Behavior Dominance and Play Behaviors?

[RoxMad]

Ok, so I have two female guinea pigs, Kona and Panda. Kona is about 15 months old, and Panda is around 8-9 months. Anyway, I got Panda from a rescue that required me to bring Kona to make sure they'd be a match. Kona, from the beginning, even at the rescue, would rumblestrut to assert her dominance. She's done this multiple times a day, every day, since I've gotten Panda. Panda, every once in a while, would randomly start mounting Kona to assert her dominance, but it would die off pretty fast. I double, triple, quadruple checked, and they are both girls. Recently, Panda's has started rumble strutting as well, something I attributed to her coming into maturity (I've had her since August) and being tired of Kona pushing her around. For a while, she was doing it quite a bit more than Kona, but now they are doing it together. They rumble strut and and wag their butts and wipe them on the floor. Their hackles are raised as well. The part that's throwing me off is that they start popcorning in the middle of it all. They don't do it in unison, just randomly. Sometimes, one will be popcorning and then they start this elaborate rumble strutting nonsense. What is going on here? I thought popcorning was an excitement/happiness thing, and rumble strutting was an "I'm the boss," thing.

 

[RoxMad]

I forgot to mention that all of this is accompanied by a TON of fever chattering. They are actually doing their whole routine right now...minus a lot of the popcorning. Panda keeps trying to mount Kona, who of course keeps trying to run away. Kona was standing, back to the cage, at one point, and Panda began rumblestrutting and coming towards her. I saw her lift up and spray urine on the back of the cage. Panda is even trying to get on her head, and Kona charges her and flips her nose violently. While being chased, she will back up quickly to Panda and spray urine on her chest. Panda eventually ends up mounting her anyway, but frankly, I don't understand why Kona isn't attacking her. While she is being mounted, she just stands there, the whites of her eyes showing, and fever chatters. Panda gets off and goes back to eating. Kona does, too, for a few minutes, then it all starts again, usually when Panda comes over and tries to take food out of Kona's mouth or rumblestrut while she is chewing a toy. This has been going on for so long...I wish they would just have it out already, sort it out, and be done with it instead of the long stream of displays.

 

[RoxMad]

So, for now, I've separated them with a partition in the cage. I just can't watch it anymore. I can't stand to see Kona nervously eating, whites of her eyes showing, and beginning to fever chatter in a high pitch every time Panda moves. For now, Kona seems much happier, calmly eating hay with her back to Panda, and I gave her an igloo to distract her from biting the bars. She is happily nosing it around and seems much more relaxed. Panda is frantically biting the bars of the cage. I don't know if it's because she can't stand not being able to control Kona, but I feel like the problem is more of a self-satisfying one: Panda always bites the bars on the sides of the cage. A partition puts the bars at her level. If things get extremely hard, I can send Panda home, where I am sure my younger sister will be happy to take care of her. Kona used to stretch all the way out immediately when I started stroking her when she was out, and would quickly fall asleep, often stretching her front paws out and yawning. She's done this since day one. Now, she sits politely, then frequently circles and lays with her back to me. She'll get up and circle and lay down again after a few minutes, chattering the whole time. She's always been a "talker," but this is very different. If Panda made any noise, she would squeal loudly. I love Panda, and I will not give her away, but I got Panda to give Kona a happier life, and if she is making things worse, I'll have to remove her. Perhaps Kona is one of the rare few that needs to be an "only pig."