It's Hard Out Here For A Pig

Greetings

The Aggie Update - The chubster saw the vet yesterday. Apart from meeting a new friend (a little girl who gave her lots of rubs) Aggie received a clean bill of health! YAY AGGIE! I'm not doing a victory dance though. Aggie appears to be a little traumatized from the past week. She was taking her emotions out on Maggie and the two had to be separated. Once we got come from the vet I let Aggie recover on her own for a few hours. I planned on putting her and Maggie together that night following a salad introduction. They ate their salad together, but then started to squabble again. I then decided to let them hang out on neutral territory, the sofa. Unfortunately they had a full on brawl. I was able to pull them apart. While I was putting each of them in "time out" I noticed that Aggie had been bitten in the face, more specifically her mouth and nose. So, for those of you keep track at home, Aggie has managed to injure her eye, nose, and mouth all within a week. I cleaned the wounds and they weren't deep thankfully, BUT Aggie and Maggie cannot be housed together with their current temperaments. So for the time being Maggie has their cage, and Aggie has a playpen on the floor. 

I'm still in a total state of disbelief. Maggie and Aggie have been paired together since Maggie was about 4 weeks old (and she'll be 3 in February). While they've never been an affectionate pair, they tolerated each other. I can't believe that they would fight like this. Ugggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh. The life of a pig owner, right? 

So, what am I gonna do? Alright, I know that Maggie and Aggie are capable of being nice... they've done so for two and a half years. I just need to get them to remember that they like each other. First, I'm gonna let them both cool down for a few days. Hopefully they'll forget that they were fighting. Next I'm gonna try a "Buddy Bath". A Buddy Bath is when you put some water in a tub, and put both the pigs in the tub. The pigs freak out, forget that they're fighting, lose whatever scents they had, and they bond about the whole experience. Essentially it should act as a reset button. Both Maggie and Aggie are good candidates for Buddy Baths because they both HATE water. I'll probs do that on Tuesday... *fingers crossed*.

In non-guinea pig related news, I drove to the gas station today :). It might not seem like a newsworthy event, but the local gas station is on a road that I'm not exactly comfortable with. But, I've been memorizing the road for a few months and today I finally drove there! Granted, my mom was in the car with me for support, but still... I DID IT! YAY CRIPPIE! It's only a matter of time before I get more and more comfortable driving to new places. My next task will be to drive to a completely new place with no practice runs. I need to find a place that would be worth the panic attacks. Any local readers have any suggestions of really kick-ass places? There's a guinea pig rescue in New Jersey... maybe the thought of piggies will help me get over some fears :D

Crippie's Tippie - The occasional guinea pig squabble or nip is not a huge deal, once blood is drawn however, separate the pigs.