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Untraining Biting

Skeep

Active Member
5 Year Member
Messages
131
In the last month my 10 mo old gu has twice tried to take a chunk out of my face. The bites already hurt (and took a whole month to heal completely) and I can only imagine it will be worse when she gets bigger! Most of the time if she runs up to my shoulder then she just wants to explore there, but it makes me nervous now when she wants to come near my face that she will bite again.

Both times she wasn't aggressive before biting, she just calmly walked up and bit. The first time she was happily exploring the room and then had jumped up on my lap to lay there for a minute before she non-chalantly crawled up my shirt and grabbed my chin. The second time we were playing in the bed sheets and she walked up and bit my neck. The other weird thing is she never bites my roommate, who does handle her regularly, or my hands or feet, only my face and neck it seems!

I'm pretty sure that when she bites it is because she is hungry. Both days she bit before she was fed. I also was testing how she would respond to skipping a day a week of eating, since she is definitely getting fatter. I think maybe the change in routine could have prompted this? I went back to feeding her daily and just watching portion size instead, so we'll see if that fixed the problem. However she begs me for more food all morning until I leave for work lol. (I didn't actually cut back the portion size, I just stopped increasing it as she grows to see if she loses a little of the chub. She's not really overweight I just don't want her to get there, and most mornings she leaves some food behind.)

Both times she bit was in the bedroom, where she never gets food or rarely even treats. I always feed her with tongs, with the exception of treats sometimes. She nicely takes treats from my fingers and doesn't even bite by accident. If I give her a plate of food to eat off of she just stares at me like, "What's that?" until I start feeding her with the tongs and then she figures out it's food and will eat off the plate heh.

Maybe she'll stop biting with the change in routine, but does anyone have any suggestions on how I can get her to disassociate my face with food?
 

beez

New Member
Messages
2
i'm in the same boat with my 10month old blueXchacoan. hes had no problems biting me in pretty much the same manner a few times, but i'm pretty sure every time has been hunger related. he tried to eat a glove for about 20 minutes yesterday but was fine after i fed him.

what do you feed yours? ive been alternating between reptilinks and mice. he loves the links. yesterday he ate some banana and fish too.

i let him free roam my basement for a little bit every other day or so. there's no way these animals can be confined to a cage 24/7.

sure would be nice to untrain food aggression so i'll be paying attention to this thread. hopefully someone can offer further insight
 

Skeep

Active Member
5 Year Member
Messages
131
I'm hoping it's a phase that she'll grow out of, but for now she still gets too interested in my skin when she is hungry lol.

She's been getting pickier about eating. Mostly I've been alternating between day-old chickens, fish, and a couple of different meatball blends which have some fruits and veggies mixed in. She stopped touching eggs and berries, so I stopped giving them to her for now in the hopes she will like them when they are new again. Also I sneak in crickets and mealworms sometimes, but she's really not that interested in them.
 

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