Cage Cleaning by Ruby

[Swissgreys]

Today was cage cleaning day in our house.
Cage cleaning is one of those pointless activities that slaves like to do, proving yet again that they really are not the most intelligent pets.

Honestly just when I get my cage all nice and arrange everything like I want it, the boring big slave comes along and is very rude about my decorating style.
Did it ever occur to her that I might actually want hay and poops strewn everywhere?
And surely after 5 years she would have learnt that pellets most certainly do not belong in a pellet dish.
Just because she wasted her money on some fancy ceramic bowl with guinea pigs painted around the sides does not mean I should suffer and have to use it.

But I try to be a tolerant piggy, and of course I can’t ignore my naturally sweet disposition and helpful nature, so cleaning day is the perfect time to remind the big slave of this.
I like to show a sudden interest in all the cage sweepings, nibble the dustpan and brush, and try to climb into the bowl with all the old hay and poops to check she isn’t throwing away anything important.
Sadly the pointless pellet dish never seems to get throw away.
And while I am being so helpful, the big slave keeps trying to move me to another part of the cage and mutter dull things like ‘Stop flipping the bowl with all the sweepings over Ruby’.
Honestly if I don’t flip the bowl over how can I check she isn’t throwing away a piece of hay that I might like to eat?

Fellow Forum piggies, let's come together and support each other through the injustice that is cage cleaning.

Love Ruby xx

 

[Deleted member 139433]

Dear Ruby,

We could not agree more and it would appear that you have preempted our efforts to bring this issue to light. We want to thank you for this. Please do let us know if there is anything we can do to help support or progress this complaint. We are also keen to hear of the outcome.

In addition to the concerns raised above, we would like to add that on occasion our slave has been the one to change something in the cages. The slave has been known to wash our mats and when placing them back in the cage, has changed the arrangement. We have made it perfectly clear on several occasions that we like the pink mat in the middle, adjacent to the blue, the orange in the corners and the yellow mats in the high traffic areas. To lift and move mats ourselves would be a tremendous task and far to strenuous and large of an under-taking to fit into our already, very busy daily schedules of eating, napping and pooping. Slave has also recently purchased brown mats; a colour theme that is entirely not of our choosing. We think that there needs to be more clarity as to where we stand in the colour decision making; this is not transparent in the slave-piggy agreement at present.

We are present for early morning and evening poop and waste hay removal, and over see the slave's efforts with our consistent following and hand nudging. We are also pleased to announce that slave (and temporary slave - recently re-trained during holidays, in the absence of slave 1) are now stringently trained in this area, and in the pellet, hay and veggie feeding procedures; with particular care given to the precise order in which we like these food stuffs to be given. We must congratulate our slave and temporary slave with this. We are always happy to praise the efforts and progress of slaves where due. We are still campaigning for Slave Qualifications as an incentive to encourage their continuation with training and improvements. We have decided that a reward based culture is not a feasible incentive; they have more than enough reward with our cuteness - yet we are still seeing avoidable mistakes being made (for example, the slave errors you have highlighted in your above complaint).
When full cage cleaning occurs, slave lets us roam the play pens. Whilst this is very satisfying (and at our own admission, exciting) for us; it does pose the problem of no slave supervision when it comes to cage arrangement. Perhaps we could organise a GP Forum meeting or discussion board at some point to discuss (and hopefully rectify) this issue. We feel that with the sheer amount of amazing piggy minds on this forum, that we can together find positive solutions.

We do hope that you are keeping well,

Lots of love,

Bobby, Rufus, Banner, Thor and Stark​

 

[Viennese Furbabies]

Dear Ruby, dear Bonny, Rufus, Banner, Thor and Stark!
We don't really mind the cleaning of our cage, but we are also very concerned by the fact that we are locked outside our cage when full cage cleaning takes place.
Odi does his best to supervise our slave, but she just shoos him away. Can you imagine that!?

At least we don't have to eat out of a pellet dish. Maybe you could try to use our special trick to teach our slave that pellet dishes are not the best idea?
Just use it as a toilet. Pee into it, add a few poops, mix well and leave it a while to work it's magic. Always does the trick.

Let us know if you organize a forum meeting.
Looking forward to the snacks!

Good luck with your slaves!
Billie xx

 

[weepweeps]

Dear Ruby (and all fellow forum piggies) our slave thinks we are as dim as she is. She will clean out the entire cage and then put back in a tiny bit of lovely old smelly hay. Just a tiny bit so we think she hasn’t cleaned it! We are not blind. ALL of our poops are gone. And the hay is suddenly in a tidy pile! She is soooo annoying.

Keep us posted on developments.

Percy and Pepper

 

[Sue and Smartie]

Dear Ruby, we suggest encouraging your human to put a chair next to your cage. We have one of these, and when it is cage cleaning time we get to sit on the chair safely in our lovely carry box (it's got delicious hay in it too) and we can see everything she does to our cage from our superior perch.
If she's doing it wrong, or not quickly enough, we can shriek at her in our loudest voices to 'get it right, hooman'.
Much squeaking, from Binky & Kanga

 

[Flutterby]

Oh Ruby!