Guinea Pig Dominance: Every Owner Needs to Know This!

Guinea pigs are highly social pets and understanding dominance is key to knowing whether your piggies will get along well or not! Learn what the different dominance behaviours mean, how dominance and guinea pig relationships can change over time, what you can do to help "bullying" situations and what to do when your guinea pigs FIGHT! 😬⚡

Here are the Amazon Storefronts, where you can find more products I recommend for guinea pigs (small commission received - thank you)!

MENTIONED VIDEOS:

Chapters please!
0:00 - Introduction and fighting clips
0:33 - What is dominance?
1:36 - Dominance behaviors show and tell
3:22 - Submissive behaviors are important
3:37 - Advice for introducing piggies
4:24 - Changing dominance?
5:30 - How to help with "bullying"
7:12 - What about fighting - try again, or?
7:34 - When to separate and cage dividers

SQUEAK DREAMS LINKS:

[dion]

I feel bad for my newest guinea pig. The initial bonding went really well so I thought they did alright. And even now in the cage there's no constant bullying and definitely no fighting or wounding. Only a few chasing incidents in a week time. But she just doesn't stand up for herself and it breaks my heart to hear her squeaks of distress. So far I've seen her nip another girl back just once and the other did back off then, so I hope she does this more often. The others went through the same when they were the new one. Thankfully the cage is pretty big, so they can get away. But it's still sad to see her chased off.

[alisontaylor-barnes]

Love your posts. I've discovered more about piggies on your posts than anywhere else. Thanks so much

[Echbunglo]

Dear Sarah I hope you could read this but recently i have follow your youtube channel and its have help me alot when having 3 chubby guinea pigs, thank you for helping me from the miss imformation that the petshop give, as a 13 years old Vietnamese boi, i trully grate full for the things you have put your efforts in that now help so much for me and the guiena pig community, thank you🥰🥰🥰

[Marvelhero]

The piggie subtitles are so funny 😂I love their squeaks 🤠

[marywilson]

Roxie: "i take dis now... pleurgh... what you give me dat for"
So funny!

[Krista_Rose]

My boars took MONTHS to settle down and stop merely "tolerating each other" before I felt I could call them bonded. Now if the younger boar doesn't get up to go get veggies right away, the older boar will bring him one of the best things from the platter before starting to eat himself! So for those struggling through the boar bonding period, hang in there!

[Lembas_Bread]

Thank you!! my piggies are doing mounting scent marking and jabbing! i was worried but found this video thank you!

[TenereAMir]

Thanks for all the great info! My daughter and I love to watch the videos.

We have 3 piggies -- all boars, 1 lives as a "neighbor" to the two younger since he doesn't want to share his space (but can still see and hear them right "next door"). The two boars that do live together seem to get along pretty well so far, even now as they hit around the 4-5 month mark. So far, no major fights or circling or hair raising up, no chasing or guarding the food or anything. Fingers crossed they keep being on good terms! One is definitely more food motivated and the other just seems to want to march around the enclosure rumblestrutting when he's feeling happy/excited or wants to "claim" a new toy (that he never really claims and doesn't guard, he's an odd little piggy tbh), which just gets ignored by his buddy entirely.

Hopefully it stays like that, they seem to be OK with each other, we've had them since late March and have learned a lot watching your vids!

[beverleybalshaw]

I found two of my girls in one of their guinea dad boxes the other day, they are fully grown and were like sardines! 😂
Of all the hides they have ! 😂
So cute! 😍

[LeahSmith]

I’m so happy you made this video! I emailed you with a question about dominance! Thanks so much!

[Cavymum]

After dealing with two adult bonded boar piggies who began serious fighting about 4-6 weeks after bringing them home, I've had to place a permanent partition in their C&C cage as seen in your video. They do both seem fairly content living this way. When I do floor time with them, so far I have been able to put them together for a short period of time. But the older fellow stays in a hidey almost the entire time, while the younger of the two is active and inquisitive around the floor area. He does seem to try to intimidate the older piggy the entire time, so in the future I am going to do separate floor times to give the older one an opportunity to be more active without fear. And to avoid any fighting attempts. The last fight ended with a bite wound to the older piggy that was a bit nasty. But separated they are back to their sweet selves and doing fine. It's a workable solution.

[Piggedies]

Another great video! I love how informative your videos are. Thank you! 😊

[cindyterruso]

❤they are adorable 🥰 and probably just need to have a little fun and excitement. You are so patient and kind with them Sarah !!😊

[GatoEncanto]

My girls were already bonded when I got them, so it was much easier for me to get situated with them. They both seem equally dominant, they often raise heads and sniff each other butts. They have never had a fight, which I am thankful for.

[zoesflavaz]

2:04 that one on the left.. 🥺 that piggy looked like cotton who we had years ago

[xandermin]

My piggies are a mother/daughter duo & momma pig is definitely the boss, she'll assert herself a few times a week with some rumblestrutting & chasing. It can seem very dysfunctional to us human onlookers, but really the two of them get along great ❤

[sallylovesguineapigs]

Great video Sarah, I got so lucky with my boys, they instantly got along

[ktm_washere]

Again thank you for a really informative video, which has helped me. My Splodge has become such a rumbler that her nickname is "machine gun Splodgy" - but thankfully, she and Bandit will still happily share the same "house", even though they have several different options 😂

[AliZmusic]

Thank you so much!! Totally needed this video, one of my guinea pigs is really dominant and I definitely want to learn more about what to watch out for

[Lazymediasiblings]

ROXY JUST CHILLING IN THE BACK ITS TO CUTE I CANT HANDLE IT!!!