new animals and diet

Question
We have a female ginuea pig. We have had her since early March 2006 and she is about a year old. On Sunday 8/27/06 we purchased a male black lab puppy and he is 7 weeks old. Natalie(our ginuea pig) last ate Sunday morning before we went to pick up our new puppy. Since we returned home with the puppy she will not eat anything. I have tried feeding her hay, pellets and a variety of fresh fruits and veggies that she used to eat daily. Anyways , my I was wondering if the introduction of a new animal was causing some kind of stress with Natalie that is stopping her from eating, or if you know what else could be causing this. Also do you know of anything I could try to get her eating again?
Thank you in advance for your help!
Melissa

Answer
Stress can affect guinea pigs, but I have never had a problem with guinea pigs not eating because of other animals, I have a cat, birds and other animals and they all don't seem to mind each other. Has she had any nose or eye drainage or has she been coughing or wheezing? Upper Respiratory Infections are very common and can make a guinea pig stop eating. If she does have any of the above symptoms try giving her 1/8 tsp Robutussin DM cough syrup twice a day and put some Vicks Vapor Rub on her nose. Other than that Scurvy can cause a guinea pig to stop eating, you should try giving her some guinea pig vitamins mixed with pedialyte in a syringe, and give it to her directly in her mouth, this will give her more energy to may be start eating again. You can also try to force feed her with a syringe, just blend up a mix of pellets with Pedialyte until the solution is watery enough to go through a syringe. Usually most pigs will still eat most fruits and veggies like leaf or romaine lettuce, carrot, apple, tomato and other greens even if they will not eat pellets, you could try to feed her that. Let me know if you have any more questions.
Brittany