Not Ringworm

So I sold a guinea pig on Saturday. 
And as part of my spiel I often tell customers signs to look out for to indicate that the animal they're purchasing is sick. Usually I do this with the small pets. So guinea pigs and hamsters as they tend to have easier symptoms to notice than birds or reptiles. 

As part of this "look out" spiel I tell customers that guinea pigs can get ring worm and the signs and locations that they can show up in. 

It's basically a "just in case" sort of thing...though with how customers are...well overthinking things....I do wonder if I should stop telling people symptoms to look out for.
As with people being home with their pets all day long.
They tend to be paying more attention to their pets than normal.
Which means they tend to be more paranoid about them as well. Watching for things to go wrong really.
Which when customers aren't experienced with their pets. They tend to worry more that the little things they notice are 'not right' and then come to us. 
*exhales*

Apparently yesterday, the customer that bought the guinea pig the day before, came in complaining that they thought their pet had ring worm?

Why? Because there were bald patches behind the guinea pig's ears. 

*exhales*

My coworker who took the guinea pig in....wasn't sure if that was normal or not...and so accepted the guinea pig back even though the bald spots didn't show the normal signs of ring worm.

As ring worm on guinea pigs is shown by dry skin, red scabs, and hairloss.

Hairloss behind the ears would only match one of the symptoms.....if it were abnormal.

But for guinea pigs.

It is normal.

And like. The guinea pig that I had sold on Saturday had only come into the store on Wednesday and I'd put it on the floor Saturday.
That's not enough time for such large patches to occur on a guinea pig. Especially with no signs of dry skin or scabbing.

No.
It's just normal for guinea pigs to have bald spots behind their ears.
All of them have it in fact.

I did double check those spots to make sure there were no symptoms.

And after confirming with my coworker that that was where they were thinking the ringworm was (as it could have been elsewhere and I just didn't see it....but it was behind the ears that they were thinking) I called the customer back to have them come pick up their guinea pig because he's perfectly healthy. 

*exhales*
It does make me want to just bang my head against the wall though.
Because like....I feel like I'm the only one who actually knows anything in the store. And it's getting frustrating that my coworkers aren't doing their research or learning from past experiences. Like...if they're handling the guinea pigs every day...shouldn't they have noticed that there are bald spots behind the ears?? Like...if you spend any time with them you tend to notice things with animals.

...At least I do...

-Sarnic Dirchi