Insight on adopting/fostering an 'aggressive' male

4boipigs

4boipigs

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Decided to post here since I think the topic fits better than other areas. But mods move if needed.

There is a local rescue with a young male that was given up because a woman's husband was tired of their "hamster" and he was "going to kill" it if it wasn't rehomed. The pig is described like this -

"...a highly unusual guinea pig in that he will try to bite. Guinea pigs are not known to try to bite humans but when they do bite, they bite extremely hard. The possible reasons for this are either human hands may not have been very nice to him in the past or he's an extremely hormonal young male that just can't control himself. This is very possible as we have attempted to bond Bacon Bit with multiple other piggies several times and they all went poorly. For this reason, Bacon Bit cannot be adopted into a family with children under 13 and cannot be housed with other pigs...

We interact with Bacon Bit frequently throughout the day to help desensitize him to human hands. After a bit of chasing we are able to pick him up and hold him for short periods without incident and he's learned to take food from us with very good piggy-manners. While he is housed alone for everyone's safety, he is where he can hear and smell the other guinea pigs. He just can't see them as he can get very agitated if he does. "

This pig won me over about a month or so ago, so I donated and left it at that. Well, now I have some more room in my house after getting rid of stuff, so I was thinking about fostering or adopting. I've had only boys, and my current guys are all in divided cages (a 'pair' per cage) despite my attempts and a rescue's attempts to bond them. I've been bitten, I've dealt with abandoned guinea pigs, I've been thru numerous illnesses, and so on. I would up to taking on this kiddo.

So I'm wondering, has anyone ever worked with a pig like this? Did they ever get better? I'm not expecting to turn him into a cuddle machine or anything. I just feel bad for him and chances are a guy with a history/description like that is gonna need a special, committed piggy parent.
 
4boipigs said:
Decided to post here since I think the topic fits better than other areas. But mods move if needed.

There is a local rescue with a young male that was given up because a woman's husband was tired of their "hamster" and he was "going to kill" it if it wasn't rehomed. The pig is described like this -

"...a highly unusual guinea pig in that he will try to bite. Guinea pigs are not known to try to bite humans but when they do bite, they bite extremely hard. The possible reasons for this are either human hands may not have been very nice to him in the past or he's an extremely hormonal young male that just can't control himself. This is very possible as we have attempted to bond Bacon Bit with multiple other piggies several times and they all went poorly. For this reason, Bacon Bit cannot be adopted into a family with children under 13 and cannot be housed with other pigs...

We interact with Bacon Bit frequently throughout the day to help desensitize him to human hands. After a bit of chasing we are able to pick him up and hold him for short periods without incident and he's learned to take food from us with very good piggy-manners. While he is housed alone for everyone's safety, he is where he can hear and smell the other guinea pigs. He just can't see them as he can get very agitated if he does. "

This pig won me over about a month or so ago, so I donated and left it at that. Well, now I have some more room in my house after getting rid of stuff, so I was thinking about fostering or adopting. I've had only boys, and my current guys are all in divided cages (a 'pair' per cage) despite my attempts and a rescue's attempts to bond them. I've been bitten, I've dealt with abandoned guinea pigs, I've been thru numerous illnesses, and so on. I would up to taking on this kiddo.

So I'm wondering, has anyone ever worked with a pig like this? Did they ever get better? I'm not expecting to turn him into a cuddle machine or anything. I just feel bad for him and chances are a guy with a history/description like that is gonna need a special, committed piggy parent.
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Hi

Poor boy! he must have been through hell in all sorts of ways. :(

Try some of the tricks in these guides here. They tackle the problem from the guinea pig perspective; accepting their prey animal instincts and mimic the way socially very competent guinea pigs deal with and integrate miscreants. You may hopefully find them all helpful.
Understanding Prey Animal Instincts, Guinea Pig Whispering and Cuddling Tips
" Biting" And What You Can Do (Biting, Tweaking, Nibbling and Nipping)
Arrival in a home from the perspective of pet shop guinea pigs
How Do I Settle Shy New Guinea Pigs?
Journey through a Lifetime: The Ages of Guinea Pigs (includes socialisation)

My Brathlys was a home delivered rescue 'present' after biting human hands and being fear-aggressive with any of the many bonding candidates 6 months after she was found abandoned in a winter garden weeks by a neighbour weeks after her owners had moved out and taken the hutch with them.
Brathlys wasn't an instinctive defence biter but a bad tweaker; which reflects how she was handled and treated in her first home. I did get her down to just the odd pro forma mild tweak within a couple of weeks and managed to bond her with a savvy neutered boar who knew when not to push over the course of several weeks within 2-3 months of her arrival while they were living with a divider in between them. Unlike the rescue, I had the time and the experience to work through her issues with her.
It's now four years to the month since she was found living rough and she is now a mostly blind old lady with arthritis in her spine and a tender digestion but she is still going and is living with a younger sows (bonded as a baby when she couldn't challenge Brathlys after Alan's sudden death) and a widowed neutered neighboar in a stable trio.

Whether you can bond your boy or not is open - it very much depends on how early he has been separated and what social deficits/human induced traumas he comes with. Brace yourself that it is going to be a one step forward - two steps back process. You will have restart right at the first step once he has had time to relax and recover, but he will hopefully come out of it and get further that little quicker each time. Being in the power and at the receiving end of a violent predator/human is as or even more devastating for a much more finely tuned prey animal than it is for human abuse victims.

With patience and persistence you can hopefully build up a relationship that relies on you communicating in guinea pig social concepts and societal framework. It will help to teach him gradually that humans are not just monsters out to kill him on a whim.
By 'speaking cavy' you automatically remove yourself out of the 'cavy killing monster' category into a puzzling super cavy that looks and smells like a monster but that tells your boy that he is welcome to join your group and that he is treasured him. It gives him the crucial cavy identity and sense of belonging that is at the very heart of cavy society. He may still freak out and may defence bite if he is spooked or goes on overload but it is a good start.

PS: If you have guinea pig company he can interact with through the bars and make friends with, then this would be a good start. If he feels threatened by boars, a sow or two he cannot get at (neither wiggling through or jumping/climbing over) would be a good lure as his instincts will tell him to woo them and - when in season - to try and mate.
At the very worst, he will not recognise himself as a guinea pig anymore and he will have to become a human companion, as much as possible. A total refusal to interact with other guinea pigs in any way is usually a surefire sign for the latter; excessive aggression through the bars can be sign that he is lacking socialisation and sees other guinea pigs as a threat.
 
Poor boy. I hate to think what he's been through if he's that aggressive. If you feel up to the challenge of taking him on, go for it. He will be in a home that understands him and will do what it takes to make his life a happier one than it has been up to now.
 
If a human in the house has the attitude of "I'm going to kill it", that means this pig was sharing his home with an aggressive predator, and rest assured, he knew it. He's a prey animal, he doesn't need to have it explained to him verbally to know something like that.

So I don't think any of his behaviour previously really gives any clues to how he will behave in future. Any pig might become defensive under those circumstances. I call it defensive, not aggressive, as it is actually very rare for a guinea pig to be aggressive towards a human. A human-biting pig is either biting defensively, being reactive to pain, or else just nipping to assert boundaries (or option 4, they thought you were food). I think that shift in perspective can make all the difference in understanding their behaviour and dealing with biting. This is not at all the same as an aggressive dog. I think you already know that, this message is really for the world at large.

Maybe he will always be a nippy pig. Maybe not. You will just have to find out! It sounds like you've got what it takes to give him the chance he needs.
 
:agr: With all those above.

And I’d like to share a little success story with you. Within our rescue it is not well publicised but we took in a long haired pig who had been set free in a local park with another pig. A member of the public tried for several days to catch them and eventually caught just this one (the other one vanished presumably predated ☹️). This piggy was so traumatised that he positively flew at absolutely everyone and bit at anyone or anything that came near him. He teeth chattered and lunged at everything and could only be handled for essential purposes wearing raptor gloves (as recommended by our vets). He was taken in by our fabulous long term foster carer Clare who has worked absolute wonders with him. It’s taken months and months of love and patience and taking things at his pace, but he can now be trusted to take food from the hand, has been neutered and has a wife (a baby sow as he could not cope with any adult pigs - and we tried) and even allows Clare’s husband to handle him when necessary. To be honest we did wonder if any of this would be possible, but time and patience have worked what seems like a miracle.
Go for it.
 
I am sure with your patience and love he will blossom. 🤞🏾
 
Great news!

As long as you are prepared to be patient and realistic that there will be setbacks along the way, you will eventually get there. It takes a while for a deeply traumatised piggy to realise that there is a paradise on earth and that it is for them.

But there is nothing like the moments when you know he trusts you and when he is expressing his happiness and joy of life for the first time. These are treasures you cannot buy but that will stay with you forever.
 
Here he is! I just picked him up. I have him in a 2x3 c&c. He is happily exploring and eating hay. He immediately tried to nibble/bite my hands when they were nearby, and I was advised to keep him pointed away from me basically. Aside from that, he seems to be a normal piggie.
1680976078788.webp
 
He is a lovely looking boy. Hopefully he will learn not to be afraid and the biting/nibbling will stop. Love and kindness is all he needs and he's landed in the right place for that.
 
I hope he settles well and with your care learns not to nibble.
 
Hopefully the nibbling will go away with time. I did have one pig who was always a nibbler. It was not aggressive, he just thought everything was food until proven otherwise.
 
4boipigs said:
Here he is! I just picked him up. I have him in a 2x3 c&c. He is happily exploring and eating hay. He immediately tried to nibble/bite my hands when they were nearby, and I was advised to keep him pointed away from me basically. Aside from that, he seems to be a normal piggie.
View attachment 222438
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He is a gorgeous boy!

PS: If he is just nibbling/tweaking, then he is just expressing dislike of being handled/hands and you should get on top of it within a few weeks with some piggy whispering.
Start with assuring him by mimicking guinea pig behaviours that you want to be friends with him and that you are welcoming him into your group. That will give him an indentity and a place he can stand socially and that you can build on - by talking 'cavy' you will make instant sense to him and remove several different hurdles right at the start that he would have to take singly if you were waiting for him to work out human interaction and demands instead.

Then you can address the tweaking in terms of not welcome cavy behaviour in your group but also balance it out by praising and encouraging welcome behaviour. Respect that has he has good reasons for what he is doing and concentrate on parallel 'hands-off' interaction (including how you pick him up) to lower the stress and increase positive exchange.
How To Pick Up And Weigh Your Guinea Pigs Safely (videos) (the hands-off way)
But it sounds very promising. He has obviously started to respond to love and good care so the hardest first hurdles have already been taken. ;)
 
He’s beautiful how lovely you have given him a chance - I’m sure he’ll live his best life ever with you
 
He’s so handsome! He seems comfortable already given he isn’t just hiding and has feet out already. Hope he settles in well.
 
Siikibam said:
He’s so handsome! He seems comfortable already given he isn’t just hiding and has feet out already. Hope he settles in well.
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Honestly he's settling in WAY better than I expected. He came to the bars for a treat and took it from me. He let me pet his head. He's even playing with toys that my other boys rarely if ever play with.
 
Let’s hope he continues to feel this comfortable 😊
 
He must know he's in a place of safety now and will be loved, respected and only ever be treated with kindness. He has landed on his little paws with you.
Piggies can sense if they are somewhere safe.
 
One final update. Looking at this pig, how he rests in the open, enjoys himself, comes to me for treats, and lets me pet him...you'd NEVER think this pig is the one I talked about in the first post of this thread. This is all the work of the rescue socializing him and showing him that life isn't so scary. But it also shows this boy is feeling happy, safe, and is able to adjust to a new home.
 

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You are doing an amazing job, and it just goes to show that an animal can get a bad reputation based on the behaviours and expectations of the humans around it, without it being deserved at all. It's so encouraging to see a happy story like this!
 
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