Types of bonding

There are other ways to bond with gliders or approaches and the following info is MY opinion on why it may or may not be the way to start bonding.


There are three different ways to start bonding to your sugar glider. Although all different ways are used or mentioned in the 10steps in our book(booklet). THE TEN STEPS ARE AT THE END. I think the way you start bonding depends on whether you want your glider to be one that you can carry in public and show off or do you want the free spirit of running everywhere and jump on you from time to time to just say hello and then off to the races again. I personally want my glider to come with me and we show our kids off all the time in public. To me this is the fun of owning a sugar glider and a friend you can take everywhere with you(with time and patience and indoor practice). In daylight(in the shade of course) when we take them out of http://pouch or t-shirt pouch they want to run back in pouch and don’t even think of running away as I am their security and their pouch is their temporary nest. We also take certain extremely tightly bonded moms and her babies out with us to get babies use to going and to carry on tradition of holding mom and babies, because if mom will trust you then we believe it carries over to the babies and they have no fear of us. Which ever method is right or works for you do to life getting in the way of bonding(trusting) remember three important things, voice recognition so they know who you are, scent recognition so they can recognize you or their nest(home) and the biggest goal is TRUST. The trust is the hardest thing for your glider depending on how much they were handled before you get them. In my opinion a truly bonded glider will not crab at you for waking them up or if it gets scared it will run to you or go in pouch or down your shirt.
The first method is the one we use, although I have used second method but it didn’t work for me.
#1 first voice recognition, then scent recognition, then HOLDING your glider before putting in pouch or carrying in sleeping pouch. WHY? Holding your glider or picking glider up and holding even for a couple of minutes shows trust and starting to bond. You want the glider to trust your hands not just jump on you and run when your hand comes near them. If my adults didn’t trust me they would not be relaxed in my hands with the babies eating a treat and chirping, then the babies would pick up on the fear and would not start smelling me and then crawl on me and look to me as a big giant glider thing or at least a family member. If you think about it first thing baby sees when eyes are opening is a giant hand to grab at mom and dad or baby and mom or dad crabs guess what baby has learned fear of what, the human hand. The baby also cries when taken from mom to hold or bond it is still stressed or has lost trust of that hand. Then when you purchase a glider it has a fear of the hand and it is the hardest thing to overcome. Sometimes it can take a few days sometimes a week or more for baby to be relaxed while you hold it against your chest and may fall asleep also as holding can give favorite treat. The holding comes after voice and scent recognition period and this time depends on the glider and your time invested in them. We do these three things above in daylight hours as it is easier to handle sleepy glider at first.


#2 the second way that we tried is take glider out of cage after 2-4 days of getting use to new environment and carry in sleeping pouch or put in pouch and carry around house as you do activities. I changed from holding mom and babies to just putting baby in pouch at about 3-4 weeks oop and then carrying in pouch(I had taken a part time job and did not have time everyday or so to hold mom and babies together). I had trouble with this as my babies, I was trying to calm them down to sell and every time I moved or bumped the pouch the baby would start crabbing and sometimes lunge and bite at the pouch. It seemed I had to work twice as hard to bond as it was getting scared in the pouch with new movement and noises. After voice, scent recognition, I try and carry baby around house to get use to sights and sounds and then I start carrying in a pouch with smell from nest and it seems that they aren’t as scared(crabby) when they hear diff noises and movement. I believe baby getting scared in pouch actually will make the bonding process take longer as now the baby is scared of you and the POUCH. Also do you want the baby to bond(trust) to you or bond to the pouch, I want the baby to bond to me and think of the pouch as security and a place it wants to go into and not forced into. Even an un bonded or scared sugar glider will eventually after fighting and struggling to get out of pouch will fall asleep if not disturbed, but still doesn’t feel secure in pouch. Eventually the baby would bond but could take a lot longer and again it depends on how much or how it was handled before you got the baby. I also tried putting hand in pouch with baby but the glider was not happy and would nip or try to escape from the pouch. After recognition period and pet or hold even slightly the glider seems to accept my hand in his/her territory more easily and would cuddle under my hand. We put the sugar gliders in the pouch but it is after the voice and scent recognition and the crabbing intensity or tone has changed, which shows that baby is very slightly starting to trust(bond) with you. In other words putting baby or new adult glider in pouch on the third day and walking around with constant crabbing is just scaring your baby.
#3 I have never used this method of bonding with a tent(by Critter Hill) in the living room and you sit in small area and glider will eventually jump on you and run all over the tent and suppose to interact with you. I guess the glider would have to jump on you as you would be the tallest thing in the tent other than the roof of tent. If this method is used I would be very leery of ever taking my glider outside as it only knows free run even if it is in a small area. I guess it would jump on off and on off, so how do you get it to trust your hands and stay on your body if you have started with it having free run? The only thing we have ever done with free run at first bonding was Sugie and after voice recognition and scent recognition and a lot of holding hand in cage we started to give her free reign and we glider proofed a room and had large ropes across ceiling and one down to the floor also had live plants for them to play on. We interacted in the room with her, and free time at later bonding step is a good and enjoyable thing. But one mistake we made with Sugie was out time before she fully bonded on to my body. To this day she will only stay on me a couple of minutes and if I don’t watch her body language she will jump off and run back to my room where her cage is and run up her cage door. I would never trust her outside and definitely not at night, NOT RECOMMENDED (be very careful if you take glider outside at night!). The choice is yours on how you want your glider to bond to you and probably all three ways would work and some ways would be easier or more time consuming than others. Just make sure you decide what type of a life you want with your sugar glider and then choose the way that will work for your life style. Three things to remember when bonding; TIME for glider to adjust, PATIENCE in bonding style, and CONSISTENCY(RITUAL) which means doing it around same time and the same way as you are trying to train your sugar glider to bond and to have complete trust of you and your hand.
The following ten steps are how I train(bond) to a new sugar glider that I had given to me and how I tame them before they go to a new family, with mom’s help with babies. Another thing we did when we started bonding was to wear a sock cut in half around our arm to get our scent on it. We have recently found out NOT to use socks as their toe nails could get caught in them. I believe everybody uses what they call “fleece blankies” which is strips or pieces of safe fleece cut up and put in their sleeping nest. You should get your scent on them to help the bonding process. The other thing you should do is the breeder you get your baby sugar glider from ask for a scented piece of bedding that has mom’s smell on it. We believe it makes it easier transition for baby as they have something that smells like their old family. Then every time you wash their box or pouch you should leave a piece of dirty(the cleanest piece in nest) nesting material or blankie for scent recognition of home for your baby and/or adults. That is what we do every time we find a home for one of our babies. We also do this with our adults as we change linen and/or nesting box. If we don’t mom and dad will come out and start carrying babies around the cage(not normal here).
INTRODUCTION:
This is a handbook on how to train(bond) to baby sugar gliders, but also can be used on older sugar gliders. Older gliders take more time on each step. The step by step instructions are slow steps to give baby and owner time to adjust and time to trust each other. Some gliders will respond quicker to training(bonding). Some other gliders you will have to work harder(more patience) or for longer period of time. If baby crabs at you as you are doing steps and it stops crabbing before the recommended time frame, you could go to the next step. If animal acts scared or goes back to crabbing or nipping, go back to the previous step and continue that step through the required time period. As you go through the steps a baby that is scared or nippy at first, eventually should calm down and tame down to his/her new family. I have seen mean(scared) babies turn around like turning a light switch off or on. They will sneak peaks at you through their box hole, or start coming to the front of their cage. Their normal scared or aggressive behavior will suddenly change. Don’t rush too fast through these steps, you have many years to enjoy each other if you win their trust in the beginning. In the following steps I recommend the minimum once per day(everyday) or the minimum handling time, or in the pouch time. If you are home or have extra time you could go in box up to three to five times per day, at different5 times during the day so baby can sleep in between time. This will help baby to get use to you at first. These steps are to be done during daylight hours unless otherwise mentioned. There is one step later that is done at night. These are my opinions on bonding.
Written by daddyglider/Art
New Age Sugar Gliders