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A woman has dedicated her life to caring for thousands of rescued guinea pigs – she says the furry little creature is her ‘spiritual animal’.

For the past 20 years, 49-year-old Saskia Chiesa has been running Los Angeles Guinea Pig Rescue in Chatsworth, California.

She decided to open the rescue after finding there was no place in the area for rescued guinea pigs to go.

(Picture: Bart Vandever / Barcroft Media)

‘I decided to rescue guinea pigs because it’s my spiritual animal,’ Saskia says.


‘The memory of my first guinea pig, I picked it up and I was just so taken. I was just totally mesmerized, it was just this beautiful creature. Ever since then, you know, my whole life’s gone to the pigs.’



Saskia expected the rescue to start slowly but found herself with 20 guinea pigs within the first month, all of which were suffering from health problems.

Since then, the rescue has become home to 250 guinea pigs at a time – and Saskia is always taking in more.

She says that understandably, life at the sanctuary is ‘very hectic’.

(Picture: Bart Vandever / Barcroft Media)’There’s never a moment where there’s nothing to do, it’s an ongoing thing,’ she says.

‘I was expecting one or two to start with but there were 20 of them. They all had skin diseases so I was thrown in the deep right away.’

Due to how busy it gets, Saskia has taken on volunteers to help run the sanctuary including Melissa Brown, who says the pigs have changed her life.

(Picture: Bart Vandever / Barcroft Media)

‘I just love this place. I call this pig paradise, this is my home away from home,’ Melissa explains.

‘I love when kids and families come in here, and they’re just so excited and overwhelmed because there’s a lot of guinea pigs.

‘They’re life-changing – I have suffered with anxiety, depression, just a lot of emotional problems growing up, and I feel now that the therapy that they give me, I definitely could have benefitted in my earlier years and I wish I could’ve known that.’

(Picture: Bart Vandever / Barcroft Media)

Alongside a roof over their tiny heads, the rescue centre also provides health checks for the guinea pigs, and services such as manicures and hair styling to give them a touch of luxury during their stay.

‘We do health checks where we just do a little scan, a nail clip and of course, we do adult matchmaking services,’ says Saskia.

‘So, if we have a guinea pig who’s lonely then you can bring the guinea pig and we’ll just have a few play dates. Same-sex of course because we don’t breed here.’

(Picture: Bart Vandever / Barcroft Media)

The sanctuary puts all the guinea pigs up for adoption and Saskia is passionate about educating people on how to give them the best care possible.

She says that the tiny animals require lots of space, which most definitely does not include the small cages you can sometimes see them be put into at pet stores.

‘It’s cruel actually, to have them in the smaller cages because they do want to walk around,’ she says.

Moving across the pond and want to adopt a furry little buddy of your own? Find out how to rescue a guinea pig here.



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