Of pets and men...

... we just moved into this wonderful apartment when we realized: "We are living on the 3rd floor now!" That means, we can't have a dog since we have no lawn. But we agreed that we wanted to have some pets - small animals which can easily be kept in a 50m² (approx. 500 square feet) living-room. For several months, Verena talked about nothing else but French mini lops - thus, on September 13th '97 we went to a pet shop to buy the sweetest mini lop of all.

Well, we left the pet shop with a guinea pig an a handful of rabbit - without lop ears. At first we couldn't decide on a name for them, but then we called the rabbit Marvin and the guinea pig Trillian. Ever read "The Hitchhiker's guide through the Galaxy"...?

We had a beautiful large cage for them, but it was not good enough - only the best for our pets! The set designer of Verena's company (thanks Martin F.) built a wonderful rabbit-villa for them: An enormous wooden box with two floors, a small ladder, an acrylic glass window (but without air conditioning system and flowing water). Marvin and Trillian did fine in the new villa and made themselves comfortable. But there was so much space now that we planned to find some new friends for them. Thus BamBam and Pebbles (the much-longed-for French mini lop) came into our family.

Pebbles and Marvin fell in love at first sight! And everybody told us, that two female guinea pigs get along perfectly - well, with our pigs the trouble started within two minutes. But what do we have neighbours for?!

Andrea and Marcel wanted to have some cute little guinea pig babies and bought the male Snoopy for their female Punky. But unfortunately Andrea had some problems in determining Punky's sex. It was obvious that Punky didn't like Snoopy at all and after several bleeding guinea pig noses it turned out: Punky is a man too!!!

We decided for partner-swapping: We took care of Snoopy, changed his name into Frodo and Trillian now lives with Andrea, Marcel and Punky - under the pseudonym Lucy. On February 23 she had two cute guinea pig babies, Speedy and Puschel. And only 6 weeks later she gave birth to three more babies.

Poor BamBam was not that lucky. It turned out that she was already pregnant when we got her. We were so excited and couldn't wait to see her babies, but on Christmas '97 there was a rude awakening: Her two babies were stillborn and Bam Bam passed away two days later.

Frodo was very sad because of Bam Bam's death and we had to find a new girlfriend for him as soon as possible. And we found a real hot-blooded woman: Our Éowyn, called Wynnie. Ever read "The Lord of the Rings"...?

You now might come to the thought that four pets are more than enough - well, we still had no long-haired guinea pig. Verena desperately wanted to have a Peruvian female. Back to the pet shop (we are already well-known customers) Verena found a cute Peruvian and there was that neat teddy-pig. Martin's only reaction at the telephone was: "bring along both!" Thus, since April 2nd '98 the long-haired Bonsai and the fluffy Molly live together with us. Cute, greedy, active - and they grow very fast.

Now the six pets are living happily together. Finally a glimpse at their friends who come to visit from time to time (and bring some carrots or kohlrabi along): our neighbours Dagmar, Michael and tomcat Tarzan.