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What Treats to Use for Training Your Guinea Pig

7/7/2015

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A popular question regarding training guinea pigs is what to give them as treats during training sessions. You can essentially use anything that is okay to feed guinea pigs on a daily basis, as long as the guinea pig likes what you are offering them. You don't have to stick to just one thing either; it's a good idea to use different types of foods to help vary their diet.

As a side note, if you decide to use a food that the guinea pig is unfamiliar with, be sure to feed it by hand or in their bowl several times before using it in training sessions. Once they are readily eating the food and seem to enjoy it, you can start to use it in your sessions. Also, keep in mind that store bought treats are not really ideal for training sessions as they are not very healthy to feed to guinea pigs, and should not be fed in large quantities. So, with this in mind, here are some suitable veggies you can choose from:

1. Bell Peppers.
These are a healthy choice for guinea pigs, as they have high vitamin c content, and can be fed frequently. Bell peppers come in green, yellow, orange, and red. You can use any of these colours that you wish, or a combination of all four. I use primarily bell peppers with my own guinea pigs. You can cut them up into bite sized pieces to use them in training sessions, or you can cut them into strips, and give them a bite of it each time.

2. Carrots.
I used to use carrots all the time when training my guinea pigs, but decided to switch to bell peppers, as carrots are high in natural sugars and shouldn't be fed in large quantities every day. That said, I did use carrots for a long time, during which they worked well. I still use them for training sessions, just not so frequently. :) They are a good vegetable to use for training, but it is a good idea to use it more sparingly, and in combination with other vegetables. Carrots can be cut up into bite sized pieces for training sessions, or you can use a big carrot, and offer them a couple bites each time. You can also use baby carrots.... but you may end up in a constant battle of tug a war if your guinea pigs are anything like mine. ;) And they will most likely win too, then run away with their prize.... :P 

3. Romaine Lettuce.
Romaine lettuce is another great veggie to use for training guinea pigs. It is healthy, has good water and vitamin content, and most guinea pigs would eat it all day if they were allowed. :) You can rip up lettuce into pieces to reward your piggy with, or you can just use a whole leaf, and let your guinea pig rip off their own pieces. Either way works. :)

This is by no means a complete list of all the vegetables you can use, but they are the ones I have used personally and that others have used successfully. If you want to research more, go for it! I'm sure there are plenty of options. Just make sure it is a food that is safe for guinea pigs to eat fairly regularly (for example, fruits are best given as only an occasional treat, so probably not ideal to use regularly for training sessions).

If you use something other than the veggies listed above, feel free to comment and share your opinion! I would love to hear what other people use to train their piggies. Until next time, have fun training your piggy! :)

~Jenna & the piggies :)

www.guineapigtricks.com


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How to Get Started Training Your Guinea Pig

7/7/2015

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Making the decision to train your guinea pig is a great first step, but if you are just starting out, there are some other things to consider as well. Here are several things to keep in mind as you dive into this fun new activity with your pet.

1. Make sure the bond between you and your guinea pig is solid. The better the bond with your pet, the quicker they will learn. Being prey animals by nature, a good bond is essential for training as it will give the guinea pig confidence, which in turn will enable them to learn much faster. While a tame pet will still be cautious of some things by nature, they will be much easier to train and can learn things that would be very difficult or impossible for a more skittish guinea pig to learn. An animal that is constantly nervous and paying closer attention to every slight move that you make will be a lot more difficult to train than one that is entirely comfortable with you.

 2. Find your guinea pig's favourite treats. Fresh vegetables are ideal for training as they are much healthier than store bought treats and you can choose from a greater variety. If you don't yet know what your guinea pig likes, try laying out some pieces of a few different foods and see which ones he/she seems to go to most often. Some popular treats to use for training include romaine lettuce, carrots, and bell peppers of any colour. You can use a combination of different foods that your piggy likes for training sessions to help add some variety to their diet.

3. Start simple. When you first start to train your guinea pig, choose easier tricks to help build up confidence in both of you. Some good starting trick choices include circle, stand up, touching a nose target, and going through a hoop. Once you are getting the hang of things, you can progressively begin to teach some more challenging tricks and expand your piggy's repertoire even more. 

4. Remember to stay positive and have fun. The whole point of training is to bond with your piggy and enjoy a fun activity that you can both do together, right? So be creative and just have fun with it! :) 

I hope you were able to get some helpful information from this post. :) For more information on getting started with training, visit the Get Started page.

Also be sure to let me know in the comments whether you have started training your piggy, and what they have learned so far! :)

'Til next time, have fun training with your piggy!

~Jenna & the piggies

www.guineapigtricks.com


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An Introduction to Me & The Piggies!

7/4/2015

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Hi! Welcome to our website! I thought I would start this blog off with a post about me and the guinea pigs that taught me so much over the last few years. There are four of us altogether so far (me and 3 piggies). I'll start by sharing a bit about my background, and lead into each of the piggies.....

So my name is Jenna. I live in Canada and I am an animal trainer, and have been training all kinds of animals since I was really young. Training animals is something that has always clicked with me. It feels more intuitive to me than anything else, and I often learn as I go when working with my pets. I love animals of all kinds and have been told I've always been exceptionally patient (particularly with animals!) I love creativity, unique ideas, and I usually have a knack for crafting and making things. I believe every animal is intelligent and has potential to learn much more than they are given credit for. My goal with all my animals is to teach them as much as I possibly can to show people this potential that is so often overlooked. Animals really are much more intelligent than they get credit for, they just need someone to help them reach that potential. :)


Anyway, I first started getting into animal training when I was only 9 or 10 years old, when I casually began training my guinea pig, Teddy. I absolutely loved Teddy, and she was probably the most tolerant guinea pig ever. She was a brown guinea pig with a white crest on her head, and she was the absolute sweetest piggy ever. She was my little baby, she loved being with me, and would always come to me for attention. She also put up with my every mistake as I was learning, didn't run off, picked up on things even though I kept switching to different tricks and didn't work with her on a regular basis, etc. Just the best teacher you could ever ask for. :) She ended up learning only a handful of tricks; circle, stand up, push a ball around, and go through a tunnel. Maybe a couple others, but those were her best tricks, and the ones I videotaped. I included the video of Teddy doing these 4 tricks in the video below. Please forgive the lack of video quality and yes, I know her nails are long. I used to be terrified of clipping the quick, so often let them go. Thank goodness I am over that now, because I can't believe how long I used to let them grow. :/ Anyway, this video is several years old, only 49 seconds long. It does make me smile to see Teddy doing all her tricks though, she was such a sweetheart. <3
Teddy gave me the ever so important foundation with animal training that is priceless in most any situation; from building a house to learning to read. Teddy passed away at 4 years old. I miss my sweet girl and am so grateful to have had her in my life. <3
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My next piggy also touched my life in an incredible way, and took my training to a whole new level. Spartan, another white crestie, and my amazingly smart, confident, sweet, and all around incredible little guy is a bit difficult to talk about still, as I lost my little baby on Sunday, December 14, 2014. It still feels like yesterday though.... I usually try not to think about him, as it brings tears to my eyes every time (it is already). Spartan was like Teddy in the way that I was super close to him and he was more like a little puppy than a guinea pig. He was always next to me, always under my feet, I couldn't walk across a little room without being followed, and he was always climbing all over me, trying to get into everything I was doing. :) Whenever he couldn't follow me outside the room and I had to close the door on him, he would stay right by the door and squeal loudly in protest, he really would have followed me everywhere if he was allowed. I actually miss tripping over him and constantly chasing my naughty little rascal away from eating books, houseplants, wires, shelves, and anything else remotely edible (or not). He had a total dog-like personality in so many ways and a high level of confidence that is not often seen in guinea pigs. Spartan was just really special in a way I can't exactly describe.

As we progressed in our training, and his trick repertoire grew substantially, I swear he picked up new things faster than a border collie. His last new trick that he ever learned involved flipping up a hoop and going through; he didn't know any tricks that were too similar to this, but I only had to lure him once with a treat to show him what to do. After that, he was doing it all by himself without any further guidance from me. The speed at which he picked that up even surprised me. My other guinea pig, Ceico, who is still with me now, is pretty smart and typically picks up new things fairly quickly in comparison to other guinea pigs, and it took him 3-4 sessions to learn the same trick.

Spartan was truly the most amazing animal I have ever met in my life, and a true trick piggy. Watching him do all his tricks mesmerized me, thinking up new things to teach him was a blast, and watching the videos I put together of his tricks amazed me all over again, even though I was there every step of every trick he ever learned. Most of the tricks I taught Spartan were unique; there were not many other guinea pigs that knew tricks at the time, and even watching trick videos of dogs did not help much, as there are really not very many dog tricks that guinea pigs can learn due to their extreme differences in physical abilities. A lot of the trick ideas I tested out with Spartan were things that I had no idea how he would respond to, or whether or not he would even physically be capable of doing them. He always took on every challenge I could throw at him though, no matter how big or small, even though it was new to both him and me.

My goal for Spartan was always for him to learn 100 tricks; as time passed, I thought he would actually reach it. Unfortunately, by the time his 4 short years were up, his repertoire totaled at 50+. Still impressive, but he had so much potential still..... Another 2 years and I'm sure he would have reached it though. He really was getting closer, and I just knew he would be able to do it. I think his purpose in life was more to teach me though. I'm sure if I had the same knowledge and experience when I started working with him as I have now, he would have been able to learn way more. I was still very new to animal training when I got Spartan, he was with me as I learned everything and taught me nearly everything I know up to this point. It is honestly heartbreaking to know he's gone.... He was such an incredible piggy who I miss immensely. Words really can't describe the feeling....

I unfortunately never got the chance to record and put together a full video of all his tricks though. I was actually in the process of reviewing everything he had learned so we could make a video of it, but that is when he passed away..... I am forever grateful to have had Spartan in my life though. He was my little angel and was so special to me in so many ways. Even with all the tricks he learned, I think I still learned way more from him than he did from me. Working with Spartan showed me that guinea pigs are much smarter than they are given credit for and are capable of learning amazing things, besides super simple tricks people regularly teach them. Believe me, they definitely can learn pretty complex "wow factor" behaviours that are just truly amazing. :) And now that Spartan has shown me what is possible, I will be sure to keep reaching for the impossible....

Below-- A couple of Spartan's most recent tricks he learned before he passed away.....


*Above* A collection of video clips I had previously that I put together. This still does not show everything he learned, but some of his best and more advanced tricks are included. :) Video clips range from 7-8 months ago (shortly before he passed away) to incredibly old.

Anyway, I'm sorry for that insanely long write up about Spartan.... I know that could have been a blog post all on its own. I could honestly write a book about Spartan. I have so much to say about my boy. Especially because I miss him so much still. But there is still one more piggy I haven't yet introduced....


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This is the little rascal that lives with me now. ;) Ceico has been with me about 3 years now, and is a smart little guy, in a different way than Spartan though. He can be independent and sometimes likes to invent his own fun games. For example, he loves to play "catch me if you can" where he will try his best to not be caught, but not in a frightened way of course. :) He truly loves this game. He will start when it gets close to the time to go back to his cage. He'll sit beside a shelf or something he can get under, and wait for me. He will even let me pet him and scratch his back, but no matter how quick I am, he will wiggle away before I am able to pick him up. :) Once gone, he will make sure to sit in the one tiny corner I am not able to reach him. If I ignore him for any period of time though, he is back out within 2 minutes waiting in the same spot to repeat the exercise. That's my silly pig, lol. :P He is quite skilled at knowing the exact spots to go to where it is most difficult to get him. Plus, if I move to the other side of the shelf to get closer to him, he will adjust his location accordingly, and be waiting for me in his new impossible-to-reach spot. So that is Ceico's intelligence type in a nutshell. :) He is very intuitive though, and will respond to quieter, less obvious cues. He also picks up on your emotions easily (which can be a good or bad thing). He loves to run around and play, and likes to popcorn around while he is out exploring every day. :) While he can be a bit unsure of some things, he does love hearing "Good Boy!" and often that is all it takes to get him back on track if he is lacking confidence with something. :) Ceico also has the cutest little "doll" face. :) He has a few other quirks as well that are unique. For example, he prefers to eat food from your hand rather than the floor, and he also has a ticklish spot on his side (and he purrs and kicks his foot if you touch his ticklish spot :P)

Ceico is a bit more nervous about noises and such than Spartan was (we are working on that :) but he has still developed a decent repertoire of tricks to date, about 35-40+ tricks approximately. Despite this, he seems to be more confident with agility courses than tricks. He seems to enjoy the courses more too, sometimes he doesn't even want to stop, lol. :)

Ceico has helped me to learn so much more about training guinea pigs, as he needed a different approach than Spartan for nearly everything I taught him. His learning style is so different from the other 2 piggies I've had, and it definitely made me more aware of how different animals (whether they are the same species or not) can require totally different approaches for the same trick. Ceico has really helped me to recognize many things and "balance" me out so to speak, in terms of adapting to working with 2 guinea pigs of totally opposite personalities. I wouldn't consider him more difficult or challenging to work with though, but it was very much different than what I was used to. I still love my little piggy, though, and although he picked up a few of Spartan's "silly habits" he knows when he is not supposed to be doing something. (you should see his guilty look when he's chewing something he's not supposed to. Lol :P)


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Anyway, bringing this to a close, my hopes with this website is to be able to help others who are interested in training their piggies too. It is really awesome to see your guinea pig progress and learn new tricks, and is truly rewarding to watch, not to mention a great way to spend time with your piggy. :) I love seeing others that teach their guinea pigs tricks, as well as have a strong bond with their piggy, and I want to try to reach out to help others that want to, but don't know how to achieve this with their guinea pig. There really is nothing better than having a guinea pig that follows you around like a dog. :)

Anyway, if you read through this whole super long monster post, congrats. :) I hope you liked reading a bit about us! 'Til next time, have fun training with your piggy!

~Jenna and the piggies. :)

GuineaPigTricks.com


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    About

    Welcome to the Guinea Pig Tricks blog! Here you will find articles about guinea pig training that may not be on the other pages of the site, and more detailed posts about common questions and problems regarding teaching tricks to your guinea pigs. If you have any suggestions for topics you would like to see me write about on this blog, you are more than welcome to email me through the contact page on this site with your suggestion. Otherwise, feel free to read through the posts and have fun training your piggy! :)

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