She’s become more accepting of being stroked but isn’t quite so keen on being picked up. Last night while I sat next to her cage, I put some oats on my shoulder and she came out and perched there nibbling away and then decided that my hair was tasty too.

When she runs around, she jumps off the wall like a ninja, but since she’s so fast, it’s difficult to get a decent shot.

The other night when she was out, I gave her access to her dust bath, even though it’s more or less enclosed except for the entrance, she still managed to get it everywhere and chucked a good chinchilla handful at me. When I swirl the sand about, she knows it’s bath time and comes a runnin’.

The past week has been rather hot so I’ve had to put in a wrapped ice pack for her to chill out on which I think she appreciated. She looks really cute when she’s all flatted out.

I chinchilla

Progress has been at a leisurely pace as expected. A few nights ago, she let me rub her belly and over the following nights, it progressed to a chin scratch, side of face stroke and this evening, a head rub along with some scratching behind the ears like you do with cats.

She’s very willing to have both front paws on my hand while taking treats from the other, but seems a bit reluctant to sit in my palm. Having said that, last night she sat in my hand momentarily before jumping off and running around in her cage.

I still haven’t let her run loose in the room. Don’t think it’s wise until I have her trained up some more.

She’s pretty friendly and is slowly coming out of her shell. Her fur’s just so soft. Cici has pretty soft fur as did Watson, but her’s is in a league of it’s own.

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Cuzco the chinchilla, she likes a whole lotta hay

Cage interior

Chinchilla cage

He needed quite a bit of encouragement to get him out of his carrier, in fact, he had to be tipped out onto the table. He was very still and compliant to everything the vet had to do and didn’t moan much except from when he had the scab picked off his abscess. Yup, it turned out that he had an abscess, probably from the claw of another cat while fighting. He had two jabs which he didn’t seem to mind and had his temperature taken (you know, that way). I also enquired about his weight and he’s only slightly overweight at 5.8 kg when really he should be at 5.25 kg.

Cici has another appointment on Tuesday to see how things are, hopefully by then it would’ve drained out. So between now and then, I’ve got to keep his abscess open so it’ll drain, give him his antibiotics (in pill form, lord help me) and painkillers (liquid, much easier). Given that it usually takes me about an hour to give him just one Drontal tablet, giving him two pills a day is going to be both a mammoth and traumatic task for he and I.

Waiting at the vets