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.
One of my all time favourite tricks is where I get to run around with my human. I love to be under the human’s feet as much as possible when I see her walking around. When she has food, I discovered that chasing her around and trying to climb up her leg is by far the best way to get it!
Usually the human doesn’t appreciate “tripping” on me all the time (although secretly I know she likes when I follow her around.) Personally, I find it funny to watch her shuffle across the room to avoid stepping on me. I like to sneak up behind her sometimes too. I can make her stop really really fast when I run in front and cut her off! It’s one of my favourite past times, and a fun one when you’re getting bored of your human!
One of the best tricks the human has ever come up with is where I get to cut her off and be rewarded for it! Well, to be honest, that’s not exactly the point of the trick, but I make sure to sneak it in here and there. 😉
Weave walking is where the guinea pig (that’s me!) has to go between the human’s feet every time they take a step. I usually weave walk all across the room and back, which is about 4-5 steps each way.
Isn’t it a cool trick?
When I first started training the human to do this trick, she didn’t quite get it. She was supposed to give me the treat just for begging nicely and being cute! But since she didn’t understand, I went along with her plan and we just learned this weave walking thing together.
One thing I did train her to do though, was walk faster! Humans are so slow and clumsy. I don’t think she knew how fast I could weave, so I decided to just take matters into my own paws and speed things up myself to show her how it’s done. 😉
It ended up being a lot of fun overall, although I still think it would be better to run in front of the human’s feet instead of through. But even after all my efforts to get my thoughts on the matter across to her, she’s still adamant that I’m not supposed to cut in front. Oh well, I guess I’ll have to settle for catching her off guard once in a while when she’s not expecting it.
If you want to teach your human to weave walk just like I did, all you have to do is follow what I did in the video below or find tips on the weave walk trick tutorial page.
Keep in mind that this trick isn’t always as easy as it looks though. The human says I’m a bit of an odd ball (a cute fuzzy odd ball she says!) so not all piggies would be as eager to be near a human’s moving feet as me. I mean, I understand how they feel; humans look awfully huge from down here! If the human is patient and takes slow steps for awhile, I think that would make most guinea pigs more comfortable and maybe they would enjoy this trick too!
As fun as it was, all that running made me hungry (okay, well, I’m always hungry.)
But anyway, maybe all you piggies out there can have some fun weave walking with your humans too.
P.S. If they play dumb like my human sometimes does, just remember this one thing; it can take awhile for humans to learn new tricks, so be patient with them! All humans will eventually catch on with consistent training.
Out of curiosity, can you guess how many tricks I know? I’ve been learning all kinds of things over the last two years, and still learning more every day! To be honest though, I don’t really keep count of all my tricks (I don’t even think the human does either anymore) but trust me, I know a ton of tricks! I love to play basketball, chase my human around, spin circles, and so much more!
I can jump and play fetch too, but I don’t know if I would rate those among my favorites (there’s way too much running involved in between the treats.) Sometimes, it almost seems like the human wants me to do some of these tricks just for exercise or something….. Crazy, I know.
Anyway, those tricks are cool I guess, but my favorite tricks of all are the ones with a little more creativity. The human’s tricks can get kind of boring after awhile, so sometimes I have to give her a little hint or two.
See, humans can be good at playing dumb sometimes. When she sees me stealing stuff or running in circles with my ball, she thinks I’m just being silly! So ridiculous, can’t she see that I have better trick ideas than she does? The silly human doesn’t even give me treats for all the amazing tricks I make up all on my own! Can you believe that? I can only imagine how boring all my videos would be if I didn’t take matters into my own paws sometimes.
Anyway, maybe you’ll see what I mean when you watch my newest trick video below. I’m sure you will be able to pick out my favorite and most amazing tricks!
I know some pretty amazing tricks, don’t I? Of course, I still think the tricks I invented are the best, but the human says my basketball and scent work tricks are really awesome too. Regardless, it was pretty fun learning all the tricks in the video (and all the lettuce was great too!)
After watching my new video, don’t forget to let me know what you think! What are your favorite guinea pig tricks from my video? Has your guinea pig taught you any cool tricks lately?
Did you know July 1st, 2017, marks Canada’s official 150th birthday? I didn’t know what that meant right away, but the human seemed to think we should do something special for this year in particular. Being Canadian piggies, our human gets us to raise a mini Canadian flag a lot, but this year, she had something different in mind. She brought out a ton of jumps and obstacles of all kinds, all red and white!
In the mix was our Canadian flag (of course), red skateboard, red basketball net, red and white jumps…. the whole deal. She also brought a ton of veggies!!!
Ceico and I had a blast with our veggie eating day (err….I mean Canada Day) and it turned out to be lots of fun. I raised a Canadian flag, ate veggies, rode my skateboard, ate veggies, beat Ceico at basketball, ate more veggies….. You get the idea, right? It was awesome! We got to show off all our best tricks, and be patriotic at the same time! (And eat lots of lettuce!)
Here are some sneak peak snapshots from our trick day.
Playing basketball with Ceico!
Ceico tidying up. I helped him finish the job.
Putting a ball into that tiny red bowl takes a lot of accuracy!
Being patriotic with my very own miniature flag.
If you want to see our Canada themed trick video, you can check it out below. My human put all our best tricks from the day into an organized video to wish all the Canadian piggies and humans out there a happy 150th Canada Day!
Hope you enjoyed our video and had just as much fun this Canada Day as we did!
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.
The human has given me a lot of toys over the last couple years, but I have to admit….
This new one she brought home is eerily different.
When the human first showed me this thing, I sort of thought it might be another guinea pig that I could purr at! Ceico can be kind of boring sometimes. I mean, he just wants to sleep all the time! And he’s less than amused when I try to take initiative and get him to play with me…..
But that’s a topic for another day.
Anyway, going back to this new thing…. The human put it on the floor right away, and seemed to be encouraging me to check it out. I wasn’t exactly sure what it was, so I approached with caution at first. It didn’t smell like another guinea pig, and it wasn’t moving at all, so I figured it must be something else.
At closer inspection, it appeared to even have eyes and ears, just like Ceico and I have! It had all the same colors as me, and even the same little white marking on its head, just like me!
Strange.
What was this thing???
What is this thing? It doesn’t run around like other guinea pigs!
Once I got close enough, I started the sniff test. I hate strong smells, and I make sure the human knows that by sticking my nose high in the air and shaking my head back and forth whenever I smell something I don’t like.
This object had a less intense scent that wasn’t really overwhelming in any way. Still, I could smell something subtly sweet on it, and kept sniffing for a minute, trying to figure out exactly what it was. It smelt good in a way, but it was also distinctly different than my usual favorite scents (ie. lettuce and carrots.)
After the sniffing, there was one more obvious thing to try. All my favorite toys so far have involved either eating or sleeping, so I chose to test out my favorite option….
Eating, of course! (There was no way I was sleeping right after I got a new toy!)
Anyway, I quickly realized this thing doesn’t have the right texture to eat. The hairs don’t taste particularly good, and they tickle your mouth when you try to chew. The human definitely didn’t want me eating it either (which of course, never stops me,) but I have to admit that she was right on this one.
I may be biased…. but this little guy is kind of handsome.
“Mine! It’s all mine!”
My next inspection consisted of everything else I could think of! I tried running around this thing, jumping over it, sniffing it some more, pushing it around…. It still hadn’t moved since I first saw it, so I figured it was pretty safe to let my guard down.
After awhile, I eventually came to the conclusion that this thing was a little boring…. after all, I still can’t eat it or sleep on it! But it did smell kinda good, and it was pretty fun to inspect this interesting new guinea pig thing.
Plus, I may be (just a little bit!) biased, but the little guy is awfully good looking too. 😉 I think I might just keep him around to play a bit more.
By the way, if you want to see my *very thorough* inspection process, check out the video my human put together below! It captures all of the most important steps I take when inspecting any new toy that the human brings home. 🙂
Thanks for reading my latest adventure!
~Ace
P.S. For some reason, the human doesn’t leave my little friend unattended with me…. I have no idea why, of course. I mean, it’s not like I would take the opportunity to try to taste the little guy again or anything….
