How to Teach a Guinea Pig to Run Through a Tilting Tunnel

I recently added a new tutorial to the guinea pig tunnel trick tutorial page. This video outlines the steps to teaching your guinea pig to go through a seesaw style tunnel. The particular tunnel in the video is called the Cavy Cannonball Tilting Tunnel, and it's made by HayPigs.com. Usually I make a lot of my own guinea pig agility obstacles and training equipment, but it's pretty cool that a company already makes this one, because honestly, I wouldn't have known exactly how to make this kind of tunnel myself.

Anyway, the tunnel is made mostly out of a tough cardboard material, so it's safe for guinea pigs if they do chew it. It's intended to be used as a toy (you can stuff it with hay or hide treats inside, etc.) but with my guys, I just use it for training. I plan to include it in a little guinea pig agility course once I get around to making a few more agility pieces for my piggies. The tilting tunnel tutorial video can be viewed below, and I also have it embedded on the guinea pig tunnel training page.

While this is a pretty neat trick, I would also consider it to be a fairly advanced trick. Try not to push your guinea pig too fast while teaching this, or get too frustrated with your piggy (or yourself!) I would recommend practicing with the tunnel on the ground by itself for awhile before trying it on the seesaw stand. Make sure your guinea pig is super confident with going through the tunnel separate from the stand, and then slowly progress through the tilting tunnel part. With lots of repetition, patience, and treats, most guinea pigs will continue to gain confidence and gradually improve with this trick. You can also teach your guinea pig to go through different types and shapes of tunnels (most of which are easier to teach if your piggy is struggling with this one) on the guinea pig tunnels page.