Abandoned guinea pig rescued in Fort Worth after her plight is shared on Nextdoor
It’s a guinea pig rescue mission with a happy ending, and it all started with a post on Nextdoor.
Christine Strittmatter pulled off on the side of the road near the apartments being built on North Beach at Shiver Road to examine a blue and white pet carrier with a blue blanket, according to a video shared on the social media site. When Strittmatter removed a blanket from the crate, out ran a fluffy white and orange guinea pig.
“I just filmed this and not sure what to do next,” the post reads.
The accompanying video shows the animal nestled in vegetation.
Residents from the far north Fort Worth area jumped into action, replying to the post by offering their services to help save the guinea pig and worrying about it being left out in the cold.
“How sad that someone abandoned that poor guinea pig out in the cold,” one reply reads.
“What do they eat?” another says. “Would fruit or similar be something that would be appealing enough to get it to come up to you or the crate?”
Rhonda Book of Fort Worth saw the post and went out Monday night to the site with her 13-year-old son. Another person was there trying to help as well, Brooks told the Star-Telegram.
It was already dark by that point. They left out cantaloupe, and Book decided to come back in the morning when it was light and try again.
Early on Tuesday Book searched the area, and another person soon showed up to offer reinforcement. Eventually the guinea pig popped out of hole.
“We chased her around a little bit and that was not working,” Book said. “She was very fast.”
They sat down and tried to lure the critter with cat food and carrots. Book was almost able to grab her a couple times, but no luck.
Book replied to the Nextdoor post asking for help.
“Come on Guinea pig wranglers!!” Book wrote.
Help came in the form of a handful of people who saw the post, which has more than 200 comments and more than 100 reactions. Among them was Jennifer Nielsen, who has three guinea pigs — Flower, Chica Linda and Oreo. She and her daughter brought with them a pet carrier, a bag of timothy hay and a hidey hut to keep the animal warm and cozy.
“It was great,” Nielsen said about the people coming together to help the guinea pig. “It really just... restores my view on humanity. People really do care about helping each other and helping animals.”
When Nielsen joined a few people already there, the strategy was to try and get the guinea pig to come to them, but when another person came they shifted plans, Nielsen said: They needed to go after the guinea pig.
Book went home and get her son, Sammy, and a baby gate that could be made into a square. Maybe if they could confine the animal to a smaller space, they could catch him, Nielsen thought.
“My son had two of the panels and I had two of the panels, just trying to trap her an a small area,” Book said.
It worked, and Book was able to reach into the enclosure and pick up the small creature. A half-dozen-or-so people were there by that point, said Sarah Allan of Fort Worth, who was among those working to save the guinea pig. (Allan is a fellow guinea pig lover and brought four with her when she moved from England three years ago.)
“It was just a miracle that it survived overnight,” Allan said, calling the guinea pig “the sweetest little thing.”
“Funny enough, watching her, she was having a brilliant time,” Allan said. “She was having the time of her life, bless her. She was running around, eating all the vegetation and obviously thought this is fantastic, not really realizing that obviously she was actually in quite a lot of danger.”
There are many predators in the area, Allan said.
The guinea pig now has a new home with Megan Sanchez of Saginaw and a new name: Kenna. Sanchez, an animal lover, had posted on the Nextdoor thread that she could take the guinea pig in. Kenna has four guinea pig siblings at the home: Billy, Bob, Lena and Ice.
Sanchez and her kids already love the guinea pig, who Sanchez said likes to cuddle.
“She’s forever home,” Sanchez said.
