# Training my dog to be calm around the cavies



## SilverBeat (Jan 16, 2011)

The guinea pigs make Wallaby extremely anxious/overexcited. One squeak or some rustling for them is enough to send him into a tailspin of whining, psuedo-barking, pacing, and looking from them to me with that "pleeeease?" look on his face. It's pathetic, really. And I intend to put a stop to it.
So. Here's my plan.
Tonight we worked on lying down calmly in front of the sofa, with them in the other room, he did very well, and only towards the end when they started getting rowdy [they know when dinner time is] did he have his one slip-up. Otherwise he was flawless, I am such a proud mama.

Step 2 will be working on him laying calmly by the armchair, which is a bit closer to their cage, with NO pigs in the cage, and the cage covered in a sheet. 
Step 2.1 will be the same, no pigs in the cage, in the armchair, but this time no sheet.
Step 2.2, we will add pigs to the cage. All at once. If we need to we will back up and add them one at a time, but I am confident that at this distance, he can handle them all at once.

Step 3 will be lying down calmly in front of a chair in the same room as the cage, but on the other side of the room, with no pigs, and the cage covered.
Step 3.1 we will subtract the sheet
Step 3.2 we will add the pigs, this time we will go one at a time.

Steps 4-4.2 and 5-5.2 will be basically the same except that the chair will get closer to the cage.

Steps 6-6.2 we will be right in front of the cage, again with the cover/no pigs, then no cover/no pigs, then adding the pigs one at a time.

This whole process will be done on-leash. How would you guys suggest I go about removing the leash from this equation once we have completed every step.
And does this sound like enough gradual steps? What if it isn't, do you guys have any suggestions for how to go more slowly with this?


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## doggiedad (Jan 23, 2011)

if i were training my dog how to behave around the guinea pigs
i would leash him and let him face to face with them. i would do this often.
then i would start giving my dog commands when he's close to the pigs.
when my children were in grade school the class animals cmae to our house
during summer break. we had birds, rabbits, guinea pigs, hampsters, fish,
turtles, etc. our dog met all of the animals while leashed. many times during the course
of a day our dog (leashed) met all of the animals. in due time all was fine. sometimes the
animals were out of their cages walking around or the children were holding them. there was no reaction from the dog.


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## CavePaws (Jan 25, 2011)

I would practice from all over the room, literally, all over the room. Once he has conquered one position try it from another, then another, then another. What I mean is I think instead of just having these set positions you are going to do, you should have an innumerable amount of positions in the room to practice from. This way he generalizes that it's not just this spot, or by this chair, that he must behave.

I would try heeling on leash, slowly building the heeling up to being closer and closer to the pigs. 

And as far as the leash goes, I would give it a try with his leash off once he has learned his zen around the cavies with the leash on. Start completely over at step 1 of step 1 with the leash off, then work your way up to where he was at with the leash on. You could also use a tab line (basically a really short leash that hangs just below his collar) to make the transition if he doesn't get it with the leash off the first time.

edit: Edited to correct my poor spelling, lol. How sad I misspelled heeling...Anywho, I just thought of this too! Do you have any small crates you can put your pigs in and work with Wallaby all over the house with them? I'm trying to think of ways for him to generalize that it's not just the cage he needs to behave around, but the pigs themselves. Generally dogs need at least 7 different areas of learning a "trick" or behavior before it really generalizes to all over the place. Like we can learn algebra in school and pretty easily transfer it to our house at the same level we learned at school...But with dogs a lot of the time it takes them actually re-learning the behavior in at least seven different places before they generalize that the behavior is not limited to one area but expected everywhere.


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## SilverBeat (Jan 16, 2011)

doggiedad said:


> if i were training my dog how to behave around the guinea pigs
> i would leash him and let him face to face with them. i would do this often.
> then i would start giving my dog commands when he's close to the pigs.
> when my children were in grade school the class animals cmae to our house
> ...


I learned the hard way that this is simply unsafe. My dearest Sophie-Mo paid for my ignorance. I need to add distractions extremely slowly with this dog.


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## 3Musketeers (Nov 4, 2010)

The ultimate prize for being calm around the guinea pigs would probably be him getting to take a close look at them, not close enough to freak the pigs out, but enough to make Wallaby happy.
 what happened to Sophie Mo? It was probably too early, with his excitement, to let him have a sniff at them.


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## SilverBeat (Jan 16, 2011)

3Musketeers said:


> The ultimate prize for being calm around the guinea pigs would probably be him getting to take a close look at them, not close enough to freak the pigs out, but enough to make Wallaby happy.
> what happened to Sophie Mo? It was probably too early, with his excitement, to let him have a sniff at them.


Sophie-Mo was very old and her health was failing. She had been to the vet a few times and we couldn't find anything wrong with her, other than just "old age." One day Wallaby got much too close to the guinea pigs' cage, barking/whining and scratching at it wildly, it gave all of them quite a scare. Had their cage not been tightly locked, had I not been RIGHT there to step in... I'd hate to think what could have happened. A few hours after that, Sophie-Mo had a seizure and passed away very suddenly. 

ETA: After the incident, she was in a state of shock, so probably in very little pain. On good days I like to think that Wallaby was just "helping" her to rainbow bridge, because I had debated having her PTS so much, but always decided that no, she still had a good quality of life... Mo was always my favorite cavy. I'm ashamed of the way she was taken from this world.


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