Well this is it, the long-awaited second half of the story about my trip to the Texas Rustlers’ Guinea Pig Hoedown! Sorry it has been so long in coming. Laziness is my only excuse. That and my owner was sick and my computer got a virus and my blog was hacked and Coral and Carl were living with us and using the computer all the time. But basically, I was lazy. I don’t want you to think that means that the hoedown wasn’t great fun, it surely was. Let me tell you all about it.

First off, see that cute photo at the top of this post? That is me, my owner and all the volunteers who worked at the hoedown. What a great bunch of people. And they treated me like royalty, which is only right because I am rodent royalty, but still, it’s nice to be appreciated.

Here’s a link to the Rustlers’ home page. You can see their a great group because they rescue and care for unwanted guinea pigs and other rodents. Here’s a link to their info on the hoedown. They have a bunch of photos there that show all the people and events going on. There was a costume contest and a carrot eating contest, guinea pig checkups and lectures on how to care for guinea pigs. Very educational and great stuff to buy too.

Lots of people brought guinea pigs but I was the only capybara there. I guess that’s not too surprising, it was a guinea pig hoedown and not a capybara hoedown after all.

The Rustlers had a nice place set up for me to get my photo taken with hoedowners.

You can see that I had a whole corner of the room just for me. Nice and quiet and private when no one wanted to get their picture taken…which was never! It seemed like everyone there wanted a photo of me with them and their piglin. Or maybe just with them. One woman came up to get her photo taken and a Rustler who knew who said, “Don’t you want to get your kids?” And the woman said, “What? I didn’t even bring the kids! I want a photo of me with Caplin!” I really had to eep when I heard that!

The photo above shows one of my favorite groups getting their photo taken with me. I tried to be nice to everyone but I was extra nice to these people because they all seemed to love me so much.

I’m not very good at human names but I thought I could do better with rodents. Turns out I can’t. I guess I waited too long to write this because I don’t even remember the name of the adorable guinea pig in the photo above.

I don’t remember the owner’s name either. I feel badly about that but I bet if I made up random names for them–let’s say Celery and Samantha–and then just called them that, that the real person or pig would read this blog and be offended. Those are cute names though, if I do say so myself, and if those aren’t their real names they probably ought to change them.

I know I said I wasn’t going to make up random names but once you start it is surprisingly hard to stop. And that guinea pig reminds me of the famous Bing Cavy.

My owner brought crayons and coloring pages and a bunch of kids colored them. Coral and Carl colored drawings of me too. Carl colored me like a rainbow but Coral…well, let’s just say there’s a reason Coral and I don’t get along.

Sometimes, not too often, I felt like people were loosing focus and not getting a big enough image of me in the photo. When that happened, I moved a little closer to the camera to make it easier for them.

I don’t know yet how many people attended the hoedown or how many got their pictures taken with me or how much money we raised for the poor homeless piglins, but I will update this post with that information when I know more.

Here is a link to The Photoetrist’s Blog with a nice little article and some good photos.

I would love to post more links and photos so send them in to me at CaplinRous@gmail.com and I will post them here.