How my guinea pig Augustus kick started My Guinea Pigs App
You may have noticed that the “My Guinea Pigs” app logo is based off my guinea pig Augustus
When my wife Mary and I first went to the pet store to get a cage friendly pet for our home, as we’re renting so we’re not allowed to get a cat or a dog, we first thought of getting a snake, a lizard or a tarantula, but when we saw some guinea pigs at the pet store we couldn’t resist getting ditching the reptile idea and getting that cute fluffy little animal.
We went back home, did some research and found out that they had to be in pairs so we had an e-chat with our landlord and got them, they both would fit in the palm of my hand, adorable, we got them in 2015.
We later got Cornelius in 2016
It became daunting for us to keep on googling for what they should eat from what’s available around us, so we found a list of food online and we stuck by it.
I fiddled with the idea of building a website that would have a list of vegetables they can eat but I didn’t bother seeing it through at the time, that was in 2017.
Augustus getting sick
At some point in December 2017, Augustus started getting thinner, and it became very noticeable in January, I kept taking him to our normal general vet but they couldn’t find anything odd about Augustus, everything looked fine, they recommended I’d go to an exotic vet, it was a Sunday afternoon and that week was going to be my first week in a new job so I went to a vet hospital and they kept him in the hospital overnight, and I drove back without Augustus.
I went to work on Monday, first day, and I got a call from a vet in the hospital. It turned out that his back teeth were overgrown and it was painful for him to chew.
They put him under anesthesia for 15 minutes and filed his teeth. Then they kept him there for a couple of days, I was able to tell that his brothers, Caesar and Cornelius, felt something was wrong, they weren’t their active selves while Augustus was in the hospital.
My stress level was through the roof that week; with the new job and worrying about what bill I’d have to push back to pay for Augustus’ care and, worst of all, the feeling of guilt that I haven’t taken proper care of my pet.
Google vs Exotic vet
When I went to check on him in the hospital, the vet and I had a chat about his diet, it turns out that I have been giving them the soft vegetables that doesn’t help their teeth and overfeeding them that they get full on it and end up not eating enough Hay which is hard enough to trim their teeth down. I am not sure why it was just Augustus that got affected by this but I’m glad it was only him.
So the vet gave us a new list of fruit and vegetables to follow and certain quantities to stick by:
Which worked out great, and was much better than my internet list (what a shocker…) and that gave me a deep distrust in any information related to guinea pigs on the internet.
How to differentiate between opinions and facts
After joining a few facebook groups for guinea pig owners, I discovered that I am not the only one who has that problem. Every third post is a question about “Can my guinea pig eat this” and in the comments there is usually some nice people giving a general yes or no answers but they disagree around the details; i.e. “yes your guinea pig can eat Carrots but only twice a week”. And there’s the occasional justice warrior who sets the post author straight and gives them more advice than what they asked for which often leaves the person asking the question feeling guilty about not knowing the answer in the first place.
Why were people posting these questions.. Shouldn’t they be easy to google? And shouldn’t we trust the information on the WWW? The answer to both is No, they are not easy to google and the information is not trustworthy, in fact as I later found out, most of it are just opinions by people who own/owned guinea pigs and wrote about their experience with different vegetables, none of these websites were written or verified by veterinarians
I found out that a lot of guinea pig owners share the same frustration and distrust I have, everyone wants a reliable source of information that has gone through rigorous research and got the stamp of approval from a specialised veterinarian.
And so, in Augustus’s honor (who is now healthy and well), I started the app. One that not only solves the problem of unreliable data, but also creates a meal plan out of that data so I wouldn’t have to worry about feeding them too much sugar, or not enough vitamin c.
After launching the first version of the app back in mid 2018, people loved it, we did a lot of work getting the data together and verified from experts from different countries and now we finally have a free and reliable source of information, all thanks to Mr Augustus who has absolutely no idea.
Read more about how we went from an idea to an app: https://link.medium.com/wtgEp2rI7S
