Cavy's Choice 1: Consent
Choice is a huge component in my taming and training method. A lot of people underestimate the power that choice has: Allowing your guinea pig to have choices will give her a huge boost in confidence and allow her to better communicate her needs to you. This naturally lets you have a deeper connection and bond with her. Furthermore, you can use your guinea pig's trained behaviors in order to form a system of consent.
Choice has a profound and positive effect on the brain. When elderly people were given the responsibility to care for a houseplant and the choice to pick which sort of plant they wanted, their psychological functioning improved (links to pdf).
The lack of choice and therefore control in a situation often leads to a condition known as learned helplessness. In learned helplessness, the animal learns their actions have no effect on what happens to them and so, they give up trying much of anything. While animals in this state appear calm and tame, their behaviors are supressed. Learned helplessness in humans is associated with depression and is given as a reason why people don't leave abusive relationships. And, I am not making a logical leap here when I say that it's safe to assume that the animals are feeling the same emotions in learned helplessness. The latest research on animal emotions states that, not only do animals have emotions, but they feel much the same things as we do and they feel them deeply.
So, now for the big question: How do you use this information when working with your guinea pigs?
It is my belief that the most important way to use choice in the taming and training process is through establishing a system of consent. Learn the ways your guinea pig says "I'm not comfortable with this" and "Okay! We can do this."
Fiona is hiding in a box during a floortime. Nothing startled her, she simply wanted a break from interaction. She's saying, "Not right now. Give me a minute." My boyfriend and I allowed her a quiet moment to gather herself and she was right back out, eager and keen to interact.
She plays with Joshy on the floor right after. Note that Joshy doesn't have treats luring her into this position. She simply decided that she was ready now after using the hiding place. Toora-Loora doesn't feel up to that sort of interaction, so she keeps a little distance.
We always provide hiding places and escape routes for our guinea pigs. We allow our guinea pigs to choose how close or far away they want to be from us. We also give them the opportunity to exercise choice and consent by asking them to load up into a carrier rather than pick them up. If they don't come into the carrier, that is okay. If they do, then they know that, should they feel overwhelmed, they have every opportunity to come back to the cage. We teach our girls to use hiding places and carriers to communicate with us when they aren't feeling comfortable.
Sometimes guinea pigs, even ones with the full freedom to hide and run, have trouble using hiding places and escape routes--especially if they haven't been specifically trained that they can use them! This is when you need to look at their expressions and body language to see if they are truly enjoying themselves and are comfortable in the situation. The biggest hint you'll get is if the guinea pig can easily move. When guinea pigs are frightened, they freeze.
Toora-Loora is comfortable here. Her eyes are relaxed (no whites showing). While she stays still on Josh's lap, she isn't frozen in place. She is still active and calm. If she wasn't relaxed and happy, we would have used her trained behaviors ("get off") to encourage her off of us. If she was unable to do that, we would have used luring to get her off of us and out of the situation.
The ultimate way a guinea pig has for saying "I'm not okay with this" is biting. If your guinea pig bites you, immediately make her comfortable. Put her back in the cage. Some people will say that this teaches our guinea pigs that biting will get her what she wants and that you should never do what I have just advised. However, when it comes to situations like that, I feel the responsibility is on the human for providing an environment in which the guinea pig doesn't feel so uncomfortable that she believes she must bite you to get her point across.
When we first got Fiona, she was a biter and she even drew blood! We put her down when she bit us, but the next time we interacted, we made sure she was comfortable and felt safe. We always gave her escape routes and hiding places. And now, rather than bite, she chooses to use them. Rather than bite, she gives us kisses and hops into our laps and follows us around the house! She lets us pick her up easily if we have to quickly do so and she is so easy when it's nail trim time.
I hope that now you understand why choice and consent are important and how they affect guinea pigs. For now, I hope that you think of ways to give your guinea pigs more ways to give consent and give them more choices when it's time to interact with them. Cavy's Choice 2 and 3 will expand on the motivation and empowerment aspects of using choice in training and interactions with your guinea pigs.
