Trained chinchillas?

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tcraighenry

tcraighenry

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 1, 2011
Messages
728
Location
Portland, OR
How have you trained your chinchillas? We're looking to start teaching ours some tricks. And I know they're pretty smart.

We think Vincenza might be trainable. She's showing a little bit of intelligence and knowledge of cause/effect. She doesn't even have to see her bowl to know it's bath time anymore. I can hide it and tap on the glass a couple times and she comes running.

She also knows the difference between stick jar glass sound and bath bowl glass sound, it's crazy!

What have you taught them to do? Or not do?
 
My chins trained me to give them willow twigs whenever I walk past their cage in the evening. They both run to the door of the cage and stick their little noses out, as if they were saying, "Mommy, give us treats!" They are so cute, they almost always get a twig.

They also get one piece of crushed rosehip a day. They know what the rustle of the bag sounds like, and when they hear it, they get excited and start begging. That's just simple classical conditioning. The unconditioned stimulus is the rose hip, the unconditioned response is begging, the conditioned stimulus is the rustle of the bag, and the conditioned response is begging.
 
Oh gosh yeah. She knows the rustle of her rose hip bag well! And the smell of some cookies I bought from Ronda.

And god help me if a bring a USPS box near her cage. She starts running around going IS THAT FOR ME.
 
Lol are you sure she isn't training you?

I know that is how our cat, and our pet rats are.
 
Ha! I love how you practically yodel at them, Dawn. I use similar tones with my guys, depending on the sense of urgency.

My four have the following down 90-95% of the time...

  • Go home
  • Upstairs/Downstairs
  • Dust/Dust Bath
  • Wanna treat?
  • You a good boy/girl? - They stand up in T-Rex Position
  • "No" - I cluck at them. - They stop whatever they're doing, face me, and stand in T-Rex Position. They're just saying, "Not doin' nuthin! I'm a good boy/girl!"
  • Get Down/Get Out
  • [Name] where ARE you? - They'll respond by wall surfing, hitting the blinds or just coming out of hiding.
  • Belly check! - They begrudgingly stand still so I can feel their bellies.

Chin-specific tricks:

  • C'mere - Nixi and Boji only
  • You okay? - Nail nibble for yes. Back up and shake head for no. They learn that one when they're sick, so Nixi and Maia are more responsive than Boji and Buddha.
  • "I love you" gets me love nibbles from Nixi and Boji pretty regularly. Maia will only nibble once, and Buddha will lick my knuckles whenever I've done something to please his Royal Highness.
  • Buddha, Boji and Nixi respond to "Step up", but only on my arms. Maia won't balance on me, but she will step up on other objects on command... steps, boxes, computer towers, etc.
  • "Step down" is only understood by Buddha.
  • Nixi's short term retention is really good. I handed her a stick, said "stick" three times and then gave it to her. The next time I saw her without the stick, I said "Nixi! Where's your stick?!" She looked around and picked it up, all proud. I need to work with her some more.
  • Lemme see those feet! - Buddha runs and hides immediately. That counts, right? *lol*

I tried to teach them how to push a ball for about 6 weeks and failed miserably. I'm currently trying to get the others to find their sticks, but Nixi's the only one that seems to be interested... intermittently. :(
 
My boys know "Go home" and "NO". They know the sound of the treat bag and I make a noise to get them to come to the top door of the cage. They know what "apples" are too (homemade dried apple slices are their favorite treat). They also both give kisses and nibbles when I make kissy noises at them. They both know their names especially when they are in trouble ;)
 
these are awesome! My guys know some of these as well. My favorite is "can I have a kiss?" and I pucker up and they come right up and sniff my lips looking as if they give me kisses.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nKfpCluco4&list=UUGbxlue14Wzo9N2sKJDzkgQ&index=4&feature=plcp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=724becYYHYs&list=UUGbxlue14Wzo9N2sKJDzkgQ&index=9&feature=plcp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMBSSZCM82g

Ignore my horrendous jammies, haha!

Pogo knows:

High five
Kiss
Jump on my shoulder
Walkie
Spin
Come (when he wants to, lol!)
Jump into my arms (this only happens in the bathroom when he wants to go into the bedroom.)

I break the treats into tiny tiny pieces so one treat becomes ten. ^.^ It looks like I'm giving him so many when in reality I'm just giving him tiny tiny pieces of one or two.
 
OH MY GOSH! Pogo is too cute! Walkie and high five are my FAV! When the girls wake up I shall make them watch these a a tutorial! ;) Amazing, amazing job!!!! :)

Whats funny is while researching to get a chin (before I found this site of course) I kept reading everywhere how people would stress that chinchillas could not be trained at all! Hhmmpphhh to them
 
My girl knows that me tapping on her cage twice means that it's time for her to go back into her cage. No is literally "No" I'm not sure how I did it, but whenever she hears me saying no- she stop what she's doing and walks away from it.
Also a treat- i used to scratch at the floor (if she was out) and everytime i did do that she'd get a treat, she knows now that that is treat time. It's pretty cool that you can teach chinchillas tricks. My parents used to think i was going crazy trying to teach her little things. But it worked :D lol
 
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