Great guinea pig escapade
An Auckland family feared the worst when Patches the guinea pig disappeared — but he turned out to be tougher than they thought. Ten days later Patches was flung from his hiding place under the Snow family’s car near the airport and made it across four lanes of traffic before being caught by a kind-hearted taxi driver who stopped traffic to save him — all of which was caught on security camera.
Vets deemed him fit and healthy and two days later he was reunited with his gobsmacked family.
Three-year-old Patches went missing from the Snows’ Mt Eden home at the start of October.
It became even more of a mystery for his owners Jamie, 11, Benny, 9 and Emma, 7, when his guinea-pig girlfriend Poseidon also disappeared from the well-equipped hutch on the back lawn eight days later.
It wasn’t until the children’s nana Carol Trewheelar went to check on the family’s home while they were away that the story of the intrepid animal’s adventure unfolded.
Trewheelar went to the home hoping to find and feed Poseidon and found a note from the SPCA.
Baffled, she contacted the SPCA and was told it had their guinea pig.
He had been flung from the Snow’s Ford Focus at a roundabout near Auckland Airport, she was told.
A taxi driver saw the furry rodent running on the road and stopped to save it. Other motorists also slammed on their brakes while they chased Patches across four lanes of traffic.
He was finally nabbed and taken to the SPCA.
Video obtained from the airport showed the animal falling from the car and the licence plate was tracked to his Mt Eden home.
Patches must have been stowed away under the car and was flung out when going around a corner, she said.
Trewheelar was even more baffled when she went to collect the animal and discovered it was Patches rather than Poseidon who had been found.
She took him home and, after telling the story to the children’s father, Sean, he crawled under his car to see where Patches had been hiding.
As he looked, Poseidon casually walked out of the warm spot on the underside of the car and back across the lawn to the hutch.
The family are still amazed about the adventures their two guinea pigs went on, she said.
“We would love to say thank you to that taxi driver, but nobody knew who he is.”