Hello! We recently foster failed a dog and we also have a guinea pig in the home. The dog desperately wants to make friends with the pig. I’m trying to train her to ignore the pig/not stand up to see in the cage. She only does this occasionally but when she does, I say no, give her the off command, and when she disengages and gets down, she gets a high value treat.
My question is, am I rewarding her for standing on the cage? I just want to make sure she understands that the reward comes when she gets down and disengages with the pig.
Also, does anyone have any tips on training with a prey drive? She’s only been out of the shelter for ~3 weeks and she was previously abused/used for breeding so she’s not consistently playing just yet. Otherwise we’d be playing prey drive-y type games!
Note: The guinea pig is SAFE. Her cage is raised, I made a lid, and she truly has no survival instinct lol, she goes right up to sniff the dog, she’s used to our fosters, she doesn’t run or get scared. Additionally, if I notice anything escalating she’ll immediately be moved into our bedroom. The only reason I haven’t done so yet is because her sister recently passed away and I’m not ready for another pig just yet. Guinea pigs are very social animals so I want her to be in the man area of the house until we decide to get her a new friend.
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