Hello,
First of all, I am new to this forum! I did a couple quick seraches and didn't find the exact answer to my question, but I aopologize if I am rehashing something that has already been covered at length.
We adopted a 3 month old Netherland Dwarf almost three weeks ago. She is not spayed. We currently keep her in an 18x48 wire bottom cage for the night time. Every morning she gets 2-3 hours of play in our outdoor screened in porch. After her play time she goes into a wire "play yard" that is 48x48. She sometimes gets an additional hour or two on the porch again in the adternoon. The porch is large probably 15 feet wide by 30 feet long. She is litter box trained.
Everything is going well, but she really doesn't like to be handled. We don't disturb her in her night time cage other than to take her out for her free run in the porch. To get her into the play yard I begin setting it up, and then when she comes to explore I shut the gate behind her. If I couldn't trick her back in there I don't think we could ever get her back in a cage. When she is out on the porch we always sit out there with her. She'll come over and sniff us and lay down near us (maybe 1-2 feet away). She sprawls out and gets completely relaxed. But she won't let us touch her or pet her! We are trying to give her time to get to know us and understand that we mean her no harm. We offer her a wedge of carrot when she is out, and she will come right up to us and take it from our hand. If we try to pet her while she is eating it she either lets go and runs off, or if I let go of the carrot she'll pull it a bit away and finish eating. She runs around the porch and jumps and does the binky. She just won't let us groom/pet her.
Any suggestions? Are we giving her too much freedom??
Thanks for any advice!
First of all, I am new to this forum! I did a couple quick seraches and didn't find the exact answer to my question, but I aopologize if I am rehashing something that has already been covered at length.
We adopted a 3 month old Netherland Dwarf almost three weeks ago. She is not spayed. We currently keep her in an 18x48 wire bottom cage for the night time. Every morning she gets 2-3 hours of play in our outdoor screened in porch. After her play time she goes into a wire "play yard" that is 48x48. She sometimes gets an additional hour or two on the porch again in the adternoon. The porch is large probably 15 feet wide by 30 feet long. She is litter box trained.
Everything is going well, but she really doesn't like to be handled. We don't disturb her in her night time cage other than to take her out for her free run in the porch. To get her into the play yard I begin setting it up, and then when she comes to explore I shut the gate behind her. If I couldn't trick her back in there I don't think we could ever get her back in a cage. When she is out on the porch we always sit out there with her. She'll come over and sniff us and lay down near us (maybe 1-2 feet away). She sprawls out and gets completely relaxed. But she won't let us touch her or pet her! We are trying to give her time to get to know us and understand that we mean her no harm. We offer her a wedge of carrot when she is out, and she will come right up to us and take it from our hand. If we try to pet her while she is eating it she either lets go and runs off, or if I let go of the carrot she'll pull it a bit away and finish eating. She runs around the porch and jumps and does the binky. She just won't let us groom/pet her.
Any suggestions? Are we giving her too much freedom??
Thanks for any advice!