Potty training guinea pigs
As you can see from the video, I potty train my guinea pigs a little bit differently than what you'll find in most tutorials.
This potty training method uses a guinea pig's natural instincts in the same way that litter trained guinea pigs are trained. What's different is that guinea pigs tamed using positive, low-stress methods feel confident enough to offer their trained behaviors as communication to her owners! This allows guinea pigs to be able to be potty trained so that they tell you when they need to go to their cage. If you followed the taming guide so far, potty training should come together rather naturally with only a few things to work on to get to a level of reliability where you feel absolutely comfortable with letting her loose on the floor.
Substrate preference is a fancy word that means "where the animal likes to poop and pee." And most animals like to poop and pee where they usually do their business. For guinea pigs, that usually means the cage. If your guinea pig is used to pottying on fleece, that is what she prefers. If she's used to pottying on wood shavings or paper based bedding, that is what she prefers.
Clicker trained animals and any animal which is trained using methods based on choice and positive reinforcement are creative and great problem solvers. If you followed my instructions for training the load up behavior, then your guinea pigs should know how to hop into the carrier to tell you when they want to go home.
What this means is that, if your guinea pig has a substrate preference for going to the bathroom in the cage and you provide a means for them to freely enter and exit their cage via the load up behavior, then they will naturally start to use that behavior to say, "Hey, I need to go potty now!" Now, here are some steps to get reliably potty trained guinea pigs:
1. Create substrate preferences for bedding and what you'll protect the floor with
My taming guide advises against floortime until the guinea pig is tame and de-stressed enough to enjoy it. Wait until your guinea pig truly prefers the surface in her cage. I wait about a week before I introduce limited floortimes. I spend that week training platform work and the load up behavior.
If you do need to work with your guinea pigs individually for the training sessions, lure and reward your guinea pigs into a carrier and set them out on protected floor. I use newspaper. Put a hidey on top of the newspaper. Guinea pigs tend to prefer to potty during floortime under a hidey. You'll always need this second preference for what you'll protect the floor with for moments when you can't tend to them to carry them back.
Don't give them an opportunity to go to the bathroom on your carpet. Remember that the more they potty on a surface, the more likely they'll potty on it in the future.
2. Introduce them to floortime in limited doses
By limited doses, what I mean is that you let her out for a short while (5 to 10 minutes at a time, for example), ask her back in, and then let her loose again once they potty. Take the carrier away and present it when you want to take her back. Clicker trained guinea pigs tend to gravitate to objects that are freshly introduced to their environment.
Use shaping to get her back into the hidey if you can. This is easier if you introduce her into an area such as a hallway. Training sessions in a new training area is also a great way to introduce this concept. If you have more than one guinea pig out, feel free to use luring or targeting to get her into the hidey. Try to add up these little pieces of floortime to at least 30 minutes a day, an hour or more is better. For the last time you bring her in the cage, offer a nice, large treat as consolation for not going out for more playtime. Don't force her back out with treats. Let her tell you how much floortime she's ready for.
3. Leave the carrier/upside down hidey in the area
Encourage your piggie into it after 5-10 minutes to carry her back into the cage. Use the clicker and treats to shape her into it. When she's in the cage, give her a treat for exiting the carrier and take it away until she goes potty. If she doesn't come back into it, then that's her way of saying, "I'm done today with this floortime business." Respect that. If she's having a good time, give her a big treat the last time you take her into the cage as a consolation prize. This teaches her that it's always worth it to come back to the cage.
4. Look for moments when your guinea pig hops into the carrier on her own
When she hops into the carrier on her own, pick up it up and take it to the cage. Give her a treat and wait for her to potty. When she's done, offer the carrier again to see if she wants back out. Still encourage her into it every 10 minutes if she doesn't use it before then.
5. Leave the carrier on the floor for her to freely enter as she pleases
Now, your guinea pig knows that she can enter the hidey to use her cage as a toilet. She should freely offer this behavior in much of the same way she asks you that she wants to go back home. If she doesn't by then, always ask every 10-15 minutes if she needs to go by encouraging her to load up into the carrier/hidey.
6. Remember to be fair
Guinea pigs can't hold their bladders forever. If you are going to be doing something, like clean their cage, which will take your attention for longer than 15 minutes, then provide them a protected surface that is okay for them to go potty on. I put newspaper in my floortime set up and put a nice large hidey on top to encourage them to use it.
