Caramel was the third addition to our guinea pig family in 2000. I really enjoyed going to Petco at that time and kept seeing her when picking up other things. I really wanted to get her (I referred to her as 'the peanut butter pig' because of her coloring), but we already had Aya and Eve and wasn't sure if we had space for a third pig. I finally ended up bringing her home when the worker who knew I liked her said she was available for half price since they were getting babies in that day. That was easily the best $12 I've ever spent!

Our dad built the girls a new larger cage so they could all have plenty of space, and it was interesting to see the dynamics between the three pigs once Caramel joined the group. It seemed like Caramel was nudgy towards Aya since she would often sneak up on her from behind, and then when Aya would jump and turn around, Caramel would run to the other side and would sometimes steal what Aya had been eating! Caramel and Eve became fast friends and would often rest next to each other in the pigloo. And while Aya would originally politely wheek for food, Caramel taught both her and Eve the bad habit of biting the cage bars, which would get very annoying when all three pigs were doing it at once!

Caramel was a very funny and offbeat guinea pig. She was always happy and in a great mood, and all you had to do was barely even touch her and she would purr like crazy. One of her favorite things to do was when I would put her on my chair with a blanket over top, she would popcorn like no guinea pig I've ever seen - she loved it! She also really enjoyed going through tubes - whenever we'd get a long tube for something we'd let her walk through it and she would go through and stop halfway to just hang out. Our other pigs were much more cautious and were never interested in going in them.

Caramel had off and on health issues throughout her life, including an ear infection which caused her to have a permanent head tilt, ringworm, broken front teeth twice, and a tumor in her belly, although she never let anything slow her down. In fact, she loved her medicine so much that she would yank the syringe out of our hands once it was gone to lick it! She could be so eccentric with her habits - she loved to flip the pigloo over and then go the bathroom in it, and she even liked to make a pellet soup by bringing water in her mouth over to her pellets to make it mushy. She could be a handful but we loved her so much. She passed away unexpectedly a few months after we found about her tumor, but she was happy and normal up until the end. She was a one of a kind pig that was very, very special to us.

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