Biting and pulling tails!

[gumama]

Hi all, new here!

We have four degu girls (Bubble, Cheeky, Squeak and Monkey), all from the same litter, now 8 months old (we got them at 4 months). We got these ones specifically after about a year of going into the pet store, because they were so much fun as a group and so friendly. It's really paid off and we've trained them using online guides and now we have 4 lovely gu girls.

We just have a couple of problems. Three of them are completely hand tame, will sit in our laps while we watch TV etc, in fact when they're out and running around they'll come to us and go up on their hind legs in front of us to be picked up, it's adorable. Bubble, however, will NOT be handled. She's not scared of us, if we have treats she'll come over with the rest, but she'll either snatch a treat out of our hands without being held or if we don't let her do this, snatch a treat off one of the others. Is this just her personality or do you think she's had a bad experience as a pup? Is it something we could overcome? It just seems like she's missing out when the rest are all playing with us and she's on her own.

Secondly - Monkey, who is brilliant fun and very good natured with us, has such a bad habit of pulling and biting the others tails! She'll literally pull them off shelves in their cage by their tails! It's quite funny to watch but i'm worried she'll hurt them - would this be enough for their tail to fall off?!

Thanks for the advice guys! ;D

Gumama

[deguconvert]

No, they shouldn't lose their tails from that treatment. It is sort of a play/dominance thing. Our three boys used to do this a lot the first 2 years of age. It's dropped off a lot now.

One of our boys lost a third of his tail as a pup. We figure it was due to someone trying to grab him by the tail, or it getting closed in a door. Anyway, he totally didn't trust humans, and although he wasn't aggressive, he refused to be touched. If we did scoop him up, he would leap from our hands in a desperate attempt to get away. The more we tried to handle him the more upset he became, and before very long he was biting me hard! I had to go hard core training with him, took about 5 months, hand training 3 times each day, getting bitten multiple times, but now he is our most gentle of the three. I have to run, so can't go into detail right now, but if you want more, I will tell you all about it.

[Cherpi]

What I did with my degu joe who'd grab it and run (was scared) was either gold a corn flake or some kind of snack between my thumb and index finger and cup the hand slightly, so that he had to stand on my hand to eat the treat, and then when he started trusting me more I'd crush up his treats really fine like a dust so he had to lick or sit on my hand and eat the snack, it worked well as he'll come to my hand and sit on it without having a treat in it, it's just getting him to sit still now ;p

[gumama]

Thanks for the responses all.

She is most definitely the dominant one, without a doubt. She's the biggest, she always eats first when the food bowl goes in (and will kick any of the others if they try it on!), and if any of the others get out of line she's the one who tells them.

We have only been giving them treats in the last month when they come out, and she will now (very reluctantly) sit in our hands, but if we give her a treat she'll simply hold it tightly until she's back in the cage to eat it.

We let them out and loose every day, have done since we got them, we got them to play with and love so we can't see the point of keeping them locked up. Sometimes we do it in the hallway as they LOVE running up and down the stairs, and sometimes in the dining room. Ironically in that situation she'll leap onto us and over us as if we're not there, climb onto our head, the lot! But only to use us to get to higher spots etc. She'll never stop on us for a cuddle like the others do, and if you try to touch her she'll leap right off you. This is what makes me think she's not scared of us, just not interested!

We're rapidly coming to the conclusion she just doesn't like handling much. We're not going to force it on her. I think it's just her personality!