Why house piggies inside and never outside? (Cielo)

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I wanted to share this with you since there are a lot of people that believe that their backyard is safe to house guinea pigs. I live in a nice neighboorhood in Florida. Most of the time our weather is not out of the recommendable range for guinea pigs. Most people believe that there are not predators around during day or night. I have several stories that makes me thank that I knew better to house my piggies outside.

When my most beautiful piggy passed, Linny, we made a burial in our backyard. Small hole like him and deep enough, so the body will rest in peace there. The next day my hubby called me to show me a horrible thing. Even though we never thought we had predators in our backyard, somehow his little body was taken out of his last restful place and disappeared completly. Only some hairs were left behind. It was an awful feeling knowing that a predator took him just like that.

A couple of weeks ago I was browsing CraigsList, and I read something unbelievable. A person was encouranging people to take their pets inside. He/She had a neighboor that housed his dogs outside. Someone tried to steal his neighboor's dogs during the night, not once but twice. They were stopped because others neighboors were brave enough to stop them before they could take the dogs. I never thought that people were capable of doing that. With so many pets in shelters, rescues and available for private adoption, why would somebody want to steal dogs that have a home???

This morning, my hubby tells me that there were two loose dogs roaming around. I asked him if he got them (to helped them find their owner). He said no. Somebody called the shelter. I said: why the shelter? That is an ugly place to wait for your owner... He told me that they were agressive. He went to our backyard and when he opened the door there was a Rottweiler and a Chihuahua. Not a nice thing, since as soon as he opened the door they started barking to him in not a friendly way. Those same dogs chase 2 differents neighboors. I asked him the attitude of the dogs and he reassured me that they were ready to attack from their body language (specially the rottweiler). Scary, don't you think?

That adds up to the possibillity of the temperature dropping too low in the night, or too high during the day, or whatever emergency that might araise. It is just not safe to leave them outside alone. It is more than how cold or hot it is. Please provide a good house to your piggies, keep them inside. They are small and easy, fragile prey...

WRITTEN BY - Cielo
SOURCE - Cavy Galore Forums
http://www.cavygalore.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=information&action=display&thread=58