What can your guinea pigs do that impress you?

baleofhay

Junior Guinea Pig
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The humble guinea pig will never be considered as mighty as a lion nor as majestic as a stallion, but they are pretty impressive in their own right and we still love them all the same. What guinea pig traits do you consider impressive?

My Sylvie, for instance, can teleport. Either that or she can run sideways faster than the speed of light. She will be facing me forward and then a split second later she will be a foot away still facing me without me ever seeing her move. I am always so amazed! She's so light on her feet, so nimble!

I am also impressed by their ingenuity. They have the classic plastic igloos in their cages, they are light and easily moved around. I might clean their cage and put all the igloos back on the vetbed, but you better be sure Jack will pick it up on his shoulders and carry it to the hay!
 
Not to mention their reaction to the idea of food. Mine are all currently marching around as it's their veggie time soon. Russell, the one who had major surgery like a month ago will be standing on his back feet begging for his lettuce. It's incredible. And yes then they will eat it lightning quick and I'll be spot cleaning it tomorrow hahaha.
 
The Ever Beautiful Betsy has trained herself to go in the corner tunnel whenever I say "Run time" or "Hutch time" (depending on what time of the day it is. Patsy and Meg beg for their morning and evening Metacam and I have to give it to both of them at the same time or they attempt to have a double dose. Meg will stand on her hind legs as soon as I enter the garage and say "What's this girls! as it means treat time. I have failed miserably to get a pigture of this though.
 
Ollie pigwig is a veritable piggy genius at solving cardboard box and paper bag puzzles to obtain treat veg. He has mastered the closed paper bag, the lift the flap box, the eggbox, and has recently graduated to opening and flipping a large egg box for 12 eggs with alternate pieces cut out...
He's so clever at finding cryptic veggies and strawberry tops I'm wondering if I could train him to mine bitcoins with his clever nose and advanced piggy logic skills, to pay for his own strawberry habit and my retirement fund :)
 
Timekeeping skills!
As someone that struggles with timekeeping I'm always astounded by how they're always at the cage bars waiting for me when I come downstairs in the morning ready for breakfast. And the first time a human moves after 6pm the house is filled with the wheeking of demanding little potatoes in need of a salad. Who needs a clock when you have piggies
 
Timekeeping skills!
As someone that struggles with timekeeping I'm always astounded by how they're always at the cage bars waiting for me when I come downstairs in the morning ready for breakfast. And the first time a human moves after 6pm the house is filled with the wheeking of demanding little potatoes in need of a salad. Who needs a clock when you have piggies

It's a running joke that I'm nearly impossible to wake up, and I can sleep through a heck of a lot (fell asleep in an A&E department, helluva testament to my skills lol), and you know the only thing that's guaranteed to wake me? A cranky guinea pig who was meant to be fed a half a second ago.
 
Everything they do amazes me. They have huge personalities, and very individual personalities too.
As said above, they are very good time keepers. They are well established slave trainers.

One of my RB piggies (Loki) would come out to sit with me and groom me. Then take a nap on my lap 🌈
My precious boy Odin 🌈, literally was my best friend in the world. Followed me everywhere, climbed into my hand at every opportunity, preferred to nap on me rather than in his cage with his buddy. A bond that there aren’t words to describe.

So I think what amazes me the most is the level of trust these little guys (prey animals) can have in us (predators). Similar to how much the horses amaze me; to trust us humans as they do is a miracle in itself ❤️
 
I agree about knowing mealtimes. Before I knew how much they should be eating, I used to give a plate of wheatbran every night at my bedtime.
Now if I try to switch off the sitting room lights and sneak away to bed, Shadow wakes from her sleep, and runs out and tells me off!
 
I’m sure Hector and Kiki know when OH car pulls up on the drive. They can’t see it but certainly know he’s back home as they always come to the bars just in case there’s a treat going, I’ve sat and watched this reaction several times lately, they are amazing opportunists
 
I can’t believe the volume of these small animals.
The first day my husband was working from home and I walked into the house - cue Jemimah wheeking for food.
He came running downstairs thinking something was wrong.

Jemimah had the loudest wheek although Micah is working on upping his volume too.
 
The most impressive thing is the way the wound my partner round their little paws, he was not pet person at all. Now he feeds them and looks after them as much as I do. He even looks after them and cleans them out when I go away. They wheeked like mad when he drew up outside in the car after a weekend away, that tells me he spoils them. They never get that excited when I come home!
 
Incite a riot at 3am.
That made me have a full on belly laugh. They absolutely do riot! Knock over every bowl and house, hay strewn from end to end, vetbed becomes tunnels. Oh man the level of destruction of these guys is impressive. AND at the best moments, which from others pointing out their time keeping skills, is not random haha. How much I love these guys.
Everything they do amazes me. They have huge personalities, and very individual personalities too.
As said above, they are very good time keepers. They are well established slave trainers.

One of my RB piggies (Loki) would come out to sit with me and groom me. Then take a nap on my lap 🌈
My precious boy Odin 🌈, literally was my best friend in the world. Followed me everywhere, climbed into my hand at every opportunity, preferred to nap on me rather than in his cage with his buddy. A bond that there aren’t words to describe.

So I think what amazes me the most is the level of trust these little guys (prey animals) can have in us (predators). Similar to how much the horses amaze me; to trust us humans as they do is a miracle in itself ❤️
You know the quote from the Dick King Smith's book, "One especially nice thing about guinea pigs is that if you make a fuss over them, they become really fond of you." I think I do make quite a fuss over them, but they give us so much in return.
 
I’ve managed to teach a few pigs some tricks for small food rewards. But I think the most impressive has to be what Bertie taught himself, which I like to call “the revenge bite”. So Bertie is a clever piggy. When he was young he learned that if you did something he didn’t like (like cutting his nails) he would give a small bite and the thing he didn’t like would stop (for a moment anyway). Well, it was easy for me to avoid his mouth as he’s so fluffy and I made sure that any fingers were between his teeth and the fluff (or the fluff shelf as I like to call it) so I would avoid the bite. But Bertie learned my trick, and so developed the revenge bite. So when you’d stopped doing what was annoying him, and you thought you were safe, he’d then take the bite. He will wait a few minutes to get that bite in. One time I was giving him a cuddle and he bite me on my neck. So now if I can tell he’s planning a revenge bite I make sure he’s presented with some material on my sleeve and he hasn’t tweaked he isn’t giving me a bite. Hopefully he doesn’t realise my deception. He is a sweet boy most of the time, honest!
 
One of mine can make his way back to his cage no matter what room i put him in, and will scratch at a door for me to open it.

The impressive part, is that he manages to do this the 1st time I took him to a different room; and i've only had him for a few weeks!
 
Speed eating. My lot are champion speed eaters. Boris, Evie and Iris can speed eat their daily pellet ration in a matter of moments - so much so that there is often a human discussion about the empty pellet bowl and I have to replay my steps in my head to remember if I did put pellets in or not.
 
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