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Why Do Guinea Pigs Lick You

Why Do Guinea Pigs Lick You?

Guinea pigs are creatures of whom it is hard to know what they are thinking and feeliing. They are not ones for physically expressing their emotions like some animals do. They don’t express anger, sadness, happiness, and sadness obviously and so it hard for people to know what it is going on with them.

However, there are certain actions that they do that can give a good idea of what they are thinking and feeling.

One of those actions is when they lick you. This can be a strange thing for them to do at first. Their tongue is quite rough on your skin and it can feel a little weird having their saliva on your skin even if it is a faint wetness.

So there may be occasions when a guinea pig licks you when you pick them up or when they come up close to you.

Why Do Guinea Pigs Lick You?

They basically do this for one reason.

When they lick you, they are basically showing affection to you. It’s a great compliment when a guinea pig licks you and shows you that they like you.

They do this when they are close to you and when you pick them up a lot. When they trust you and have confidence in you they only tend to do this.

So be pleased that they choose to do this and is right up there with them purring in your presence as showing real affection, trust and confidence in you.

It is is a real gift from them to you.

The only other time that guinea pigs will also lick is when they are grooming themselves by licking their fur. They use their coarse tongue to get rid of any grime or grit on their fur which they cant get rid of otherwise. They don’t mind doing this and it doesn’t affect their taste buds when they lick their own fur, no matter what the substance is on it. Their only concern is getting the substance off their fur, as they are clean animals.

When they lick you, it could also be said that they are trying to clean you as well and see sense something on your skin that they want to rid you off.

This is a nice theory which although cannot be proven, has some merit but if so is a terrific act of generosity from the piggie to you.