jeudi 8 juin 2017

Aggressive Behavior

I've had my chinchilla (Stickshift) for well over 9 years about almost 10 now. I've had him since he was 1 & half years old. He's always been friendly with me & even given me kisses. I'm the only one in my household that handles him/feeds him & cleans his cage.

2 months ago, he got his first ear infection & around that same exact time I got him a new cage after the one he's had since we first got him too. He wasn't able to enjoy the cage for a while since the ear infection caused him to not be mobile but after he healed up he was able too.
The old cage
The new cage

Now to fast forward to almost a week to two weeks ago. My now husband & I had him in the bathroom for a dust bath & he was perfectly fine, enjoying his bath & getting dust all over us. We put him back into the cage & later that day, my husband goes over to give him a treat & Stickshift takes the treat & is happy. My Husband & Stickshift have been forming a better relationship too as at first stickshift would sometimes nip at Josh but never bit him hard but then later would as for the pets later on lol.

But as the day went on, Josh went over to stickshift while I was cooking and bit him hard. I just told Josh it might just be him being a butt. another hour went by and he bit Josh hard again as he was going to just pet him. So I go over to the cage & to talk to stickshift to see what was up. He bit me hard. He has never bit me hard ever. Later on as I walk by the cage to check on stickshift as I was worried. He was attacking the bars. So I go to grab a towel & pick him up from that way & take him to the bathroom we normally have him in to run around, just to have one on one to see if he was okay. He was trying to attack me after biting me several more times. I had to sit on the toilet just to be out of reach! I felt so silly having to do so but I had never experienced stickshift being this way towards me.

I eventually was able to pick him up with the towel & put him in his cage but since then his behavior has been completely different to Josh & myself. He's peeing everywhere in his cage & not in the potty that I had trained him to go in long ago that's in his cage. I haven't changed the brand of food or water, I've stopped giving him treats. At first I thought it could of been matted fur since he's peeing everywhere the bottom fur around his private area is getting wet. So I got a towel the other day and wrapped him up and removed quite a bit of fur by hand when massaging it out. But he still was being mean.

Yesterday I was cleaning his cage and had to put him in a crate just to clean it as he would keep trying to attack my arms if not. I even moved things in his cage to see if it's him trying to assert dominance. After I cleaned it & moved things around I put him back in his cage. He noticed things were moved. I then put on some baggy sweat pants on along with a baggy thick jacket on and opened the cage. I held out my arms (mind you my hands were inside the jacket as I was afraid of him biting me) to see if he would want to come out to play. He goes into my arms and we go into the bathroom & I let him take his dust bath. I sit in the corner not moving and just watch. He isn't charing at me or attacking me.He even sits on me. I pet him a few times and he doesn't bite me. I had him out for about 30mins and nothing. Picked him up just fine and put him in his cage. He went back to being aggressive so I knew it had to be him and the cage.

This morning I could barely clean his cage. He constantly was attacking my arm while I wore that baggy thick jacket. he got a few bites in me through the jacket until it was the point I sat there crying because I don't know what's going on with my stickshift. I'm so scared that if I can't figure it out that I cannot keep him since I can't even put my hand in his cage to give him food or even clean out his cage.

The bites this moring through the jacket


Aucun commentaire:

Enregistrer un commentaire