they were simply careless and don’t want to bother to take their guinea pig to a rescue center which may be many miles away.
In this instance staff at the Canning Town Underground station in East London, UK rescued a brown and white guinea pig which they’ve named DiscoPig.
The animal was found in a cage placed in an alleyway which is not covered by security cameras according to a BBC report.
An RSPCA inspector, Shahnaz Ahmad, who collected the guinea pig from staff at the station said that,
“He seemed healthy and well cared for. It’s very sad that someone has abandon their pets in this way. We encourage people to reach out to local animal welfare charities for help with pet care, rather than leaving them in a vulnerable situation like this.”
They’ve assessed DiscoPig’s age as between six months and one year. He is doing well and will be available for adoption soon. The RSPCA will advertise him on their ‘find a pet’ website.
3.7 million households relinquished a pet in 2022 which amounted to 13% of respondents to a survey by UK Pet Food. The abandonments are because of the following factors:
- Probably adopting a pet that should not have been adopted by which I mean during the Covid-19 pandemic when people tended to do it for company and
- The rising cost of pet care due to inflation which has pushed up the cost of food and other pet care products and
- The unacceptable, it’s been argued, rising cost of veterinary care partly due to the fact that independent veterinarians are being bought up by big corporations with the intention of making more money from these veterinary clinics. They have seen an opportunity to make quick money because independent veterinarians tend to under commercialise their operations.
Dogs Trust which rehomed dogs said that in 2023 it had received more than 45,000 requests from owners about giving up their companion animal.
Guinea pigs are not infrequently relinquished. The RSPCA’s Laybourne Animal Centre in Kent recently appealed, according to The Times report “for help to rehome nearly 100 guinea pigs.”
Guinea pigs are social creatures and should not be keep single and they need a Vitamin C supplement.
The Times newspaper has a little follow-up on the story. First, if I didn’t mention it, DiscoPig is a year old. And since DiscoPig’s story went viral, his future has looked a lot more promising.
By the way, he is described as an Abyssinian guinea pig. The RSPCA have found a potential new home and they have had a lot of interest.
Shahnaz Ahmad, an RSPCA inspector, who collected him, said that DiscoPig was “skittish” but now he is doing very well.
She said that it was a “sad start in life” and that she had named him DiscoPig “to give him a bit more confidence”.
They are, as mentioned highly sociable animals and become very lonely when separated from others which can lead to the development of erratic behaviour.
Ahmad said that the RSPCA had seen a 33% jump in abandoned animals surrendered to the charity since 2020.
This has been put down to the cost-of-living crisis due to inflation post-Covid which is now under control and a return to working in the office rather than at home. These are two reasons. a third is probably the, at times, self-indulgent purchasing and adoption of companion animals which worked well during the long lockdowns of Covid-19 but which the longer worked when owners had to return to work at the office.
