Thursday, April 27, 2017

Guinea Pig Attractions Around the World: Inokashira Park Zoo Guinea Pig House Revisited

We don't generally like to repeat ourselves, and we've already done a guinea pig attractions around the world post on the guinea pig house in Inokashira Park Zoo. However, since the humans actually got a chance to see this guinea pig attraction in person, we figured that our loyal readers may appreciate the opportunity to get a closer look at this one.

Notice that the guinea pig house has special hours.
The humans showed up between 11:30 - 13:30 (AKA 1:30 PM), and saw these "Resting" signs.
These plush guinea pigs were nearby, and could be handled at any time, however.
When you visit, it's good to get there early. There's a line to pet the guinea pigs!
Once you get through the line, everyone gets to pick a guinea pig to pet.
You get about 15 minutes of petting time, and then the next group of people in line get their turn.
After petting the guinea pigs, you can always see all the other animals in the zoo. Or, you can get right back in line and wait your turn to pet guinea pigs again!

Have you seen any guinea pig attractions that you think we should feature on the blog? If so, let us know in the comments section.

Saturday, April 22, 2017

Guinea Pig Tuxedo Outfit

According to Wikipedia, "The most popular uses of the tuxedo in the United States at present are for formal weddings, galas, balls, formal proms and formal nights on cruises."   What if you're a male guinea pig who's been invited to one of these formal occasions? Sure, that fur coat you were born with is fine for most occasions, but there are special occasions where you may need to kick it up a notch. Case in point, this video:


The humans brought back this tuxedo guinea pig costume from Morugumi in Tokyo, so I'll be prepared for my next formal event! (Bring on the guinea pig wedding invites!)

Is that my size?
It fits. Do I look dapper in this?
All dressed up and nowhere to go!
I looked pretty darn good if I do say so myself, but like all costumes we've tried, I looked forward to getting it off. After all, the fur coat that Mother Nature gave me is the most comfortable outfit of all.

Sunday, April 16, 2017

Music for Guinea Pigs by PetTunes

In a recent post, we talked about music made by guinea pigs. Now we want to talk about music made for guinea pigs. We recently discovered "PetTunes," which describes itself as follows:
Pet Tunes uses sound repetitive rhythms and key notes designed to relax and calm your pet. If you pet has sleeping problems or anxiety problems or is even stressed during fireworks, you should try our music. It will calm your guinea pig, rabbit, dog, cat, hamster... in other words, any species!
And sure enough, they have several songs intended for guinea pigs, such as this one:


But does it actually work? We started by checking the YouTube comments on their guinea pig music videos. Here's a sampling of them:
  • "he fell asleep in my hands I carried him to his cage and when I closed it it made a sound and he woke up"
  • "This was too relaxing for my Guinea pig ,caramel,She peed on me lol"
  • "The moment the guinea pigs heard this song, their life was changed"
  • "I played this to keep my Guinea pig quit and she didn't care about the music she just was chewing on my phone case!"
  • "My guinea pig was hopping and jumping all over me while I was holding her. I started playing this and she just stopped, listened, and crawled into the blanket that was on my lap! She's currenly just cuddling up in the blanket and she actually just purred. She loves this! This music is working wonders for her!"
Not 100% positive, as you can see, but positive enough that we decided to try it for ourselves:
Apologies for the messy cage in this video. (We're about due for a cleaning! Humans, get on that ASAP!)

It was actually kind of relaxing. I was rattling my bars shortly before the video started, and after the music started, I just wanted to munch on pellets and sip water. I fell asleep after about 15 minutes. (Broccoli was already asleep.) So it was good at first. However, at about 30:58, they included some sort of horrible alarm noise that woke us both up and made us wheek in terror! Why would they include this? Is this a prank or a mistake?

Our conclusion is that PetTunes seems like a good idea in theory, but someone needs to test this out with actual pets before putting out songs like this.

Saturday, April 15, 2017

Cavy Savvy 2017 Spring Giveaway Winner Announcement!

It's time to share the wealth that our humans brought back from Japan! We used a random number generator to choose the winner of the 2017 Spring Giveaway, and the winner is ...

Arwen and Eowyn!

Congratulations! You just some Guinea pig stickers, coasters, and a marshmallow from Morugumi, the Japanese guinea pig cafe and specialty store! (Long-time readers may remember that Arwen and Eowyn also won a Thanksgiving costume back in 2014. That just goes to show that it pays to be a long-time reader and enter every time!)

Please email us your current mailing address to cavysavvyaguineapigblog@gmail.com within 5 days and we will send mail you your prize. (If left unclaimed, we may choose another winner, so don't delay!)

Thank you to everyone who entered. If you didn't win this time, don't worry, there's always next time. Be sure that you are a follower of Cavy Savvy if you want to be considered for future giveaways. To follow us, just click the "Follow" button on the right.

Sunday, April 9, 2017

Guinea Pigs Make Music With Makey Makey

One thing we find fascinating is technology that guinea pigs can use. We all remember the guinea pig bridge in Japan that Parry Gripp called "the latest guinea pig bridge technology," right? And also the automatic guinea pig feeder using Arduino? Well, we just found about about some new guinea pig tech that we must share with you!

There's a device called a Makey Makey that can allows you to connect random household objects to a computer with alligator clips, and have them each be considered different buttons. Someone had the brilliant idea to use a Makey Makey to turn their guinea pigs into musicians!


Okay, so it might not be the most amazing song we've ever heard. They may need a little practice. But no musician starts out as Mozart on day 1, right? Keep eating those musical veggies, piggies! We'll buy your album!

Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Cavy Savvy 2017 Spring Giveaway!

As we mentioned in our last post, our humans recently went to Japan and visited some guinea pig-related attractions, including a guinea pig cafe and specialty store called Morugumi. They got some really cool goodies that we've decided to raffle off to our loyal readers!

Here's what the winner gets: Guinea pig stickers, coasters, and marshmallow! (The marshmallow is a treat for humans, by the way. Just because a guinea pig is on it doesn't mean we can eat it.)
Doesn't that stuff look awesome and adorable? Don't you want to win it for your human? If so, here are the giveaway rules:

  • You must be a resident of the continental United States.
  • You have to be a follower of this blog. To follow us, just click the "join this site" button on the right.
  • To enter, leave a comment on this blog post expressing your interest in participating in the contest.
  • All entries must be received by April 15th, 2017 at 12:00 pm (US Eastern time) to be eligible.
  • One winner will be chosen at random from all eligible entries and announced on this blog on April 15th sometime after the giveaway closes.
  • The winner will be instructed to email us to provide us with a mailing address to send the prize to. Winners must provide us with a mailing address within 5 days to receive their prize. If we do not receive a response in time, we will randomly select another winner from the eligible responses. 

Good luck!