Nose-to-hand touch tutorial
Teaching your guinea pig to touch her nose to your hand is another important foundation skill. It, like the target stick, serves many purposes. First, it can strengthen and build a bond, as you are reinforcing your guinea pig for coming up to you and touching your fingers. Secondly, it gives you an ability to quickly move your guinea pig in a low-stress way without using treats to lure her. Third, you can use the nose-to-hand touch to train tricks and hand-signals for tricks.
Before you begin, decide how you want your guinea pig to touch your hand. Do you want her to touch your fist? To touch the palm of your hands? Or to touch your finger with her nose? I personally have taught my guinea pigs to touch my index finger when I point it.
1. Click your guinea pig for orienting towards your hand
Click your guinea pig every time she looks towards your hands, even if it is accidental. You can refine the criteria to your finger later, but the important thing is that she's comfortable with your body and starts to seek out your hands. Like with the target stick, remove your hand from view after you reward her. If your guinea pig is too timid about your hand moving around the cage in this way, click her as you move your hand towards the cage, take it away, and then give the treat.
2. Click her for approaching your hand
You can start to point your finger or open your palm or close your fist--whatever you decided the final behavior will look like--because now your guinea pig has an interest in your hands. Make sure you don't hold treats in your hands. You want her to be conscious about her decision to come to your hands. If you hold treats to lure her in close, she might not be aware that coming close is what you want. It's just how she gets her treats! Click her for walking towards your hands. If she remembers the target stick training, she might right away start touching your hands!
3. Click her for touching your hand
This is important: don't click her for biting your hands! If she does bite or nibble, do not punish her or say "NO." Simply take away your hand from the cage, wait a few seconds, and then go back to step 2. Click her for touching your hand with her nose. Extremely timid guinea pigs may back up after touching your hand. That's okay. Teach her that she's allowed to do that and still get her treat. Soon, she'll start to be more confident if she knows you'll always let her escape from situations that she's uncomfortable with.
4. Click her for seeking and touching your hand
Move your hand about a foot in front of her and see if she'll take the steps to touch it with her nose. If she doesn't, take your hand away and present it slightly closer to her. Click her for touching her nose to your hand. When she's successful with this, present your hand so that she has to turn her head or body to touch it. You eventually want to be able to present your hand behind her and have her turn around to touch it for a click and treat.
5. Click for a good follow
Just like with the target stick training you've already done, you want to see if she'll follow a moving target. Move your hand as she approaches so she has to take one extra step. You don't have to wait for a touch. Simply click her for following your hand. If she didn't follow, but kept looking towards your hand, you can click that, too, and build it up to a follow. Slowly build the distance until she will chase your hand around the cage.
6. Alternate between touch and follow
Alternate between clicking for touches to a stationary hand target and follows for a moving hand target. Slowly start to merge these two criteria so that after a good follow, she finishes by touching your hand for a click and treat. You'll start with short follow-touches and then build up to long ones.
7. Using nose-to-hand target for interacting
You can start to use this hand target to ask for behaviors you've started with the target stick to create hand signals. You can also use the hand target to explain to your guinea pig where you want her to go. You can point or lead her with your hand to a carrier or to another part of the cage while you are spot-cleaning. Often times, when using the hand target, you won't ask for a formal nose-to-hand touch.
Remember to practice nose-to-hand touches often to keep the behavior strong. Here is a video about the ways you can use hand targeting in everyday life with your guinea pigs:
