How do I convince my parents to get me a guinea pig please answer.

How about taking care of your dog? Sounds like you’re not responsible enough for another pet.

Are you worried about your dog? Have you been taking care of her? Feeding her? Walking her? Playing with her?

Show him you can take care of the pet you have and you may get another one.

Guinea pigs are cannibals, they eat their own kind, specially the young. I would recommend a different choice of pet.

I suggest, @Brynn123 – and welcome to Fluther – that you propose a deal with your parents; you’ll show them how well you take care of your dog for the next year – then you’ll be allowed to care for the rodent.

If you do such a great job of taking care of the dog why is your dad threatening to get rid of it? I say you cut your losses and quit asking for the guinea pig. If you get it your dad is probably just going to complain about it and threaten to get rid of it too. Why put yourself through it? Respect and appreciate your parents and their home and quit whining for the guinea pig.

@Brynn123 Yes, all you can do is keep showing your parents you are responsible by continuing to care for your dog and maybe ask them, if you do all that is needed, without being nagged at, you are showing them you are responsible.
Guinea pigs ( Cavies ) are great little pets but they have extremely important diet requirements. They MUST have tons of fresh daily veggies, hay and have a high requirement for Vit. C.
To properly provide for their needs you must have fresh produce, leaf lettuces, carrots,apples, alfalfa hay, on hand at all times.

If nothing else you might just have to wait until you are old enough to get your own Guinea pig if your parents continue to be against it.
Good luck!
Hah,I was the complete opposite kinda parent, I always said ” Sure, we can keep it! ”

@SuperMouse That’s a pretty nasty response to a young person wanting a pet. Bah Humbug to you!

@Coloma it is the response of a parent of three kids who are constantly asking for one thing or another and to whom I am not afraid to say no. It is also the answer of a mom who has to hound those kids to take care of the pet we do have; although I am sure if you asked them they would believe they are doing as great a job as @Brynn123 seems to think s/he is doing.

For someone who is constantly boasting of her shining disposition calling me out was rather grumpy and uncalled for.

@SuperMouse I’m a parent too, and an animal lover, and obviously believe kids need to show responsibility for a pet, however, it IS a family affair and all parties need to be on board, agreed.
I am not “calling you out” for your opinion,I called you out on your assumption this kid is a “whiner.” Not very nice. That’s all.

Uhhh thats extremely young. You shouldn’t even be on this site….

And at 10 years old how exactly are you financially responsible for these animals?

@Brynn123 Sorry but it’s 13 and over here darling.

- _ -

I had a great Guinea pig as a pet when I was younger. The upkeep was pretty small, I just had to clean his cage and make sure he was fed.

If I were you, I would write down all the things you have done to take care of your dog. For example.

On Saturdays I walk the dog
I always ensure each day he is fed
I bath him once a month

(If it is a money issue, you could say I will earn pocket money each week and pay for food)

That type of thing. Sometimes having a good back up argument is respected by parents. I say argument in a respectful way. Good luck.

Haha, kids!

When my daughter was ten or eleven, she really wanted a dog, but as far as my wife was concerned, that was out of the question. So she did some research, and eventually settled on a guinea pig as an pet she would like. My wife was still not sure, so my daughter asked me what she could do to convince my wife and I about this.

I told her that I was going to have nothing to do with the animal. I have issues with rodents that I won’t be talking about. Still, if she wanted to convince her mom, she needed to write up a proposal, and in the proposal, she needed address a number of issues and explain how she would take care of them.

Of course, I didn’t think my eleven year old daughter would do this, but I guess I underestimated her determination. She wrote a proposal in which she researched and made a plan for the following issues”

Housing (she showed various options and the good and bad points of each. How big should the cage be? What should be in it?
Food: demonstrated she understood what guinea pigs need to eat, as well as cost of food and where to get it.
Stimulation: a plan for things that the animal could play with. Do you let it out of the cage? Will it get lost in the house? Will it chew on wires? Will it poop outside the cage? How will you clean up after it?
Provenance: where we could get a guinea pig besides going to a pet store
Medical care: where there is a vet to take care of the animal, and how much it would cost.
Vacation care: she found someone to take care of the animal while we were away on vacation.
Pet insurance: do you purchase insurance to pay for the health care of the pet? We didn’t.

I think there were a number of other things on the list, too. You need to research the animal and write it up and prove to your parents you have thought of everything, and also that you will have time to take care of everything and do your homework. All you will be asking of them is transportation.

We were impressed, and we ended up following her plan. We went to a guinea pig event in South Jersey, and got an animal—one of the few left at that point. The pet was, oddly, named by me. I just gave it a silly temporary name, but it somehow became the permanent name, even though I had little to do with the animal.

This story has a sad ending though. One day, the animal stopped eating. It looked very uncomfortable. My wife took the pet and my daughter to the vet, who gave the bad news. He had a bowl obstruction, and they could put him down, or bring him home, where he might live a few more days in extreme pain.

My daughter made the decision to have him put down, and stayed there, holding him, as he was put to sleep.

A pet is a serious commitment. You have the life and death of the animal in your hands. There’s a lot you can do with your pet. But it is a serious commitment and it isn’t as simple as convincing your parents. You need a plan and you need to know everything you can know about guinea pigs if you are going to be a good pet owner. This is challening for at 13 year old. Even more challenging for a 10 year old. I believe in letting children learn these things by doing them, but don’t expect it to be easy.

Braden may be the cleverest 10-year-old writer I have ever come across. He even apologizes for omitting commas.

And Brynn123 is also a precocious craftsman; he or she used the subjunctive correctly in an earlier answer.