Chinchilla training videos

One of my friends have two chinchillas. I haven't really met any chinchillas before getting to know my friend's chins. They are so adorable, round and fatty looking animals. However, these animals are very alert to sounds and sudden movements. They are often a bit scared. You can't really force these small animals to do anything. This doesn't mean they aren't trainable. Training chins builds a bond between two species, a human and a chinchilla. A chin starts to trust since he gets a treat for doing something; it can't be that scary if you can get something nice.

My friend's chins have started to show some begging behavior for treats. I'd call this a good sign. They start to see a human as a nice thing. They even jump onto a leg or an arm. Sooner or later they could be more trainable through for example clicker training.

This post is primarily made for myself. I'm interested in these cute little things and I want to write my thoughts up a bit. I don't always want to search vids in Youtube every time or through a mile long bookmark list so I want to gather some good videos into this post that also gives inspiration in understanding animal behavior and how to modify it.

This video shows how to train a scared chinchilla. It sounds and looks a bit difficult at first, but changing behavior takes a lot of time. This is highly inspiring to me. There always can be some mistakes, but with positive reinforcement a person can't do much harm and this goes for all animals - including dogs.

Training a chin to roll on a tube. This might be a bit scaring to the animal but with treats he starts to trust. It is important to show to an animal the wanted behavior and reinforce it positively. Training should be step by step training, as it is in this video.

I'll list some videos in links. Probably needs updating later!
Training chinchilla to go through a tunnel
Training chinchilla to jump