Guinea Pig Sounds

[GingerandFrankie]

Hi everyone,
My guinea pig, Ginger, makes a strange deep purr noise and shakes whenever I pet her back. She doesn’t seem agitated or irritated. I can’t tell if this noise is good or bad. Please help! Here is a link to the YouTube video of the noise.

 

[Wiebke]

Hi everyone,
My guinea pig, Ginger, makes a strange deep purr noise and shakes whenever I pet her back. She doesn’t seem agitated or irritated. I can’t tell if this noise is good or bad. Please help! Here is a link to the YouTube video of the noise.

Hi!

Guinea pig can purr like cats; this is what your girl is doing. As long as the body is relaxed and she is not pushing your hand away, she is not upset about your petting.
A sharp short grr is a sign of displeasure and a lighter rumbling with bum swaying ('rumble-strutting') is a mild dominance gesture that is practised by both genders although you see a lot more of it with boars.

When interpreting sounds, you always need to take into account situational context and body language. This is the reason why we don't have an audio guide for sounds that to us sound very similar but have very different meanings to guinea pigs.
This link here has collection of sounds that are in the majority correctly interpreted, unlike sadly so many other sound guides: Guinea Pig Sounds