Hand Feeding

I've been working on hand feeding Sally so she makes the connection that I am the one who feeds her and is trustable. She has really caught on! Tonight I got home from work to her doing her laps around her cage. I then went up and pet her nose like she has been almost begging for and she was smelling my hand; got her first nibble but it didn't hurt or draw blood so no biggie. I'm guessing it had something to do with my hands smelling like oranges and Chins liking fruits. I proceded to go and get her food which I decided tonight to eat it she was going to have to sit outside of her cage in one hand while eating it out of the other. She did just fine! As soon as I opened the cage she came right to the door and started looking for her food (in a way this worried me, she's so fast that one of these days she's just going to book it to run around the house.) Well she wandered to my hand crawled on and found her food in the other hand. She sat there for 15 minutes eating away, comfortable as can be. When she was done I sat there and go to pet her, really pet her, like rub her back for a good minute before she would start to move away. This too is progress since last night she would take off to her little hut and hide for a second. Tonight she'd move away, I'd back off, and then she'd come back! I'd say we are doing alright! Well, I am, since I wasn't too sure what I was doing when I got her, good thing I did my research!

Today I also gave her her first dustbath. Which, for those of you that don't know, is the way they keep themselves clean. It's a specially formulated dust that helps keep their coat shiny and non-greasy. I don't know how their instincts tell them to roll in it, since it's not what is found in the wild, but she did it! I put it in a larger fishbowl and she was stoked! She came flying from the top level and dove in! She then just rolled around and would pop out, shake off a bit, and then dive back in. She played in there for about 15 minutes and I had to remove it from the cage when she was trying to sleep in the bowl. But at least I know she loves her baths!

That's it for tonight since it seems like she's starting to wind down a bit. But, there will be more tomorrow since I can't help but share this adventure.