Caplin Rous & Neptune: BFFs

Survey results:
Have you ever met a capybara?
1) Yes! I've met Caplin Rous. (4, 11%)
2) Yes! I've met another pet capybara. (2, 5%)
3) Sort of. I saw capybaras at the zoo. (13, 38%)
4) No. My life is so incomplete. (15, 44%)


It has taken some time for me to get over the loss of my friend Seabiscuit (aka The Rabbit (Caplin & The Rabbit). I still miss our long talks under the dining room table. Luckily Coral and Carl bought a cute little guinea pig named Neptune to help ease the pain.

Neptune isn't like The Rabbit because he can't run around on the floor with me. The Rabbit weighed about four pounds but Neptune probably doesn't even tip the scale at one pound. He's a tiny thing. Coral and Carl are scared I will step on him. My owner is too. Neptune isn't. He trusts me to be careful.

That is a mistake on his part. I can't tell you how many times I've jumped on the bed or the couch only to hear my owner scream out in pain. I don't mean to hurt her but these paws weren't made for walking on humans. I'm pretty sure they weren't made for walking on guinea pigs either but that's more open for debate, after all, wild guinea pigs and capybaras probably co-existed in the wild. I say probably because guinea pigs have been domesticated for a long, long time and no one knows for sure what wild rodent they descend from.

Is that anything good for me to eat?
Lettuce? You've got to be kidding.

One nice thing about Neptune is that he and I speak the same language. His sounds are called wheeks and mine are called eeps but, you know, it's just a case of tomato-tomato (pronounce those differently to get the desired effect). Surprisingly, his wheeks are lower pitched than my eeps with the same meaning. I would have thought that being so much larger, I would have the deeper voice. Maybe my high-pitched eeps carry better underwater.

I do make my noises underwater. Like guinea pigs, I make my incredible array of sounds without opening my mouth. I think they come from my heart! I don't think anyone has ever recorded the underwater calls of a capybara. That would be an interesting research project for an advanced student in capybara biology.

Neptune is a smart little guy. He has learned the circle trick only he calls it "turn-around." He can also beg, but I don't think he really had to learn how to do that. Those are his only tricks. It's hard to imagine him learning to shake or wave like I do because his front legs are so stubby I'm not sure he can stick them out from under him. He could learn tapa-tapa, where I tap my owner's leg with my paw, but I don't think Coral and Carl have worked on that yet.

If you want to see videos of me and Neptune, check out:
(Caplin Rous in Three Rodents)
and
(Caplin Rous & Neptune: BFFs)

Me and Neptune, chillaxin'