The Magic Of Mr. Wizard

I can hardly believe it! Our human is friends with a guinea pig! We tend to think of her as a very large cat (You know the saying, "Cats are just children in fur coats." The cat version of this is "Humans are just kittens without fur coats"). And now she's spending part of her workday visiting with a rodent. ???

She knew a guinea pig once before. But she hardly ever saw him because he hid most of the time. Maybe that's because he lived with four indoor cats who loved to sit in front of his cage and talk about how hungry they were. I can see someone I know doing that.

But Mr. Wizard is different. If he lived with cats, they'd probably all be friends because he's so personable and seems so wise. Our human is enchanted by him. He's all she talks about these days.

He rings a bell in his cage when he wants something, squeaks when he hears our human coming and purrs when she pets his head. And he stands up on his back legs and looks through the openings in his "habitat" to watch her fixing his food. She loves to watch him eating little pieces of Timothy hay and his daily lettuce leaf. She says she could sit on the floor and watch him for hours if there weren't more cats waiting.

Here's a nice Web site on guinea pigs. Turns out they're not rodents but a "separate order." I'm not quite sure what that means, but I like the pictures on the Web site. Oh, and here's a picture of Mr. Wizard. Cute, isn't he? Our human loves that serious-looking face.