Agility

[Dashiman]

Hello, I tried searching but didn't find much, do any of you do agility or scent work with your guinea pigs, or clicker train them? I do both with my dogs and know a group of people that did a guinea pig course on it.

I was looking for more information if anyone does.
Thanks Sue

 

[xX Ginger and Friends Xx]

I don't but my friend does . . . i think

 

[Hermes]

I did some clicker training (target training and basic trick training) with my guineas but I haven't spent much time training them - I always keep meaning to do more and never seem to find the moment to do it.

I don't have any links for reference though there are some interesting videos on youtube. If you've clicker trained your dogs then you know the principle so it'll be pretty straightforward to do it with guineas. For rewards I use pieces of veg sliced into tiny pieces (think half centimetre slivers but watch your fingers when feeding!). I find luring to be the easiest method for training guineas although sometimes you can capture behaviours, target training is useful for luring behaviours (I taped a small jam jar lid with a safety button to a flat plastic modelling tool to function as a dual clicker-target). I'd suggest using a soft click or dampened clicker so the guinea pigs aren't startled. You need to get the pigs used to the training area so either start in the cage or make sure they're relaxed in whatever training environment you choose. The same applies to any tools/obstacles that you wish to work with, leaving them in the cage for the pigs to investigate before training can help prevent fearful behaviour. Of course a lot of this depends on the temperament of your pigs, if they're particularly bold or used to lots of new things then you may not need to be so concerned about familiarising them with objects. If you want to do guinea pig agility then you're going to have to get creative and make your own obstacles but remember to keep things low to the ground and wide as guineas are not really jumping, balancing or climbing animals (though many pigs would like to convince us otherwise) and you don't want to cause injuries. I'd also suggest fixed jumps that allow the guineas to put their front paws on so they can hop over rather than expecting them to jump like dogs (though once again I've no doubt they could if they really wanted!).

Hope that helps a little.

 

[Dashiman]

Wonderful thanks for the reply. That's the information I was looking for really.

I know time is normally my problem too, but we'll see.

 

[GPTV]

hope this works but this should be a link to- well not quite agility.... but that sort of activity
it was sent through my google account, so hopefully i've linked it ok?

xx