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Post by moodycat on Jul 12, 2009 11:38:37 GMT
Hi, I have been reading about Degu's and watching videos on them and their amazing behaviour for a while now and today my husband said we could finally go to P@H and look at the sweet degu's.
Well, we get there and everything is fine untill I got the sales assistant to come over and open the cage so I can could try tickling one of them and see if they like me.
Instead, he open the cage and picked up and unwilling degu, who was then scared witless and unhappy about being forced to stay still and then he proceeded to explain to my husband how he has two and then are too active and only sleep 3 hours a night, un-easy to tame, unintelligent and dont recognise their owners and also very messy animals you need to clean at *least* twice a week! - Now nothing on the internet I have read supports this load of twaddle and of course my husband swallowed all of it and now he doesn't want one!
So I had to leave the little degu's behind all because of this guy @ pets at home who obviously is speaking out of dislike for these little creatures!
I'm so gutted. I was thinking about taking my husband to a proper breeder so he speak to someone who loves their degu's and who has tame adults to show us which might help him to realise how amazing they are?? what do you think and do you know any breeders in the doncaster/south yorks/yorks area??
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Post by Philip on Jul 12, 2009 14:42:52 GMT
so sorry for you! I'm sure that if you show your husband this forum and just how much you can tame them, then i'm sure that he'll come through! hope you manage to get some, i'm getting mine in 4 weeks!  |
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Post by deguconvert on Jul 12, 2009 17:34:52 GMT
I'm so sorry to hear of your experience. I would have wanted to give the guy a punch! Now you have the task of debunking his statements. I hope you are well able to do so, for they are wonderful little chaps. I have a question . . . were you planning on only one degu? They are much healthier and happier in a group of one or more. Now . . . they can take some time to train . . . but if you know what you need to do before hand, it will help an awful lot. Having treats on hand to offer on your palm at the open door of their cage will entice their tummies. You need to let them make the choice of coming to you, chasing them with your hand to catch them will cause them to view you as a predator. They will grow in trust and you will eventually have some little fellas gladly riding on your shoulders! They can be messy as they love to rearrange the substrate of their cage, but there are ways to solve that. If you look at this link www.johnhopewell.co.uk you will see that he has lots of very helpful things such as guards that you can put on the sides of the cage to stop the kicking out of mess. He is also a favorite with many forum members, as he makes excellent cage products and accessories. Degus are smart . . . if you go to Youtube, type in degus, you will see that they can learn a lot of things. They are even capable of answering to their own names. Of course you have to reinforce their names . . . as with any animal you teach . . . but our three boys all know their own names. If you use a substrate such as megazorb, carefresh, or finacard, the odors are well controlled. |
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Post by listracian on Jul 12, 2009 20:57:27 GMT
They are far from dumb, they are very clever and can be very cheeky!
Also they sleep LOADS. Granted they sleep lots during the day but they sleep at night. I have 12 in my bedroom and I still sleep all night without being woken up and thats with them chewing on bars and squeaking at each other.
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Mojo
Burrowing Degu
Posts: 270
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Post by Mojo on Jul 12, 2009 21:50:09 GMT
lol that guy sounds like an complete idiot......
My goos are very tame, they sleep most of the night in my case and sometimes a bit during the day ;-p. They are active animals but this makes them fun to play with. They'll happily run around my flat and come and jump up on me on the couch to watch some telly. They are a little messy but generally just kick a few bits out of the cage. I have perspex panels attached tp my cage that keeps it all clean and tidy.
As for recognising their owners when I come in the room my goos can see me and will come over to the cage. If a stranger comes in they will hide or ignore them. It shows they do recognise you and can even spot you in different clothes.
I think if you get your husband on this forum we can set the record straight
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Post by buzz on Jul 13, 2009 10:00:23 GMT
There are still few breeders as far as i know. www.degus.com/breeders.html Scroll down to the UK, but i don't know how upto date that is. Tell your husband that if degus aren't handled right then they become untame... and if one guy says that they are difficult to tame, thats not a fault with the degu... thats the owner. Lack of patience most likely. There's so many of us on here and we all love degus, he can't go by one person's opinion. Tell your husband to do his research from loads of sources before he closes his mind to degus. You can train degus by repeating actions... for example my cage has two layers, if I want all the degus up the top, i just need to tap on the top floor and now they all come running up to me, even if they were on the bottom. Hows that unintelligent. Plus, my degus come to me but not my brother or sister.... if I've been away for a few days they all rush over to as soon as I come to the cage... now if they couldn't recognise owners then why would they discriminate like that. They are very active... whats wrong with that? Its another sign of their intelligence... they can't sit around and do nothing because they have an active mind. And, maybe the degus don't sleep well through the night... that can be a result of the location of the nest box... if they don't feel safe, they won't sleep soundly. Mine snooze right through the night, i can easily sleep in the same room as the degus, but never with my gerbils. Get your husband on here! Good luck! |
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goozoo
Burrowing Degu
Posts: 129
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Post by goozoo on Sept 23, 2009 14:54:16 GMT
Don't tell my rats, but I think goo's are by far the best small pets. I've got 9, all rescued from appaulling conditions as adults, not handled at all. They are all wonderfully friendly and intelligent.
P@H doesn't have a very good record with anything. Have you considered some rescue goo's?
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Post by pixiedust on Sept 25, 2009 13:02:44 GMT
Well messy - perhaps a little.. but all the positives more than make up for that!
Ours sleep most of the night - they are right next to my side of the bed and although I hear a few noises from time to time when I happen to be awake they have never actually woken me up.
As for their characters, they obviously differ from animal to animal - like people - but ours are an absolute joy. Our pair are Father and Son and the Son (Milo) was a timid little thing when he first arrived but plenty of talking to them each time we passed the cage, and opening the cage door several times a day and just chatting to them (!) has done wonders and now as soon as the door is opened Milo jumps straight onto my hand, I usually pop him onto my shoulder where he will either sit quite happily or climb up and down my arm depending what mood he is in. He has even been known to climb up and sit on my head! He would spend every minute out and climbing on me if he was allowed. He's a little more wary of people he doesn't know, but I tell them to stand right in front of the cage if they are holding him and if he feels nervous he just hops back inside - he'll then usually run round the cage and try to climb back out - after a few minutes of this he's usually quite happy! Merlin, the Dad, is a bit more challenging - he liked to groom fingers rather hard when we first had him. Although he does this much less now, he is now slightly more reluctant than Milo to come out - I think he has picked up on our nervousness of him. However, he will still come to sit at the cage door and will sometimes come out and snuggle in the crook of your arm which is a lovely feeling - Merlin's cuddles are harder to come by than Milo's so you really feel you've achieved something! He's also such a character, he picks up and throws tubes, food bowls etc and is currently turning the window in their wooden house into another door! They don't like sleeping in the house, they have one of those round straw nest things that they snuggle up in but the house is their storage place for prized items like sticks, chewed bits of cupboard etc. Watching Merlin trying to get a toilet roll tube through the door is so funny - he does eventually work out it won't go in sideways!
I've only had them a month or so but as you can tell from the above I'm completely and totally hooked on them. Having had a lot of hamsters in the past (my Daughter currently has one, plus four mice), rats etc, I have to say without doubt these are the best, cleverest, most interesting, and (in Milo's case anyway) the most affectionate pets I have owned and I don't regret for one moment having them (although my hoover does get a lot of work)!
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