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Glider keeps far distance

PostPosted: Thu Jul 25, 2013 3:00 am
by scoobydoo
My glider is female 1 and 1/2 years old, I adopted her from a very caring family who said she came from an abusive situation where she was fed only pellet food and in a small cage. She also has a big mating wound scar on her back and the fur is starting to grow back.
She nips at me and has learned that it gets a reaction from me so she does when I get her out of her cage. She will nip without me picking her up or otherwise upsetting her she will just randomly climb onto my hand or close to it and start nipping. She doesn't bite very hard so I can take the nips but it can be startling and if I let her nip once she will keep doing it over and over. She will take treats from me but only once in a blue moon usually she will show interest in the treat and then run away or do something else. I have tried to get her to bond by using honey but like with the treats she licked my finger for around 30 sec and that was it I let her climb all over me for an hr, she would run up to my fingers like she was attacking but then get scared to lick the honey.. I think this glider has bonded with humans before and she is my first glider. Maybe I was just not meant to have gliders? I don't think this one wants to bond. She also will sleep in my picket all day.. Its very confusing

Re: Glider keeps far distance

PostPosted: Thu Jul 25, 2013 6:09 pm
by James
Animals remember. So if this critter has an abusive history, she's essentially broken. That doesnt mean she is worthless, it just becomes a problem that some effort and time might resolve or perhaps never resolve. What I do with sugar gliders like this is find them a cage mate who likes human attention. This lets them see what healthy interaction can look like and sometimes they come around and begin to compete for attention.

In the end, so what if it bites you. What were you hoping for in the beginning anyway? I think it is possible to tame this one up some but she may never be a trusting animal and you just have to find a way to live with that. A cage mate is a good start. Endless patience and never giving up is another.

Re: Glider keeps far distance

PostPosted: Thu Jul 25, 2013 9:40 pm
by scoobydoo
Thanks for the advice, I may get her a cage mate and a larger cage for that matter. I love the glider still, tonight she tried to bite my finger really hard but didn't break the skin, I was so surprised that I didn't flinch. I still think I may be doing something wrong, I have seen her clam before and know that she was much more cooperative with her last owners. Probably because they had her longer than I have. Hopefully one day she will start to warm up

Re: Glider keeps far distance

PostPosted: Sat Jul 27, 2013 10:54 am
by James
I like to present a finger then a treat. ie: put a treat between your fingers, then lightly bump the nose with top of finger/knuckle and then immediately present treat. The critter should choose the treat over your finger and the more you do that the more it will associate a treat with the same image it had of biting and hopefully the treat will eventually replace the biting. So then later when she senses a finger, she will look for a treat instead of going for flesh.

Just think of creative things to do, and in the end, it is about repetition. It takes a LOT of effort to write over previous programming.