Clicker Training Guinea Pigs

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Drezella

Drezella

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Hello everyone,

I'm a soon to be guinea pig owner who is getting more and more excited by the day. I've been doing some research into training guinea pigs and bonding time, and have see that it's possible to train guinea pigs to do mini agility courses etc. I was just wondering whether it is possible to use a clicker to train your guinea pig like you can with other animals such as dogs? Has anyone ever tried this before? You thoughts and ideas are welcome. :)

Regards
 
Ours can poo on command, well erm... they just poo really mainly all the time so if I say something you can guarantee one of the 4 is squeezing one out :))

Seriously though I have never managed to train them to do anything, we have witnessed Merrypips piggies use The Living World puzzle thing though... You put food in it and plastic shapes on top and the can remove the food... We had no success when we tried it, they just stared at me until I felt guilty and fed them... It appears they have trained me :)
 
My kids have taught our guinea pigs one really good trick: "Stand on four legs!" They do it pretty much every time! LOL! Actually, Linney will popcorn on demand if we ask her to, but we have to say, "Popcorn, Linney, popcorn!" in a really high excitable voice repeatedly to get her to do it, so I'm not sure if you'd consider that a trick that she is trained to do (as she's not that consistent and requires a lot of coaxing!) Actually, I think Linney could have learned some tricks had we invested the time when she was young. She has always seemed to be the smartest out of the pigs we've had and seems very savvy as to her own name, commands like 'no,' etc. At 6 years of age, it seems late to work on full-out training, though. Not sure if you can teach an old pig new tricks!

I have seen guinea pigs that have been trained to do mini-agility tricks online and am determined that my next guinea pig, I am going to attempt this. I've actually never clicker-trained an animal before, we always did treat training with our other pets. I had a mouse that would run in a circle for a treat, we trained her to do that by holding the treat in front of her nose and making her do a full circle before we would let her have it. After awhile, she would turn around when we made moved our fingers in a circle even without the treat (we would intermittently give her a treat after the behaviour to keep it in her mind that she might get a reward.) She never learned a verbal command but did learn a gesture command. I'm sure if a mouse could learn that, a guinea pig could as well!
 
I used clicker training for my dog and I found it fabulous. It seemed to make him more focused on me if that makes sense. I used it to teach him some tricks. And he was scared of the noise at first but he got used to it. I have also seen on tv clicker training used for horses and also gorillas. So I don't know if it would work for a guinea pig. But it wouldn't hurt to try I suppose. Good luck. :)
 
I bought a clicker and have trained my guinea pig Poppy to put her paw on my hand when I say high five and put both paws on my hand when I say carrot! I think training is only possible if you start with young piggies and not all piggies are trainable, Maisy won't do a trick! :(You have to put in a lot of time and effort!:):)
 
My Murray knows to stop doing something naughty by my tone of voice, much like a dog, other than that and begging for food. I think that's it. I have seen videos of people doing little dances and things, so maybe you can good luck with it xx
 
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