I disagree with what
@Little Piglets says about taking out hideys and not talking to your piggies as you walk past. Piggies need to have places to hide so they feel safe this is especially important when they are new and skittish and it actually helps them to settle. Also if you talk to them as you approach they get to know your voice and that you're not a threat cos a predator never makes a noise. Put yourself where they are. They have been taken away from their family, put somewhere big and scary, just as they were getting used to that they have been taken somewhere else scary with different smells and huge giants(you). No wonder the poor things are frightened. To them you may eat them it's up to you to teach them that you won't. There is an excellent Piggy Whispering guide on the guides at the top of the page (can't link in on this device). You feel like a bit of an idiot doing some of them but they work. Just make sure nobody's around! It's not silly if you are a guinea pig.
You can't do it right off the bat, and I'm not talking about weeks on end, and it's probably better suited to small herds vs. a singular gp or a couple boars, etc.. Once they are familiar with the surroundings, you CAN remove hiding spots for a bit, put them back after awhile, alternate them out with other boxes, move them to different ends of the cage, etc.. It won't kill them or cause them to have a heart attack, so long as they aren't chattering their teeth at you or something. It's more helpful for gp that hide no matter what, even after being familiar with you. GP that are tame and at least indoor gp, shouldn't really run and hide when you enter if they are familiar with you and are friendly. Ideally, they'll just go about what they were doing as if you never entered the room. So if they are eating hay and you walk in, they shouldn't insta-hide, they just continue eating. Pulling hiding spots out, moving them around, etc. teaches them to be less fearful of
you, or at least it works with mine. For the record, they still HAVE cubbies to sleep/hide in, but they get alternated out and moved a lot. Hiding when I enter is rare.
As far as "sounds" go, it has
ZERO to do with predators. It's the opposite of doing something like saying "treat" and getting a veggie reward. It's akin to saying "
I'm coming to grab you, everyone run and hide while you still can".
They WILL associate your words with whatever is happening to them. I'm not talking about calm gp eating hay, you walk in sit next to the cage, then start talking about your day at work. I'm referring to bad
timing with words. You see people do it with dogs all the time, and the dog just does whatever it wants due to poor word-timing during training i.e. "no" means ignore you OR worse, it means "you are getting a beating" so it instantly urinates when it hears "no".
About the ONLY thing that routinely "triggers" my sow herd, regardless, is the back of my computer chair faces their cage, so they can't technically see me even though I'm about 5 feet away some of the time. ANYTIME I raise my hand above the seat back like to stretch, especially at night with only my 55" monitor's lighting on, they get insta-spooked, as my hand appearing out of essentially no where, WOULD be akin to a large bird predator that hunts at night. They then all scatter to wherever. Even then, that's a more natural response vs. hiding because you walk into the room even though they hear you coming, then saying "guinea pigs", which they've learned in the past meant you were trying to pick them up when they were still skittish.
You can use "treats!" as an ice breaker once they associate the word with something positive as a way to keep them from hiding when entering a room, so long as you reward them for it. They'll come running, right? After awhile, you ween them off of it, by saying nothing when entering the room. They'll go about their business. IF you enter the room and say "HI PIGGIES" while they are running and hiding, guess what "Hi Piggies" means to them?
And just to drive the matter further of word timing, my self-black boar Scottie can purr on command and will wheek if I ever say "Want to go see her" despite it only ever having been used to socialize through the bars with Susie my sow, months ago. He still remembers what that means.
