# Bonding exercises?



## Nell (Aug 26, 2010)

Well, it's me again with another strange topic idea in mind. 

This time it's about bonding. 
Ziggy is perfectly comfy sleeping on me, and seems to not mind as much when my arms move as I type. He's more candid about coughing. 
I'm wondering though, if there's other ways in which I can get him used to me. 
For example, when he's balled up he uncurls as soon as I let him down, but if my finger is nearby he doesn't like it and balls up again, so what I tried was to slowly inch my finger nearby whenever he started to uncurl, to the point he uncurled all the waywith the finger touching his belly. 

-_- I am hoping I won't get yelled at for animal cruelty. All it seemed to do was annoy him out of his comfort zone. And brave my menacing finger. 

But does anyone try anything while handling their hogs to get them more used to being touched? I could use some ideas to may be get him to loosen up more.


----------



## PJM (May 7, 2010)

I have tried different things with Zoey. She was super huffy when we first got her. I don't think there's anything cruel if you are gentle & slow & don't try to force anything.
And reward them liberally.
I discovered that if I put my hand on her back, she would huff & pop. But if I left it there, she would get used to it & only react if I moved. Evntually, she even began to like it & would cuddle under my hand & sleep. Same with petting. At first, none, then if I moved slowly, she would let me pet just her back side. Now I can pet her from nose to nub.
Same with her feet. When she's on her back, she would pop a foot out. At first if I touched it, she would pull it back in & ball up. Now I can grab & touch & trim all of them with not much more than a mean look.
I find that this method also works great on husbands! :lol:


----------



## Galvon (Sep 20, 2010)

I don't know if this goes for all hedgies, because Sandslash's behaviour seems kind of at odds with what I hear from other hedgie owners. 

Whenever I'm at home, I'm a student so I'm always doing homework or something like that, I always have Sandy in his hedgiebag in the front of my hoodie. I don't know if there's such a thing as socializing him too much but he loves sleeping in there. It's probably really warm and it smells like mom I guess. 

Anyway, at first he would get all annoyed when i took him out of his cage but now when I get home from school and he hears me come in the bedroom he wakes up and waits at the edge of his cage like "Hey! Pick me up!" So he seems to like being kangaroo'd around all the time. 

In terms of bonding, late at night when hes getting more active and just waking up I put him on my chest without his hedgiebag and kinda do what you were talking about and tap his feet and let him climb over my hands and stuff and he used to hate having his feet touched but now he really likes it. I also do this thing where ill pet his back quills, then slowly work my way toward his head quills, and eventually to petting behind his ears. (It's adorable, when you pet behind their ears they twitch like crazy) Anyway, he used to huff and huff as I progressed but now i can go almost straight to ear petting and he'll just sit there and stare at me all happy.

So you're not being cruel haha you have to push through the huffiness to get them used to you touching them and stuff. 

Hope I helped!


----------

