Behavior: "Taming" my 6 week old pup

[Gemma375]

I'm having some problems with one of my pups, in that she is completely crazy! She trusts me enough to come running to the cage when I come in the room and to take food from me, but she hates coming out of the cage! She's always been the one who ran around and made me chase around to catch her, and put up more of a fight but now it takes forever to pick her up and when I do I can only do so for a minute or two at a time as she will violently squirm around and kick out her feet so I get covered in deep scratches and is obviously stressed out and I don't know what to do to make it better? It got to the point today that I couldn't even check her over properly because she was fighting so much. I'm pretty sure she may start to bite as well, as when I move my hand she snaps her head around as if shes trying to get my fingers.

I don't understand what I'm doing wrong, as while the mum and other pup do run around a little bit, they're pretty easy to catch and calm down seconds after I begin holding them.

I just need to know what I can work on to get her calmer, as I need to be able to give her a proper check over as I've heard sneezing and coughing from their cage (I don't think it's too much, probably I catch it between 2 - 4 times a day, sometimes a little bit more, but there are 3 of them). Eyes and nose are okay, as I can check her's by looking through the cage, but obviously I need to keep an eye on breathing and any moisture around the feet as well, which I cannot do when she starts freaking out!!

Any ideas why she's behaving this way, when the other 2 are not? And any ideas what I can do? It really is becoming a chore trying to pick her up and have cuddles

Oh, another point I should add is that for the first 3 weeks or month I could barely hold them, as the first couple of weeks they and the mum got quite upset being separated, so I only held them for a few minutes a couple of times a day, and then as they got older I got ill, so didn't want to hold any of them and risk spreading the infection. I understand Guinea Pigs need time to learn to trust, but the the mum and other pup have never acted this way and seem to be fine.

[JD In Van]

Some pigs hate being picked up. I have one boy who screams like I'm killing him if I list him up. So we use a piggie elevator and this makes the whole thing less stressful for him and for me. He's learning the piggie lift means floor time (and treats) is coming and slowly getting more comfortable with it.

Once the picking up was less stressful lap time became MUCH easier (though he still sulks at me for a day everytime I cut his nails).

If you sear the forums you can find many examples of a piggie elevator.