A couple months ago, mom showed me this weird looking thing. Of course the first thing I did was try to eat it. Hmm…. didn’t taste as good as I thought it would. It was sorta soft, but pretty tasteless and hard to chew. Mom didn’t seem to want me to chew it anyway. Not like that usually stops me, but I think she was probably right this time. Maybe some things just aren’t any good for eating.
Anyway, just when I was arriving at the conclusion that this thing was pretty boring and pointless, mom brought out the treats! This soft flimsy thing must have something to do with a new trick! I proceeded to turn my attention back to the thing she was calling a “bandana.”
I picked it up a bunch of times and even threw it with all my power! But nothing resulted in any treats. Apparently I was right. This thing was pointless. I can’t even use it to get treats from the human.
Then mom held a treat on the other side of the fabric thing. I tried my best to reach the lettuce without touching the bandana, but that was proving pretty much impossible. After inspecting it from all angles, I decided I would just dive in and grab the treat.
That worked pretty well for a few times. However, after a few treats, mom slipped the bandana all the way around my neck while I was busy eating! The nerve!
It felt pretty strange, but she kept feeding me treats, so I figured it wasn’t so bad. After a minute or so, I even kinda forgot about it. Then I tried to walk with it on, and boy that was weird!
At that point, I tried to shake it off, which only made it shift over to my chest. I couldn’t figure out how to walk with this thing on! After that, mom gave me some more treats and took it off.
A few days later, she put another one on! Great.
However, this one also came with lots of treats, and mom kept saying what a good boy I am and how handsome I looked. And I do like being told I’m a good boy….
Anyway, now mom seems to have a new bandana for me every week! I can’t say I’m thrilled about that, but I seem to notice them less every time she puts them on. But if she starts skimping on the lettuce, then we’re going to have a problem!
Lately she also started bringing the camera out and taking pictures of me! I’ve always liked the camera. Every time it comes out, I get to do tricks and get lots and lots of treats!
This is pretty similar, except I get treats for staying still instead of bouncing around and doing my usual stuff. To be honest, I think staying still is harder sometimes!
I have quite a collection of bandanas now. Mom says I’m a very photogenic boy. I’m not sure what that means, but she also says I’m “so cute” and “such a good boy” and I know what both of those mean! Usually that I’m getting lots of treats!
She also says the word “handsome” a lot when I’m wearing them. I’m not sure what that means either, but she always sounds happy and gives me lots of food while she’s saying it, so that must be a good thing too!
I don’t really mind these neck thingies too much anymore…. Well most of the time. I think mom might be starting to take this bandana thing too far though. Do you know what she did the other day?
She put THIS on me. Yes. A pink cupcake bandana. I think I’m going to have to put my paw down soon. No amount of lettuce is going to make up for this. She even put the picture up on Facebook! She’s going to get some pretty unimpressed glares in her pictures from now on if she keeps this up.
So of course I know how to put a ball into a cup. Actually, I know it all too well. And you know, sometimes it gets a little boring doing a trick that I already know. So since my human lacks the creativity, sometimes I need to take matters into my own paws and spruce up the tricks all on my own! Putting a ball in a cup was a prime opportunity for that! I mean, I can play basketball and put the ball in a net! Why should I be downgraded to putting it in a cup on the floor? Basketball is way more fun (and so much cooler) than that!
Plus, the human needs to lighten up and learn to have some fun once in a while. I don’t always have time during training sessions to be my usual silly self (there’s only a few minutes to eat as much as I can!) so I usually reserve goofiness for times when there’s no food involved. But sometimes it’s pretty hard to resist the opportunity when I have the human’s full undivided attention (they’re pretty easily distracted creatures you know!)
Basketball is way more fun than just putting a ball in a cup.
Now THIS…. This is fun.
Anyway, what was I talking about again? Oh yeah. The human doesn’t seem to mind too much when I act silly during training time, although she never feeds me for it. She usually just laughs at me and tells me what a silly pig I am. Sometimes I’m a goofball too, or even a silly fuzzball! I’m not sure what any of that means, but she always seems happy when she says it (not happy enough to feed me though!)
On another note, can you believe the video above is only 38 seconds?! So disappointing, I swear I had enough footage for at least 3 minutes! The human shouldn’t have edited so much. I mean, sure, I did the same thing a few times, but how creative do you expect me to be? All she gave me was a couple balls and a cup. It was as if she actually expected me to just put the balls in the cup without adding my own dramatic flair! Personally, I was pretty proud of myself, given what I had to work with.
I think that was enough silliness for one video though. I think I might even stick to being silly outside of training time from now on (well, until tomorrow anyway.) I mean, it was fun, but a little too much work for my taste if there’s no food involved!
Anyway, thanks for reading my latest adventure!
~Ace
Note from Ace’s human:
Only Ace can turn something from simple to silly in the blink of an eye. He’s a true clown in every sense and loves to add his own flair to everything. ♥
Hey guys! So my human and I have been working on all kinds of tricks over the last several months. Everything you can imagine – from doing tricks at a distance and weaving cones, to closing doors and playing fetch! I always look forward to playing fetch with my favorite ball (the human always dishes out extra food for that trick) although it’s kind of annoying when she rolls it ALL the way across the room. I mean, come on, I am a guinea pig after all! Running all the way across the room for any reason isn’t exactly on the top of my list of fun things to do.
I can also push a shopping cart, raise a flag, and play basketball, among many other tricks! I even do scent work, where I find one particular scent in a group of ten different smelling objects. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the scent I’ve learned to find – I think it stinks to high heaven! At least I get a treat when I track down the funny smelling thing.
Anyway, my human recently got all excited and told me I was officially a champion trick guinea pig! I mean, I already knew I was great, so I don’t know why she seemed to make a big deal out of it. But not wanting to miss out on a prime opportunity, I, of course, took the chance to act cute and beg for more treats (it works every time!)
She also took pictures of me with this giant ribbon thing and another shiny circle thing (the shiny circle thing tasted good by the way!) She didn’t seem to want me to chew the ribbon thing (which is a sure sign that it must taste good!) so it was harder to test that one (although I still managed to get a nibble or two when she wasn’t looking!)
Is that all mine?
Yum!
My human recorded all of my champion tricks and made them into a video to show me. The video was a bit on the long side for me though. I only watched about 5 minutes of it (or was it 5 seconds?) before I started to get bored. I mean, I had a lot of eating to catch up on! Plus, I already know how smart I am!
But if you want to watch it, my human attached the video at the top of this post. Maybe you won’t have to eat as much as me and can watch the whole thing!
Thanks for reading my latest adventure!
~ Ace
Note from Ace’s human:
Ace was certified as a Champion Trick Dog (TDCH) by DoMoreWithYourDog.com. He previously earned his novice, intermediate, advanced, and expert titles before being qualified to submit a champion title. His video submission (above) was approved on January 31, 2017 and he was added to the list of official champion trick dogs/animals here. Guinea pigs can do dog tricks too! Go Acey! 🙂
Lately my body has been feeling weird. Like every time I try to stand up or jump onto the human’s legs there’s this odd feeling that comes with it. A sharp aching feeling trying to pull me the opposite way.
It makes me feel so conflicted, because I love to jump and stand up to beg for food. The human seems to know about this feeling somehow, because she always discourages me from trying to stand up or jump on things. Normally, I would do it anyway, but this time I don’t really want to argue.
The feeling also comes sometimes when I first wake up. It doesn’t like mornings too much. I try to ignore it, but it gets really annoying sometimes. Mom made me this foam thingy for my cage and said it would help.
At first, I was kinda annoyed that it took up most of my sleeping space. I mean, doesn’t mom know that I like to sleep on hard surfaces? Mom told me it’s almost winter again and I need to stop sleeping on the bare floor. Who’s she to say where I can and can’t sleep?
Shortly after the foam thing arrived in my cage, she started covering every inch of the floor with blankets. Can you believe that? She also moved my water bottle into my hay box so I can’t even sleep under my leaky bottle anymore.
She’s got some nerve, I’ll tell you. I tried kicking the blankets away, but that got tiring pretty fast. She kept putting them back, and for some reason, I seem to get tired faster than she does now.
So eventually I just fell asleep on them. Oddly enough, I actually slept…. good. (Don’t ever tell mom that though!) The blankets are actually quite snuggly and well…. warm. It was a little bit nice. But just a tiny, little bit.
After that, I decided to sleep on the foam thing, because, well it’s taking up half my cage anyway. And I guess it wasn’t entirely terrible. Mom even put a blanket on top of the foam thing, with my house on top of that! That was far too tempting to ignore.
Normally, I would find that way too warm, but mom’s a little bit right about the “winter” thing. It is getting kinda cold in our room. I don’t remember it being this cold in the years before, but maybe it has something to do with the feeling I’ve been getting the rest of the time.
I can’t help but wonder if this was how Ceico felt all those years. He never wanted to play with me, and he always liked snuggling up in those blankets the human gave us. Now I’m starting to act like Ceico too! And I don’t even know why.
It’s not like I overly enjoy sleeping or cuddling in things (or staying still). There’s just this new fuzzy feeling I get when I do them. It beats the aching feeling I get when I bounce around, even though that used to be a lot of fun.
The human also made me this little ramp to get into my hay box. It’s a little annoying because it sits right in the middle of my walkway. However, I discovered that if I actually use it, it takes away the aching feeling I get every time I jump into my hay box. I wonder if the human knew that would happen.
The human says I’ve been in her heart for 5 years. She seems kind of sad about that, and also happy. I wonder what that means.
That feeling that started in my legs seems to have spread over my whole body now. I sleep a lot, because that’s the only time the feeling truly goes away.
The human comes and pets me all the time. I don’t feel like protesting, so I just close my eyes and enjoy the gentle strokes across my head.
The last week or so has been the most tiring time I could ever imagine. The human keeps coming in and trying to squirt some stuff in my mouth. Says it is “food.” Well, I know what real food is, and let me tell you, it doesn’t taste like that.
Admittedly I’ve been too tired to eat real food lately. It’s not that I don’t try, but chewing is so exhausting… Sometimes I start to eat, and then end up falling asleep before I can even finish it.
Dreaming is more peaceful than being awake now. I dream of running and playing, because I can’t do that when I’m awake anymore. I also dream of eating real food, not the green gunk that the human insists on putting in my mouth.
I love my human, but being awake is so hard…. I feel torn between her and the happy feeling I have when I am dreaming.
One day I fell into a deep sleep. Deeper than usual. I could feel my human nearby, but for some reason, I couldn’t wake up. The tired feeling washed over me even more.
When I woke up, I felt so much better! The feeling was gone! That feeling that was clouding over me for 2 years was actually gone. I got up effortlessly, running over to the human like I always do.
Then I noticed she was crying.
She didn’t look at me when I climbed on her leg. She was looking at another guinea pig. One that looked just like me, I think. Was it me? It couldn’t be, I was right here!
She was saying my name and looking at that other guinea pig. Calling him a good boy. Suddenly I realized that she thought that was me. I tried to get her attention, but she was so wrapped up in the other guinea pig. She looked so sad.
She has looked so sad for a couple weeks now, but I was too tired to make her smile. If only she could look at me now! I could show off all the things I can do again and make her so happy! She couldn’t seem to see me at all anymore. It was like I was invisible.
Suddenly, I noticed another guinea pig. It was Ceico! I haven’t seen Ceico in a whole year! Mom said he had to go away for awhile. She started giving me a lot of cuddles after that.
I touched noses with Ceico as he walked up to me. I noticed Ceico was running now too! Ceico was slow for most of the 5 years that I knew him. Did he struggle with the same feeling as me?
He wanted me to follow him. But how can I leave my mom when she is so sad? She is so confused. I mean, she still thinks I am trapped inside that other guinea pig!
Ceico told me that’s how humans grieve, and that there is nothing I can do to help. He told me I can come back and visit, but the human won’t be able to see us anymore.
He said that our new home is amazing, and has lots of grass to eat and play in! The only bad part, he says, is that the humans can’t come with us. But we can always see them and watch over them.
With that, I finally agreed to go with Ceico. I ran back to the human one last time and climbed up on her leg to say goodbye. I hope the human knows that I am okay now. And I hope that soon, my human is okay too.
Lately my buddy Ceico has been learning to paint a picture using something the human likes to call, “the paintbrush.”
The paintbrush is this stick shaped thing, with a funny looking feathery part poking out of one end. It kind of looks like a long skinny carrot, although it isn’t orange like a carrot (and trust me, it doesn’t taste like one either!)
Anyway, Ceico has been learning this new trick for a couple weeks now, but the silly human didn’t let me try it out! I can paint too, just like Ceico can!
Plus, the human knows I like to put my own spin on tricks, and there is just so much I can do with this trick! I started to think maybe there was a reason why she doesn’t want to teach me this trick, although I can’t imagine what it may be…..
*Above* A couple of Ceico’s finished masterpieces.
Anyway, the human gave in eventually and finally introduced me to the skinny carrot. As I mentioned previously, “the paintbrush” thing tasted nothing like carrots! How disappointing.
However, there was still a lot of stuff I could do with this trick. Of course the next obvious thing to try was the feathery bristles on the end! I learned quickly that the human definitely didn’t want me to chew on the feathery end.
I, of course, thought she was wrong. Those feathers look edible for sure! But it turned out that the feathers aren’t actually made of hay, and they’re pretty boring and tasteless. So okay, I guess the human was right this time; eating this new toy was out of the question.
So I resorted to picking up the paintbrush. That seemed to work, since the human offered food every time I picked it up.
So…. it was time to have a little fun. I tried picking up the paintbrush again, and put some extra energy into it, throwing the brush as far as I could. No treat. Huh. Not being one to give up so easily, I kept trying of course, thinking the human would change her mind (because throwing the paintbrush is kind of fun!)
My new toy, aka “The Paintbrush.”
We ended up kind of meeting in the middle. I learned that I could pick up the brush with my usual enthusiasm, but the feathery part at the end had to touch the white paper that was sitting beside me.
I still threw in an extra toss here and there to see if the human was paying attention, but she seemed pretty adamant that the brush was not supposed to be thrown across the room.
We practiced picking up the paintbrush and throwing it at the paper for a few days (pretty boring, I know!) Until one day the human decided to try something different (finally!)
This time, she seemed slightly hesitant to give me the paintbrush for some reason, but as soon as she did, I made sure to inspect the new changes thoroughly. The feathery part on the end was blue instead of its usual beige color. I got a little closer for a quick sniff, and it definitely smelled different too! Not like food exactly, but it sure was interesting!
Anyway, the human seemed to want me to keep touching the paper like we had been practicing, so I humored her a couple of times. She seemed surprisingly happy (and sort of relieved?) that I was doing the same thing we had practiced.
Then she dipped the feathers into something, and the interesting smell became even stronger! As soon as she set the brush down on the floor, I knew I only had one chance.
Snatching the brush, I turned and ran as fast as I could, looking for a place where I could inspect this new smell in privacy. The paintbrush was a lot bigger than I expected though. It didn’t quite fit through all the spaces I could, so I might have dropped it and hit it against a few more things than I intended to. After a few tries, I finally managed to get it under the table into my secret den.
The human’s eyes grew wide as she exclaimed, “No, Acey!” Seeing as the damage was already done, she surveyed the room, not looking surprised, but not too thrilled, either. Then, sighing, she retrieved my brush from under the table and ruffled my fur, saying something about “needing to cover the whole room in paper for me.”
Not going to lie, that sounds like even more fun!
My painting so far! I think the human still wants to try and finish it (after the room is covered in paper, of course!)
Thanks for reading my latest adventure!
~Ace
P.S. Stay tuned for an update when I finally finish my painting, to see how the rest of my painting experience turns out. 🙂
My human told me one day, that fear means there’s something awesome on the other side. I, of course, would have set her straight right from the beginning if I could talk! After all, guinea pigs know best! If there’s fear, it probably means there’s a giant bird about to swoop down on you! But it’s clear humans have a funny interpretation of fear, so I just went along with it this time.
So, I’m pretty proud to say, I don’t get scared easily. Ceico may run for the hills at every little insignificant noise, but I like to be brave and watch out for my human. (Plus, Ceico doesn’t know this, but sometimes those noises involve food, and I like to get a head start!)
Now after hearing that, you may be a bit surprised at the next part of this story. As you might already know, breezing through new tricks like I already know them is kind of what I do! So it was a little odd when I hit a brick wall with a new (and otherwise quite ordinary) trick. My human was even more surprised, pondering why I was acting so odd with a new trick.
I guess describing this trick as “ordinary” wasn’t totally accurate, so I’ll fill in some background on it. This trick was going to be my very last trick to learn and include in my video submission to become a Champion trick guinea pig! Oddly enough, it was also the very last trick that my human’s previous guinea pig, Spartan, learned just before he passed away. My human always speaks very highly of Spartan, and says he learned this trick within just one short training session! I guess he one-upped me on this trick! There’s a video of Spartan below if you want to see my human’s first trick piggy (before I was even born, can you imagine!)
So what trick am I referring to exactly?
Well, the trick in question involved flipping up this colourful triangular shaped hoop thing and going through it. Sounds simple enough, right? But for whatever reason, it felt odd to me when I put my paws up and it started to tip towards me. So what did I do?
I jumped off immediately and bolted. I know, I know, what a chicken. My human couldn’t believe my reaction and immediately tried to reassure me that the hoop was perfectly safe.
I didn’t believe her at first though. Like I said, humans have an awfully funny interpretation of fear and I wasn’t taking any risks this time. She then brought Ceico in and showed me that even Ceico could do the silly trick without getting scared. But that was Ceico’s decision to be eaten by that funny looking cardboard monster, and as far as I was concerned, Ceico must have a funny interpretation of fear too!
Look at this big freaky thing – it really does resemble a monster, doesn’t it!?
There are so many tricks that are more fun than this silly rainbow hoop trick…. like skateboarding, for example.
I made it perfectly clear that just because Ceico was willing to run the risk of being eaten, didn’t mean I was going to! I was holding my ground on this one! No way was I going near that thing!
And I didn’t go near that thing ever again! Okay, fine, well, until the food came out again. Of course, my human knows I have no impulse control whatsoever when it comes to food (I know, I’m ashamed….. well to be honest….. not really) so with the help of my favourite foods, she encouraged me to get close to the scary thing and check it out once more. She kept feeding me, so I didn’t really get the chance to run away again. (I mean, how can you run away when you are constantly offered more food???)
Plus, if even Ceico can do it, it can’t be that bad….
Before I knew it, I had my paws up on that thing and wanted to run away, but the food…. wasn’t moving anywhere, so I unfortunately had to stay. Once the food was gone, I found myself waiting patiently with my paws up on the hoop. I mean, it hadn’t eaten me yet, so why would it do something now, right? The human took the hoop away and told me we would work on it again later.
Next time I saw the hoop, I put my paws up more readily. After all, it didn’t move last time, so I assumed everything would be okay now, and keeping my paws on that thing would be a super easy way to get food. But this time, after staying still for the first minute or so, the hoop started to tip ever so slowly towards me again! I looked at the human, wondering if she believed me now. See? It did try to eat me! She must have seen it, because her hand was even holding the hoop at the same time it tipped back ever so slightly. She didn’t seem concerned about her unpredictable tipping hoop, and instead offered me even more food and praised me for not totally losing it over the tipping hoop.
So…. do you think I earned my champion trick title after all?
Spartan was a pretty amazing trick piggy – He learned some tricks even faster than me!
Eventually I noticed a pattern start to emerge; every time the hoop tipped ever so slightly (but never all the way) the human would say “Good boy Acey!” in a happy voice and give me lots of food. I couldn’t help but start to look forward to when the hoop tipped backwards.
Next time we practiced with the hoop thing, it started tipping even further back! This darn thing really has a mind of its own. But I did notice one not so subtle thing; the further the hoop tipped back, the more food I got!
To be honest, maybe this whole thing wasn’t as bad as I initially thought. All these scary things result in lots of food!
Eventually I became more relaxed and even leaned back a little. When I did that, the hoop moved again! The human dished out a ton of food when that happened. I tried leaning back again, a little more intentionally this time, and the hoop moved ever so slightly again. And again, the human gave more food. This quickly became a game, where I tried to move the hoop and get more food as quickly as I possibly could.
This was getting kind of fun after all!
This game was getting quite predictable at this point, and not nearly as scary as before. Then, one time I accidentally leaned too far back, and the hoop tipped all the way over! My paws clumsily slipped off the hoop as it tipped, and I couldn’t help but feel kind of shocked that the hoop fell over like that!
I didn’t really have time to comprehend what I thought of the hoop rudely tipping over, because the human sounded so excited and happy at that moment, and gave me lots of food. I couldn’t help but purr like a motorboat and dig in!
After that, I started to experiment with how I got the hoop to tip over. The human still gave me food when I tipped it back a little bit, but the real jackpot came when I managed to tip it all the way over.
I started to really get the hang of it after awhile, and was soon proudly tipping it over every single time!
Paws up on the *previously scary* monster thing. Yep…. pretty proud of myself.
Turns out scary things can sometimes turn into a pretty fun trick!
Shortly after that, I learned that I had to go through the hoop after I tipped it over. We also added some distance to the trick, where I had to run over to the hoop, flip it up, go through it, and run back to the human for my treats. It turned out to be a pretty awesome trick!
If you want to watch some of my progress, and the awesome results of the finished trick, check out the video below!
This trick actually turned out to be a lot more fun than I thought it would be. I guess difficult tricks really are worth working through sometimes, and the end result can be pretty cool!
Thanks for reading my latest trick training adventure, and good luck slaying your own unicorns, no matter what they may be.
~Ace
Note from Ace’s human: I’m so proud of Ace’s progress with this trick. Despite being hesitant about a totally unexpected new trick, he conquered this trick to the very end and by watching the finished product, you would never have guessed how difficult it was for him at the start.
