What do you think of this fact?
Imagine your guinea pig dies, and suddenly the survivor is a problem. Not an emotional one. A legal one. In Switzerland, that’s exactly what can happen.
The rule against lonely rodents
Switzerland’s animal welfare rules treat guinea pigs as social animals. The Swiss Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office puts it bluntly: guinea pigs need others of their kind, they only feel good in groups of at least two, and they may not be kept alone. According to Mental Floss, the rule goes back to an animal rights law introduced in 2008 that gave pets which tend to get lonely a kind of “social right”.
The catch is obvious once you think about it. Two guinea pigs are unlikely to die on the same day. So when one of them goes, the owner is left with a single animal and, technically, a rule they’re now breaking.
Rent-a-guinea-pig
This is where it gets properly absurd. Priska Küng from Hinwil, a village near Zurich, came up with a fix: a “rent a guinea pig” service. As The World from PRX reported, it let people with only one guinea pig rent another one to keep the survivor company.
According to the trivia newsletter Now I Know, the deal reportedly worked like this: for about 50 or 60 dollars, Küng lent out a guinea pig for as long as the renter wanted. If the animal came back, the renter got half the fee back. Some rented guinea pigs reportedly returned after a few weeks. Others never made the trip home.
So, in short, Swiss rules created demand for rental companions. For rodents.
Bonus fact: Don’t think a rabbit can step in as a roommate. The Swiss authority writes that no human, and no rabbit either, replaces another guinea pig.
Why the fuss?
Guinea pigs aren’t cuddly loners. The Swiss authority calls them social rodents that need others of their kind, and it recommends a group of several females with one neutered male as the ideal setup. Switzerland simply turned that piece of pet-care wisdom into binding rules.
Somewhere near Zurich, a guinea pig once had a job description: professional friend.