7 Coolest Tricks to Teach Your Guinea Pig

These 7 tricks are some of the coolest, most impressive-looking tricks you can teach your guinea pig. However, some of these tricks can be challenging and take weeks to train. They may require the guinea pig to learn a different skill or trick, such as target training or picking up a ball first.

It’s a good idea to teach some tricks from the 10 Easy Tricks to Teach First page before starting to teach the following tricks. With that said, these tricks are some of my favorites to teach, and they will surely make your guinea pig one of a kind!

1. Teach Your Guinea Pig to Play Basketball

Basketball is a super impressive-looking trick, and it’s lots of fun to teach! The first thing you’ll want to do is teach your guinea pig to pick up a ball. Choose a small lightweight ball that is easy for your guinea pig to pick up, such as this one.

Put the bowl right in front of them, and give them a treat every time they get the ball in the bowl. It helps to hold a treat over the bowl to attract their attention in the right direction. You can also use your leg to create a narrow space on the opposite side of the bowl. This often makes it more intuitive for them to turn their head toward the bowl.

If you’re struggling with this, you can also try moving the bowl manually, so the ball drops in the bowl. As soon as your guinea pig picks up the ball, move the bowl underneath to where they are going to drop the ball. Reward every time the ball lands in the bowl. After some repetition, they usually start to get the right idea. Be sure to go back and teach them to put the ball in the bowl on their own after this.

Once they’ve mastered this, practice with the bowl on the opposite side. You don’t want your guinea pig to become one-sided! Eventually, you can use a higher bowl and even upgrade to a cute mini basketball net! There’s no trick more impressive than a basketball-playing guinea pig. Check out the basketball page for more training tips and a video tutorial.

2. Teach Your Guinea Pig to Play Fetch

Ever wish you could play fetch with your guinea pig? You actually can! Fetch is super fun and incredibly adorable. Like the basketball trick, the first thing you’ll want to do is teach your guinea pig to pick up a ball.

Slotted cat toy balls (you can take out the bell) work great for guinea pigs. You can teach this the same way as above; hold the ball in front of your guinea pig and reward for any sniffing or nibbling at the ball. Stuffing it with food often helps to get them nibbling at the ball at first.

Once your guinea pig has mastered one side, teach them to put the ball in your hand on the opposite side. When your guinea pig is capable of putting the ball in your hand from both sides of them, you can start placing the ball a couple of inches away. Increase the distance very slowly and gradually. Reward every time your guinea pig brings the ball back and puts it in your hand.

Once they understand how to fetch from a very short distance, you can slowly begin to roll the ball further away. The first part of this trick is usually the hardest to teach. Adding distance is typically the simplest part if the foundation is in place, so be sure not to take any shortcuts in the beginning!

3. Teach Your Guinea Pig to Give a Paw

Carrying on from the fetch trick, let’s teach another dog trick, shall we? Give a paw is a super fun and popular dog trick, but guinea pigs can learn this one as well! It’s a little more challenging for guinea pigs than it is for dogs because their body is so low to the ground and lacks flexibility. However, with a bit of time and patience, it’s certainly doable.

Be sure to keep your hand very low to the ground, as guinea pigs have wide, low bodies. This makes it uncomfortable for them to stretch just one paw up too high.

Keep luring one paw onto your hand, repeating this several times. It’s a bit of an unnatural movement for guinea pigs, so it usually takes time for them to get the hang of it. After a few sessions of this, try presenting your hand to your guinea pig and see if they’ll do it without any prompting.

You may need to try multiple times and keep going back to luring for a little bit. However, with time they will make the connection and start giving you a paw when you hold your hand out in front of them.

4. Teach Your Guinea Pig to Weave Walk

Weave walk is a trick where your guinea pig weaves between your legs while you walk. Weave walk is fun and easy to teach, but it takes trust on the part of your guinea pig and a bit of coordination from both of you. Also, be very careful not to accidentally kick or step on your guinea pig when teaching this trick! Move slowly and shuffle your feet when you move.

To teach your guinea pig to weave walk through your legs, start with the guinea pig beside you. Take one step, and lure them through. Reward for following your hand through. Take another step and lure them through again. Repeat this process several times. Eventually, your guinea pig will start to understand the trick and require less luring.

Once they are going through each step with less prompting, start asking them to go through a couple of steps before giving them a treat. You may have to lure them through the second step more since they’ll be used to getting a treat after each step. Keep expanding this to more and more steps at a time until your guinea pig is able to weave four or five steps in a row.

5. Teach Your Guinea Pig to Wave

Wave is another cute trick to teach your guinea pig. Before teaching this, you’ll want to teach a paw target. Once your guinea pig has learned this, wave can be taught in a couple of different ways.

The first way is with the guinea pig on the ground or a platform, waving one paw at you. I personally like to teach this trick on a platform, as it’s much easier for the guinea pig to figure out what you’re asking.

The second version of this trick involves the guinea pig standing up on their hind legs and waving one or both paws. For this version, you’ll want to teach your guinea pig to stand up before trying to teach this.

Once your guinea pig is very comfortable standing up, use your paw target or some treats in your hand to encourage your guinea pig to paw at your hand while they’re standing. Reward for every little paw motion they offer. Keep practicing this, rewarding for every effort they make to wave their paw until they’re offering it more frequently. You can then introduce a little finger wave cue like above.

6. Teach Your Guinea Pig to High Five

High five is a super fun and cool trick to teach your guinea pig! To teach your guinea pig to high five, start by teaching them to put their paws up on your hand. Start with your hand low to the ground and lure them onto your hand with a treat. Slowly raise your hand higher as they become more comfortable doing this.

You can then start angling your hand slightly upwards. Keep luring them onto your hand and give them the treat each time they put their paws on your hand. Keep angling your hand gradually into an upwards position and raising it slightly higher each time.

Eventually, your hand should be in an upright position. Remember to go at your guinea pig’s pace. If they don’t want to put their paws up, lower your hand a bit more to make it easier for them again.

7. Teach Your Guinea Pig to Unroll a Mat

Unrolling a yoga mat is a super cute and useful trick you can teach your guinea pig. To start, you’ll need a yoga mat, some treats, and your guinea pig. With the mat rolled up, put several treats underneath the roll, and a few near the edge that the guinea pig can see.

Point out the treats to your piggy and encourage them to eat the treats. You may need to put quite a few small treats under the mat at first to hold your guinea pig’s attention. Help them find the treats, even pushing the mat slightly sometimes to help point them out. Also, reward from your hand anytime the guinea pig pushes the mat with their nose.

Once they make the connection and start pushing the mat more and more, you can put fewer treats under the mat and instead reward them every time from your hand when they push the mat. Eventually, you can start waiting for them to nudge the mat a few times before offering them a treat. If they get bored or distracted, reward them more frequently to keep them interested.

Bonus – 5 More Tricks!

Want even more cool tricks you can teach your guinea pig? We have a totally free 7-day email course you can join here. In that mini-course, you can find more in-depth video tutorials on the two tricks above, as well as tutorials for 5 new tricks.

These include playing cards with your guinea pig, untying your shoelaces, bowling, jumping through your looped arms, and more. There are also some taming tips and other information, such as how to train an easily distracted guinea pig. Tons of great stuff in there!

I hope you found these tutorials helpful in teaching your guinea pig some cool new tricks. Trick training is such a great form of enrichment for animals and provides a great source of physical and mental exercise.

Teaching tricks can also help you to bond with your guinea pig so much more. My guinea pigs always get so excited to start training and happily greet me at the side of their cage. In addition, training is lots of fun! It’s important to always keep your training positive and rewarding for your guinea pig.

Also, be sure to keep your training sessions short, typically under 5 minutes. Trick training is truly one of the best ways to really bond with your guinea pig in a fun and interactive way.