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Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Guinea Pig Rampage! S.F. Animal Control Notices Spike In Piggie Adoptions as Talking Rodent Movie Tops Box Office.

Posted By on Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 7:30 AM

click to enlarge VIA: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
  • Via: Wikimedia Commons
Some one-sentence movie summations tell you all you need to know about a film -- and its sure-fire financial success: "Jessica Alba is a stripper" or "Will Ferrell drives a stock car" or, the box office champ du jour, "Guinea Pigs talk and operate high-tech gadgetry."

That G-Force edged out Harry Potter as the nation's most lucrative movie may or may not be a sign of the coming apocalypse (you can read anything into Nostradamus). But it's certainly a mixed blessing for the local Animal Control. You can't run out and adopt a bespectacled juvenile wizard, but you can pick up a guinea pig at a moment's notice -- and San Francisco's Animal Care and Control adopted out just about every little piggie it had to offer this weekend.

"There were a lot of people who came," said ACC volunteer coordinator Deb Campbell. "Whether or not it was due to the movie -- I kind of think it was."

Earlier this year, we reported how the Animal Control was up to its ankles -- in every way -- in Chihuahuas, a situation it blamed on "the Paris Hilton Syndrome." Whenever a pet becomes trendy, folks rush out to adopt one for themselves -- and, when the novelty wears out, it ends up at the animal shelter. There's a reason the local ACC doesn't allow folks to take home bunnies around Easter time or black cats on Oct. 30 or 31.

If the Animal Control is hit with a resultant swarm of guinea pigs, it'll happen in roughly a month, said Campbell. But she's hopeful this will be one pet trend that doesn't end like all the others.

"Oh, we'll probably see an influx of guinea pigs in a few weeks to a month," she says. "But, right now, I think the ones we adopted out went to really good homes."

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About The Author

Joe Eskenazi

Joe Eskenazi

Bio:
Joe Eskenazi was born in San Francisco, raised in the Bay Area, and attended U.C. Berkeley. He never left. "Your humble narrator" was a staff writer and columnist for SF Weekly from 2007 to 2015. He resides in the Excelsior with his wife, 4.3 miles from his birthplace and 5,474 from hers.

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