It’s been a while since I did an update on Yiska and Ilona and how our bonding journey is going. You can see my previous posts below.
(Look at his gigantic shadow on the wall, lol! Monster Glider!)
(Sorry about the horrible picture quality. I’ll do a proper photo shoot with them one of these days)
I’ve had Ilona and Yiska for just over five months now. Yiska has made incredible progress. When I first got him, he was terrified of me (and everything else) and didn’t want to leave the cage. He also bit really bad and chewed on and shredded everything. The chewing was due to boredom and vanished as soon as I got them a wheel.
My little buddy ❤
After much hard work (and many nights of wondering if it was useless) Yiska began to warm to me. It’s been slow, but steady. He knows my voice and every time I talk to him and tell him it’s out of cage bonding time, he’ll come right out of the sleeping pouch or cube or off whatever toy he’s on. He’ll come up to me and climb onto my arm without hesitation. *dances around my room in joy* He is still very shy and cautious. If I move faster than a turtle around him, he’ll jump off of me and go hide on the side of the cage near the wall where I can’t reach him. He still doesn’t feel safe leaving the side of his cage – the only time he’ll step off of it is to come to me. *feels glider slave pride*
On the whole, he is progressing very very well. He doesn’t crab at me, doesn’t bite me and actually wants to hang out with me. ❤
Ilona, on the other hand, has me pulling my thinning hairs out in frustration. 😂 I don’t know what to do with her. She is extremely friendly and loves people, which is great. She’ll come right up to me and dash out onto my arms or shoulders as soon as I open the cage. She is very energetic and she can be affectionate at times.
She’s in attacking stance
But she is a horrible biter. It’s not the nice, gentle grooming that Ink and Dreamer do to me. She is not trying to clean me or show me that I’m part of her colony. She is attacking. After months of being bit hard, I figured out that she absolutely hates anything that moves quickly (yes, it shouldn’t have taken me that long to figure it out, lol). And she hates hands. I’ve taken to wearing two pairs of socks over my hands and she still manages to bite hard enough to draw blood.
She’s biting my arm at the moment of the picture, lol
I can’t figure her out. *shakes head* She likes me and I like her, but she is determined to chew my fingers off. 😫 If I have my hand raised (like to protect my face from her, lol, or to grab something or anything like that) she immediately latches on and bites so hard. I have little teeth marks all over my fingers right now because of that. Like I said earlier, she attacks anything that moves quickly. I’ve learned that I have to move extremely slow around her. I’ll lower my arm in front of her and she’ll jump right up onto it happily and we can have our bonding time. But if I move quickly at all, I get teeth in my skin.
Lesson of this post: some gliders cannot tolerate quick movements or hands. No glider likes either, but Ilona and Yiska are particularly sensitive to them.
My baby ❤
I’m done ranting about the biting. XD This is the reality of owning some gliders. Ink used to be a really bad biter, but he wasn’t aggressive, he was grooming and just did it way too hard and I have scars from that because I didn’t realize I could tell him no. He finally grew out of it and is my sweet baby. I’m just praying that Ilona will eventually follow his example! I honestly don’t know a lot about her previous life, but I’m guessing that she bit horribly there, too, and I feel bad for her owner.
I’m trying to be patient with Ilona and to move slowly and to let her see that I am her friend, I mean her no harm and hope that one day we will come to an understanding.
I guess I wasn’t done ranting. 😂
That wraps up another bonding update! I love these babies dearly and I am so very glad that I got a chance to be in their lives. I have learned so much about bonding since I’ve had them. They’ve been a blessing and I look forward to many more years with them and deepening their bond. ❤
~Hattush
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