I think I’ve found my new pet. ?Have you ever seen a baby hippopotamus? If not, get to Googling because they are distinctly adorable. Their chubby adorable bodies are so squishable that you’d wish you could have one as a pet.

Well, you kind of can. Not an actual baby hippopotamus. That’s probably dangerous and illegal. But you can have a “skinny pig” as a pet. The skinny pig is neither skinny nor a pig.Skinny pigs are a mostly hairless guinea pig breed known as Cavia porcellus.

Including some who actually believed that “house hippos” were a thing after watching a PSA from the Concerned Children’s Advertisers.

They made a fake commercial about “House Hippos” to remind viewers that what you see on TV isn’t always real.
While house hippos aren’t real, skinny pigs are and it’s basically the same thing. Skinny pigs have a few patches of fur across their face and legs but are pretty much hairless.

Skinny pigs are a touch smaller than the average guinea pig, due to their hairlessness, weigh between 1 to 2 lbs., and measure about 9 to 12 inches.

They vary in coloring due to the ancestors that had hair. So, if you mate a red-haired guinea pig with a hairless albino guinea pig you could get hairless, red-skinned skinny pigs.