#my headmate Miriam would know more about the guinea pig part than I but I’m very much the one who does community stuff

[funlovingfuzzball]

I’m going to attempt to explain this in a way that’s not specific to the community but instead applies to animals in general. This is a thing for all creatures, not just those of us raised to be human. I promise, this is universal.

I, a dragon, have two guinea pigs. Guinea pigs are a very social species, so my two girls live together. They both adore me. Their relationship with each other, on the other hand, is complicated.

Luna is our local wildlife in this story. She was born as one of an accidental litter and was surrendered to our amazing local guinea pig shelter once she was fully weaned. She’s currently 2.5 years old and has always lived with at least one piggy friend except for a span of around two months after her first friend died and right before she came to us. She is very boisterous, though not dominant, and she adores Mousse.

Mousse, on the other hand, represents us. She was born in a plastic tank in a petco, taken away from her mother too early, and then sold for around five bucks to a family who knew almost nothing about guinea pigs and put her in what should have been a gerbil cage. She is currently 4.5 years old and has never lived with another guinea pig since her birth until she met Luna most of a month ago. Mousse is very friendly… and absolutely terrible at communicating with Luna. She does not know to raise her chin to express dominance, she rumble struts away from you instead of towards you, and in general she has no earthly idea how to tell Luna to back off. She’s taken to making a really loud noise every time Luna does something she doesn’t like, the same noise each time, because that’s how she told her previous humans to stop.

Luna recognizes Mousse as a guinea pig, because obviously. They look almost identical besides coat type, after all. And honestly, Mousse recognizes Luna as a guinea pig. But Mousse does not speak guinea pig. She’s slowly figuring it out, but it’s a long process, and she is still failing every one of Luna’s social cues, meaning that Luna cannot interpret her boundaries either. I act like a guinea pig around Luna so I can use her language to convey that she’s safe around me. I can’t do that around Mousse. For Mousse, I have no more idea what most of her body language means than Luna does, because she does not act like a guinea pig. I have years of practice at guinea pig body language, and yet none of it works for Mousse because she doesn’t know what I mean and I don’t know what she means.

So, my fellow therians, otherkin, fictionfolk, and whatever else - we are Mousse. We were raised by humans, and we do not inherently speak the language of whatever we might identify as or with. Neither does Mousse. It’s okay, it happens to all creatures. You just need to put in the effort, like Mousse is currently doing with Luna and I’m doing with her in return, to learn that language. Once you’ve done sufficient research, you can often communicate properly, but the research always comes first.

*puts my wings around you* I promise you can learn. But you have to learn before you do anything, and you have to respect their boundaries if they decide they aren’t willing to deal with you even once you’ve learned how to interact properly. Know their boundaries, respect those boundaries, and then proceed with what you know. You can do this.

- Raie Lawrence, Temeraire fictive

yeah you're nonhuman but you were raised in a human society and therefore your relationship with animals is going to be limited. you cannot assume you instinctively can understand and communicate with animals. please respect local wildlife and do your research I am on my hands and knees