Guinea Pig Intelligence

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SpiritoftheForest

Teenage Guinea Pig
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(I hope I've posted this in the right place)

I watched Squeak Dreams Youtube video on intelligence and loved it!

Especially the bit about the Guinea pig who can do lots of tricks and has achieved awards for completing dog tricks.

Anyway, it got me thinking, how intelligent are your guinea pigs and do any of you do trick training with them?
 
I think there is a line to be drawn between enrichment behaviours and trick training. If mine work something out for themselves it's okay and I go along with it but I wouldn't teach them tricks deliberately. 4 of mine can use the treat balls and appear to have fun pushing them around the cage, they only have them occasionally as I usually just hide pellets in their hay. Interestingly these 4 don't understand boxes or bags full of hay. The box/bag hay piggies don't use the pellet balls. Guinea Pigs are extremely intelligent, they have worked out how to wrap their humans round their little paws.
 
I taught my Amber to spin before getting her metacam out of necessity because she would almost launch herself out the cage in excitement every time, I was worried she was going to injure herself. Anyway, neutered boar Oliver who lives with her figured out that she always got her metacam first and assumed it was because she did a spin, so without me teaching him he took it upon himself to spin before his meds too 🤣
So not only did he teach himself a trick, he demonstrated pretty decent reasoning and logic!
 
SpiritoftheForest said:
(I hope I've posted this in the right place)

I watched Squeak Dreams Youtube video on intelligence and loved it!

Especially the bit about the Guinea pig who can do lots of tricks and has achieved awards for completing dog tricks.

Anyway, it got me thinking, how intelligent are your guinea pigs and do any of you do trick training with them?
Click to expand...
It's a lovely video, her channel is excellent ❤️
 
Eriathwen said:
I taught my Amber to spin before getting her metacam out of necessity because she would almost launch herself out the cage in excitement every time, I was worried she was going to injure herself. Anyway, neutered boar Oliver who lives with her figured out that she always got her metacam first and assumed it was because she did a spin, so without me teaching him he took it upon himself to spin before his meds too 🤣
So not only did he teach himself a trick, he demonstrated pretty decent reasoning and logic!
Click to expand...
They learn from each other, always observing ❤️ Polo learned to beg for food and now he uses his trick to ask to go back to his cage after he has been in the playpen 🥰
 
Eriathwen said:
I taught my Amber to spin before getting her metacam out of necessity because she would almost launch herself out the cage in excitement every time, I was worried she was going to injure herself. Anyway, neutered boar Oliver who lives with her figured out that she always got her metacam first and assumed it was because she did a spin, so without me teaching him he took it upon himself to spin before his meds too 🤣
So not only did he teach himself a trick, he demonstrated pretty decent reasoning and logic!
Click to expand...

That's really clever.
Truffolo said:
It's a lovely video, her channel is excellent ❤️
Click to expand...

It certainly is.
 
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