Dominance Guinea pig trying to dominate cat??

[wombats]

Hello all...so I have a really weird question and story to tell because honestly I have no idea what I just witnessed. I tried to keep this short but there's just so much going on I typed a lot (as usual) so sorry

First some backstory...As some know, Bob is my guinea pig, or rather the guinea pig I take care of even though he isn't technically mine but basically he is. He's a really swell guy, a real sweetie pie and a goof ball. Here he is with his signature sexy leg pose

And here is Edgar, one of our three cats. Edgar's a ridiculously sweet cat, a real attention hog and a mama's boy. He's scared of loud noises, strangers, the outside world, and anything that's unfamiliar or new. He's overall, how you say, a total weinie. A complete baby. A wimp. A scaredy cat. Whatever. As sweet and loveable as he is, he's a big ol' man baby. Sure he's well over 5 years old now, but he's the biggest baby ever. Here's Edgar with his own sexy leg pose

So, as you can see Bob is currently a lone piggy, at least for now, until I can officially keep him (I hope) and can get him a bigger cage and a buddy. So to compensate I take him out for 2-3 hours of floortime a day. An hour or so in the morning, and another 1-2 hours at night. He likes to run around and popcorn and hide under the beds until he gets all tired and falls asleep on the air vents or on a blanket, and then I put him back in his cage.

Well during floortime, I often let Edgar lay in the room with me when Bob is out. I supervise him and watch them both very closely of course, and make sure Bob doesn't get into anything and Edgar doesn't bother Bob. But hoenstly, I'm more often then not making sure BOB doesn't bother Edgar! Bob's always been bold around the cats, running laps around them and trying to walk under their legs...he has no fear. Edgar, on the other hand, gets really worried when Bob tries to step on his paws or push him out of the way, and often just jumps out of the way or runs out of the room. Most of the time he just comes next to me and lays next to me for comfort, which leads me to think he's not PETRIFIED of Bob, but he's wary of him.

But a few nights ago Edgar was laying in the middle of the floor like a good cat, stretching out his paws and purring a lot. He wasn't paying attention and Bob came up behind him, sniffing around. All of a sudden Bob started to rub his face into his fur, rubbing his face in it. Then he tried sniffing Edgar's butt and tried to climb on his back, and Edgar got scared, so I shooed him away. I didn't think much of it until tonight...

Tonight, everything is the same as it always is, except I gave Bob a big pile of hay to eat and sit in. It was getting a bit old and I was going to get rid of it but thought me might like to play in it for a bit. He didn't care, and ignored it. Edgar layed around, trying to eat the hay and laying near my feet. Then, everything took a really weird turn. To quote a very hastilly typed text to my boyfriend in response to what happened next:

"jeeebus christ I just witnessed Bob absolutely torment Edgar he keeps chasing him around and rubbing his face in his fur and rumbling and sniffing his butt and poor, poor Edgar is absolutely terrified oh my gosh"


...which sums up exactly what happened. Bob, this little guinea pig, was literaly chasing around Edgar, our big tabby cat! He was making low rumbling sounds and kept shoving his face in Edgar's butt and rubbing it in and was tormenting the poor cat. Eventually he cornered Edgar near the bookshelf, promptly got distracted by a water bottle, and Edgar used this window of opportunity to jump over him to make his escape.

After a minute or two I just tried to comfort Edgar and he layed in front of me away from Bob, and I pet him trying to make him feel a bit better. Then, when Bob was done pushing around the water bottle, he ran back up to Edgar and did it again, but a lot more forcefully--he rubbed into his fur and shook his head, and got all up in his butt, then--and I kid you not--climbed on Edgar's behind and tried to mount him! I immedietly lunged over and grabbed Bob and put him back in his cage, and he was so focused that he didn't even struggle when I grabbed him. Poor Edgar panicked and nestled into my lap and feet and now he's hiding his face in shame

But no, in all seriousness, Edgar's fine just startled and he settled down and went to sleep shortly after which is why he's covering his face. Bob settled down like nothing happened, drank some water, and is now staring at me as he does his famous leg strut while he tries to go to sleep. I just can't help but wonder, did Bob just try to dominate my cat?? I mean I know guinea pigs only show proper dominating behaviors to other pigs, at least I thought so...but cats?? I could very well be wrong, but I can't burn these images out of my head, as much as I'd like to unsee them. Maybe Edgar's just being a weinie about it but Bob only does this to him and I'm not sure what else to describe this as. Has anyone ever seen anything like this before??

 

[magicpiggie]

I have not seen anything like that, but maybe bob did that because he is lonely and needs another guinea. Guinea pigs are social animals so they are used to others. Bob is pretty desperate... lol

 

[wombats]

I know... I feel so horrible that he doesn't have a buddy, but he's unfortunatly not mine. He's my homeroom teacher/marine biology teacher's and I'm taking care of him over the summer. Well really I'm the ONLY person who takes care of him...if I don't clean out his cage, she doesn't. I'm the one who pays for his hay and cleans his cage once a week and pays attention to him and socializes him, and over the summer I built him a new cage (a 2x3, the biggest my mom would allow...his old one was smaller than a 1x2 and he's so much happier now) and ideally he would be in at least a 2x4 or a 2x5 and have another guinea pig as a buddy...I feel like he's getting lonlier every day and it tears me apart that I can't adopt him a friend right now but I hope when I graduate next year she'll let me keep him so I can take him and get him a bigger cage and a friend. For now though, this is the best I can do.

 

[wombats]

Hahaha yea it was really funny, I'll be honest.

And no, I haven't! Will that help? I can needle felt him one with some extra wool batting...I made a godzilla once and those things are really solid, but soft. He won't be able to pull it apart and if it helps, I'll make him one tomorrow or find him one. I really want to adopt this guy a proper buddy though I'm just so scared my teacher won't let me keep him, I'm having nightmares about it. I keep talking to people though (my boyfriend and my hairdresser, mainly) and they agree that I basically raised him and there's no reason she should say no. I'm just really nervous though, but there's nothing I wouldn't do for this little guy.

 

[CavyChrissy]

I don't know what's up with Bob and Edgar, but I'm having a seriously good laugh at your story!

 

[lisanjake]

oh gosh that's so funny! (poor kitty though) and naughty Bob!
that's not good that the teacher doesn't give a stuff and your doing all the work... but at least you are nice enough to look after him. feel a tad sorry for the little mite
when my guinea pigs mate died years ago I got him a stuffed toy which he loved, and always layed next too.

 

[wombats]

Hahaha yea it was so funny that this big tabby cat was just put in his place by a guinea pig. I wanted to take a video but I had to watch them in case Edgar tried to hit him back--Edgar's never done that before, but I know one of the other cats, Tinker Bell, tried to swat at him when he came zooming through in one of his laps and stepped on her paws so I have to watch her around him...for the most part she just stays on the shelf and watches from afar, or she goes under the bed.

And ah yea...I wanted to say a little something about my teacher, but I ended up typing a lot and it got really Sad Times really quickly so I'm actually going to do a little vent in a new thread while I calm down. I'm normally a very passive, nice person and I hate conflict and I physically cannot blame other people for anything, with the exception of myself and thissss teacher. But I don't want to riddle this thread with not Fun Times too much because that's not the kind of person I am...I'm all sprinkles and sunshine and long text posts, but sometimes I need to type and rant about things or I'll explode.

 

[wombats]

And huh...I'll make him his wool guinea pig today. I'm hoping it'll help, at least until I can take him. I hope it helps Bob out too...he's starting to wheek and do his long screaming-wheeks whenever he hears voices or the door opening and closing and I feel so, so terrible that I can't spend more time with him...he really needs another guinea pig, most of all though. I even saw someone adopting out a little male guinea pig in my own state and I want to adopt the little fellow so bad but sadly it's not my choice to make.

 

[PandaPiggle]

Aww hugs! Hopefully Bob loves his little felted piggie! And I love this story and I'm totally going to go tell it at work now

 

[wombats]

I hope he does too...I gave up ranting because my phone died but I feel a bit better now anyway, I'm too exhausted to try and rant again. He's such a good little bug but he has so many little quirks, and this is just one of them. Since day one he seems like he's enjoyed/tolerated Edgar being near him, and Edgar the same, I think, because he keeps coming back into the room and lays next to me when I feed Bob his veggies in the morning. They're both really silly little bugs and I love them so much. I'm going to start felting his wool guinea pig pal, I'm just not sure how big I'll make it...I'll just start felting the base and go from there, I can always make it bigger later.

 

[PandaPiggle]

If you want to hear about my guinea pigs' stuffed animal... It's a bear my ex boyfriend got me for Valentine's Day once upon a time. I couldn't ever bring myself to throw it away, so I threw him in their cage. They seem to tolerate him, but I've got enough pigs that they don't need to socialize with a bear

 

[wombats]

I got all of my wool batting and suppliew together, but I'm not sure what I want it to look like...these are all of my neutral colors. I have a lot of khaki/tan and brown, a good amount of gray, and a little bit of black and white. I can probably make the core out of khaki or brown and I can always use white or black on the outside. Feltzilla is actually a light green on the inside, and his outside is a spruce green.

I just don't know! I want it to look nice, like a real guinea pig, but I'm really stumped right now.

 

[Soecara]

You could either make up a colour of guinea pig you would never actually find just to make it fun and unique or you could go for the more realistic spin, either way limiting yourself to three colours might be a good starting point as real guinea pigs are limited to being three colours at most by their genes.

You have the black colour gene group which includes black, dark brown and lilac (the non black colours are mutations of the black gene). Then there is the orange colour gene group which is all of the varying shades of orange and tan. Finally you have white. Genetically speaking you can't have a real guinea pig with two colours from the same group, so you would never find a guinea pig that is both dark brown and black (unless it is an optical illusion caused by an agouti coat patterning) but you could find a guinea pig that is both lilac and cream. I personally love the colouring of guinea pigs who are lilac and any of the orange group (despite none of my guinea pigs fitting this description but hey I can still appreciate photos of them).

 

[wombats]

Huh! That's really neat to know! For now I'm using some scrap green wool as the core and I'll layer the coat colors on top then I'm done. I might do white with brown markings, I think, because I have so much brown. That'll keep it simple and I think it'll look nice.

 

[Elyzian]

Me and my bf had a good laugh at your story, I could just picture it haha.. My boy is kind of similar, he couldnt give two hoots about our young cat, and when he goes near our cat, our cat runs away lol.

I think he is just lonely and trying to make a friend.

 

[lizpow]

I know... I feel so horrible that he doesn't have a buddy, but he's unfortunatly not mine. He's my homeroom teacher/marine biology teacher's and I'm taking care of him over the summer. Well really I'm the ONLY person who takes care of him...if I don't clean out his cage, she doesn't. I'm the one who pays for his hay and cleans his cage once a week and pays attention to him and socializes him, and over the summer I built him a new cage (a 2x3, the biggest my mom would allow...his old one was smaller than a 1x2 and he's so much happier now) and ideally he would be in at least a 2x4 or a 2x5 and have another guinea pig as a buddy...I feel like he's getting lonlier every day and it tears me apart that I can't adopt him a friend right now but I hope when I graduate next year she'll let me keep him so I can take him and get him a bigger cage and a friend. For now though, this is the best I can do.

I was in a similar situation where I took over the care of a lonely piggy from my schools bio teacher for the summer. She had been living by herself in the animal room with some gerbals next to her on one side and goldfish on the other. She officially became mine not long ago and I'm happy to say we are going to adopt her a friend this Saturday!

this is a picture of her hiding under the hammock I made her.

 

[lisanjake]

Ahhh that's lovely lizpow! Look at that fluffy face
How are things going wombat or is it still summer holidays?

 

[just8be8free]

Hahaha! That's so funny! Edgar is the cutest thing, as well as Bob, of course. I can imagine it, but poor Edgar! [emoji23] I was laughing so hard I was legitimately crying!

 

[wombats]

@lizpow wow! What a funny coincidence! I'm glad your story has a happy ending, at least, and I'm very glad you could keep them.
@lisanjake Gosh it's going well enough, but it's still summer holidays for me. We go back at the end of the month and I'm just rushing to finish some things and try not to have a heart attack...I'm really bad at handling stress and I have a lot I need to do before I go back. What with juggling summer reading and schoolwork with worrying about Bob and trying to draw some things for people here...I just feel terrible about it all. But I'm getting through it and Bob is doing well enough and that's at least that's something to be happy about.

 

[wombats]

Oh, and Bob continues to bug Edgar. Every time he's out for floortime he follows Edgar around and rubs his face in his fur. Edgar's such a good cat, he tolerates most of it, but jumps away if Bob tries to nibble his paws or walk on him. It's gotten to the point where it's not about seeing if Edgar will bother Bob, it's if Bob will bother Edgar! Bob also tries to do this with Tinker Bell, but she does NOT tolerate any form of touching and will try and tries to smack him if he gets to close so I have to keep her out of the room most times. Otherwise she sleeps on the bed or on top of his cage and watches him from afar.