This week I spent some time investigating how to teach Nutmeg the trick spin. Spin involves Nutmeg turning in a circle on her own without me guiding her. See the following video for an explanation/demonstration.
From my research, I’m anticipating this trick will be a little harder for Nutmeg to learn and perform. There are 2 reasons for this; the first, Nutmeg has a very short attention span and gets distracted very easily. I’m anticipating it will take some time to get her to move in a full circle without getting distracted. Second, Nutmeg prefers instant gratification, which means she wants her reward as soon as she sees it, not after being lured in a circle. For these reasons I think we may have a bit more trouble learning this trick compared with learning ‘Paws Up’ from last week. But we’ll do our very best together!
Similar to our last trick, I collected a few resources to teach me the best methods for training Nutmeg, and devised a series of steps to follow during our training!
Watching the training videos and reading about this trick, I think it will be a bit of a challenge keeping Nutmeg’s attention long enough for her to move in a full circle so I think I’m really going to need to focus on step #2 of getting her to go in a semi circle (and providing with a reward at the semi circle point) before attempting to get her to go in the full circle before she gets her reward. Hopefully with lots of practice and patience we’ll be able to figure this trick out together! Check back next week to see the post on our progress and what we achieved!
P.S.
On a final unrelated note. We’ve been considering getting Nutmeg a little friend closer to her age, as her two sisters are a number of years older than her. We thought it might be nice for her to have a friend with similar energy levels/as curious as her. So this past week we introduced a new member to the family. This is Coconut! She’s a few months younger than Nutmeg but is similar to Nutmeg in so many ways (especially when it comes to getting into mischief) Coconut and Nutmeg have slowly been getting to know each other and it seems like they are going to be great little friends(:
Resources:
Allison. [Squiggly Pigs]. (2020, March 20). How to Train Your Guinea Pig to Spin [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k60PoSR5Gbo
[Amazing Animal Tricks]. (2016, November 3). How to Teach a Guinea Pig Circle [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsWxslLouPk
American Psychological Association. (n.d.). Apa Dictionary of Psychology. American Psychological Association. https://dictionary.apa.org/immediate-gratification
Guinea Pig Tricks. (n.d.). How to Teach A Guinea Pig to Circle. https://guineapigtricks.com/circle.html
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.