Teach me how to teach my gerbils lots of tricks, like sit and roll over. Please?

Answers:
You can't teach a gerbil dog tricks, like roll over, but you can teach them to do gerbil tricks, like run a maze or leap from the bottom of the cage into the palm of your hand.

The main thing to remember is that a reward for a gerbil is not being pet or getting a treat, it is free run time. Gerbils are highly exploratory and surprisingly intelligent and will repeat actions over and over that get them some time to explore.

Break the trick up into smaller pieces, for example for the maze make it a straight tube open to freedom. Then add a bend and make it more and more complicated.

For the leaping on the palm, at first just have the gerbil climb onto your hand then take him out and let him run. Put him back in the tank and slowly move your palm up a half inch at a time. Eventually he'll be leaping several inches onto your palm to get out time.

If you enjoy training your gerbils, two good books are the Gerbils: Complete care made easy with a chapter on training and there also is an entire book on clicker training rabbits - the same techniques can be used to train gerbils.

Good luck.

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Animals were not put on this earth to do "tricks" for humans. They are not dolls. If you will just be patient and watch, the little guys' natural behavior will amuse you far more than any "tricks" you could teach them.

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Haha! I had a gerbil. I tought him how to make him jump from my hand to his cage. It was kind of hard. Haha. You might want to give your gerbil some food, such as sunflower seeds, that's their favorite food. That makes your gerbil alot familiar with you so he could trust you more so he can do tricks. LIKE I DID!!

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Do you think the thing is a dog or something? They are too stupid to learn anything especially to stay away from my python when I feed it.