i got my glider nearly 2 years ago and she's about 3. i've tried every method of bonding and nothing has worked. can someone tell me a good routine of what to do and when to do it? i don't want to rehome her :(

I have had my 2 girls about 5 years and the 2 boys almost 2 1/2 years. Only one of them will willingly come out of the cage and climb up my arm. Three of them will come to the front of the cage to take treats from me.

I guess I could have worked harder to try to bond with them, but to be honest, they all have different personalities and they all seem happy the way they are.

Tent time didn't work for me, they wouldn't run and play, they just hang on the side of the tent and freeze or hide behind my back. Oh, and one of the girls would attack my toes!(She is the same one that rarely comes for a treat, and when she does, she can't take it without biting me.)

I think everyone has a different definition of 'bonding.' I'm just happy that they don't crab at me!

Please tell me more about "tent" time

I got a small pop up tent, like kids use in their bedroom. It cost about $35. It is best to get one with lots of mesh/screen, because they have trouble climbing the solid nylon walls. Someone posted recently about a Bug Free Zone tent that zips up around a lawn chair, and that sounded better than sitting on the floor because I'm not very limber.

So you take the gliders in their pouch, toys and treats and paper towels or fleece and zip up inside the tent with them. Then you put the pouch down and let them crawl out when they are ready, or bribe them out with treats.

Hopefully your babies will run around and explore the area and you and get used to your smell. Spend as much time in the tent with them as you can stand. It gets boring if they won't come out of the pouch, so take a book or your cell phone with you. And hide your toes, if you have a biter.

You can also do 'bathroom' time with them once you glider-proof your bathroom. Mine is way too cluttered for gliders, they knock everything over!

While we're newbies, our Peanut is starting to come to us and willing come out of her cage. She BIT, crabbed, clawed and everything else in the beginning. We did bathroom time to help bonding. We cleared out the bathroom, shut the door and sat on the floor, still, until she started making movements to us. We didn't advance to her, but rather let her explore us until she started accepting us as something other than Mr. and Mrs. King Kong.

What really helped us was perspective. We read an article that talked about HOW much bigger we are than she is and asked us to put ourselves in HER place. If something THAT much bigger than me came at me, you better believe I'd crab and bite. LOL

The other thing we did was to start using leather gloves to handle her and began hand feeding her fruits and food to get her to trust us. It took weeks of near tears on both our parts, but she started to accept us.

Now a month + later and she calls for us when we pass by to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and is pleased to see us.

On a side note, Peanut HATES her pouch. She likes being in a pocket because she can peek her head out and see what's going on and the pocket doesn't swing away from our body like the pouch does. She feels more secure and can pop her head out whenever she wants.

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Originally posted by zackmerritt333

i got my glider nearly 2 years ago and she's about 3. i've tried every method of bonding and nothing has worked. can someone tell me a good routine of what to do and when to do it? i don't want to rehome her :(

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You mentioned you tried everything, can you mention methods you tried and how consistent you were with them?

I homed my two girls together when they were aprox 1 yr old, in Feb of 2012. They weren't super socialized for a majority of their first year with their original family. The mom did the care, but the children soon lost interest and they didn't have much interaction. Skadoosh, the youngest of the two was pretty easy going, but Lulu, was a monster (to put it nicely). After joining the forums, I learned that she was terrified, and that changed my view of her, and I began a mission to win her over.

I began spending fairly consistent "pouch time" with them during the day, I had limited time, so I tried daily, but sometimes maybe skipped a day, for about 10-15 minutes usually. I had treats handy to hand feed them when they popped their heads out of the pouch. I rubbed them through the pouches and spoke or sang softly to them. I was able to give them head scratches a little bit after a bit while they munched or licked their treat.

I had been doing about 10-15 minutes of "Out of Cage" visits in the evenings and also sometimes in the morning, (my XH did this with me, and sometimes without me). But I ended up glider-proofing my bathroom and began longer play times with them in there about three days a week (evening or early am).

Now all this effort made a huge difference, but I never felt like they were "super bonded" to me, but they were as much as they could be.

Then I homed my boy Ollie in Nov 2013, he was about 4 yrs old and I am, I believe his fourth home. I spent separate pouch time and out of cage play time with him, then when they were introduced successfully, I did them all together. I kind of quit the regular "pouch time", do it only occasionally. I continued routine out of cage play with the trio until I moved the first time in Feb 2014. Since then, I've not had the living arrangement along with different work schedules to really develop a good routine anymore, but I do the best I can. I have noticed a change with the less time I get them out to play, but they still know me, and I believe trust me.

Well sometimes they never are fully bonded to people