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Any Tips For Teaching Guinea Pigs Tricks?

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Candice Warner

Candice Warner

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So recently I have been thinking about teaching my girls some tricks. And I do think I'll be able to because they are both still quite young! (Nutmeg is 9 months old and Snowy is just over a year old). I know you can try using clickers but my guineas are both terrified of it. So I'm afraid using a clicker is out of the question. So I'm thinking treats. I'm not going teach them amazing tricks like back flips or jumping off an ironing board and landing standing up. Oh no, just some basic tricks e.g

-Beg for food (stand on hind legs)
Jumps over small objects
Come when called
Follow me

So those, so can you lovely lot perhaps give me some tips and advice on teaching piggies tricks?
Thank you very much.
P.S I also think it might help me and Nutmeg bond a little.
 
I can't help but am interested in knowing about the follow me. Mine come when I call them (all I do is call come and tap my fingers on the floor) ad I guess that's kinda follow me too lol.
 
The follow me is basically well they follow you round the house, my sister tried tying a piece of carrot to some string and dragging it across the floor and the guinea pig learned how to follow her!
 
Plenty of food! I have trained my boys to stand on their back legs and Kasper to jump onto me with good old bell pepper :)

They also learned how to jump over lots of stuff. Table legs, my legs, feet, shoes, toilet roll tubes :D
 
Have a look on Amazon for "Training Your Pet Guinea Pig" by Gerry Buscis and Barbara Somerville. A lovely little book all about how to teach your piggie to do tricks, lots of lovely pictures. Info on caging , feeding, etc. Plus its the only piggie book I've read that recommends C and C cages.
 
I've been having another look at the book I mentioned earlier. Its a very good little book. There is lots of good advice about how to care for your piggie(s). It says, and I'm sure you all know this, not to give rabbit food as it has no Vit C, which veg is good and which is not, etc. It tells you what you need to make a C and C cage and how to put it together. It mentions that some metal grids have squares that small piggies could get through. There are several things in here that I have not found in other piggie books.
Anyone thinking of getting their first piggies would do well to get this book.
 
Candice Warner said:
So recently I have been thinking about teaching my girls some tricks. And I do think I'll be able to because they are both still quite young! (Nutmeg is 9 months old and Snowy is just over a year old). I know you can try using clickers but my guineas are both terrified of it. So I'm afraid using a clicker is out of the question. So I'm thinking treats. I'm not going teach them amazing tricks like back flips or jumping off an ironing board and landing standing up. Oh no, just some basic tricks e.g

-Beg for food (stand on hind legs)
Jumps over small objects
Come when called
Follow me

So those, so can you lovely lot perhaps give me some tips and advice on teaching piggies tricks?
Thank you very much.
P.S I also think it might help me and Nutmeg bond a little.
Click to expand...
My piggie Poppy can do high fives! At first my piggies where terrified of the clicker. You can buy the clicker for £4 from pets@home. To get my piggies used to it I clicked it every time they did something good and gave them a treat.
 
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Candice Warner said:
The follow me is basically well they follow you round the house, my sister tried tying a piece of carrot to some string and dragging it across the floor and the guinea pig learned how to follow her!
Click to expand...
Dragging a carrot sounds like a good idea! My Hoppsan do anything for carrot, why didn't I think of that? I might give it a try today during floor time! :) I did taught him turn around by holding a piece of carrot above his head and say "turn" while I draw a circle as he has his focus on the carrot, after a while he'll response to just the sound of "turn", and sometimes he'll turn without command as his way of begging for treats :D
 
I started making a clicking noise with my mouth when I fed them but now they start wheeking at everything and can distinguish between my footsteps and my partners though since living together he feeds them extra treats so they wheek at him too lol
 
I'm totally getting that book, I got a gift card for Christmas and am spending it on that! I always said that once I had a young pig again, I would try to teach some tricks, as my kids were very impressed with some guinea pigs on youtube that could do tricks. Now that I have baby Hadley, the time seems right! :)
 
Have never really trained any of my boys to do specific tricks; however, if they do something cute, such as sitting up on their hind legs for food, I definitely encourage it. Once when I asked my oldest pig, Apichu, to "give us a kiss," he did so, and now does it on command. (always cute!)
 
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