Award-winning guinea pig helps girl recover from brain surgery

Matt Unrau

Sabrina Palmer’s guinea pig is special. Despite his enormous size of 2 pounds and 10 ounces and him winning the division of pocket pets at the fair he was born only two days after Sabrina(Heron) had brain surgery in Seattle.

Undergoing surgery to remove tumors in her brain that caused seizures she now had a pet to take care of, which not only helped the guinea pig named Duster, but helped Sabrina, who is in the sixth grade, recover from the surgery providing her with therapy. While, Duster kept growing bigger Sabrina was able to focus on giving him her full attention and care thereby putting the surgery behind her.

Flash forward eight months to the fair and Duster sat lazily in his cage protected from any aggressive passerby with a sign that said to watch your fingers because he bites. Sabrina says that he has bitten her a few times, but he will soon grow out of it.

As to his enormous size, Sabrina credits his steady diet of vegetables. She’s not sure if he is much larger than other normal guinea pigs, but says the judges told her that she won because he was “healthy.” Duster isn’t even at his full size yet, as guinea pigs can grow up to 1 1/2 years old.

Beside his size, which drew many a wide-eyed visitor to gape at his cage Duster also can whistle and purr. The noises he makes brings delight to Sabrina who excitedly lifted the guinea pig close to my ear, so that I could hear him whistling.

Now, after Duster’s award-winning performance Sabrina says she is going to reward him this next week with a grape buffet.

“Normally the only thing he really likes, that is special for him, is that grapes are his favorite food. We’re going to give him a couple grapes, hold him a lot(and) walk him,” explains Sabrina.