This is Jeep.

Jeep is our guinea pig (and for the record, I will add that he is a male, like everything else in my house)

His name is Jeep because, well, the initials of guinea pig are GP and are pronounced like “jeep” and, coincidentally, the high pitched squeaky noise he makes sounds like “jeep jeep jeep”.

A very appropriate name.

He’s cute.  But he’s a scaredy cat and will go running into his hiding spot whenever you go near the cage.  Spewing his cage bedding, and wayward raisinette poops all over my nice clean floors.  Savage!

Good old Jeep came to us in a rather round about way.

This past Spring we bought the boys a Hamster.  What they really wanted was a dog.  But The Only Girl is allergic to anything with fur or feathers, so no-can-do on the dog.  I’m VERY sure they’d trade me in heartbeat for a dog, but honestly, dog’s don’t cook, clean, help with homework or keep the house tidy.  So for the time being, they’re getting a Mommy instead of a dog.  And considering the size of a hamster – how much of my allergic asthma could he possibly cause?

The hamster was aptly named “Speedy” because he was a real champion on the hamster wheel.  All night long.  Never in the day when the boys were awake and willing to play with him, mind you.  No.  They’re nocturnal those hamster, you know.

But alas, poor Speedy contracted “wet tail” (sounds suspiciously like diarrhea to me) which, as it turns out, is deadly to fast nocturnal hamsters.  And on day four (4!) dear Speedy sadly departed.  Tears flowed.  Hearts broke.  Apparently young boys bond with hamsters very quickly.

So back to the pet store we went.  Determined to mop up those tears, I agreed to a guinea pig for “Pet – Round II.”  The guinea pig and one of the biggest damn cages I’ve ever seen.

But he is a much better pet.  He sleeps when we sleep.  He likes human attention.  You can feed him little lettuce or carrot treats.  He “squeaks” to you and whenever you enter the room or open the fridge door.  You can hold him and pet him.  There’s certainly some interaction going on.

But he stinks – in spite of very frequent cage cleanings.  He stinks of pee and he stinks of poop.  And he clearly must shed a lot of his fur and dander into the air because I’ve been living with an inhaler hanging out of my mouth for the past 2 months.  And it’s getting worse by the day.

It’s now become a showdown.  Him or me.  One of us has to go.

But how do you get rid of the beloved pet of two young boys?

Do you think shaving him bald would help?