How I bonded with my Chins

[Burnt Offering]

I have seen a lot of questions here about how to bond with your Chin. I am a somewhat newbie to the Chin world. I inherited my daughters Chin when she moved out of state. It wasn't long after that I got another one and am just having a blast with them. My disclaimer. I am no authority on the subject, and I don't know much compared to a lot of you who have worked with Chins for years but my strategy has seemed to work very well for me.

To get my chins used to me I would simply walk by their cage and talk to them, and occasionally give them a cheerio from a ziplock bag. I would rattle the bag before I gave them the cheerio. This helped them recognize the sound of a treat. Before long they would come to the edge of the cage and let me pet them and this is whether I gave them a cheerio or not, or at the very least they would come to the edge of the cage and be excited to see me. Yes I know its bribery. But this went a LONG ways towards getting them used to me and built their trust.

This video shows the progress I have made with BeBe one of my two female Chins. Now what I do is let them out for playtime. I sit down and simply rattle the ziplock bag with the cheerios in it and they can be hiding under something clear on the other side of the room. They will come at a full run to get on my lap. I let them help themselves to a few cheerios and they will let me pet them a lot while they are snacking. This is repeated several time while they are out in the span of an hour or so. One last thing I think is of worthy mention. I don't even try to pick up my Chins unless I HAVE to. Neither one of mine like it and will try to go in 48 directions if I try so I am happy to just have them on my lap and be able to pet them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eRva8PMQys&feature=youtu.be

 

[AZChins]

Bribery is one of the easiest ways to bond with chins, that's for sure! (It helps to bribe them with treats to get them to hold still for photos...) It's a good strategy.

 

[ticklechin]

I have three lap dog chins or so they think, color me stupid but sometimes I miss the days when chins were standoffish and hard to get! John says I took out all the chinchilla-ness of the chinchilla.

 

[Burnt Offering]

Ha That's funny Dawn. I don't have any desire to hold or cuddle my Chins. I think anyone with an ounce of common sense can see that they just aren't that type of pet for the most part and as with everything someone will probably dispute that. But I do want more social interaction with them than the occasional "Cheerio through the cage bars". I am pretty much ecstatic that I have gotten them to trust me enough to come up on my lap and let me pet them. Anything beyond that is just icing on the cake. For the most part I just laugh my head off at the crazy things they do. So between the lap time and the entertainment I am happy.

 

[CRG7]

I keep a supply of Cheerios in the room with my boy in a small tupperware container with a twist-off lid. He now knows the sound of the lid being removed, and runs over. I didn't use Cheerios so much as to bribe him into bonding with me as I did as a reward after playtime for returning to his cage on his own.

I never wanted to force him back in, although I had to after a long while of being out for playtime (at least half of which was spent napping/resting outside of his house) on a few occasions. Paired with providing a little topping-off of his food with some fresh pellets and hay, he soon came to associate playtime ending with these.

I pet my boy by his ear or under the side of his chin without any trouble; he loves it usually and will just sit there for minutes at a time enjoying it. He sometimes is up for a little bit of light petting of his back, but other times wants no part of it. During playtime, he will gladly some sit on my lap or climb on me, but still runs around like a maniac as well. I've only tried to hold him on a couple of occasions, as he doesn't care much for it. He is okay, though, with being "held" on the palm of my hand. Sometimes at night I will stick my arm in his cage, and he'll climb on and just hang out there for a while. He especially loves if I have a fleece hoodie on, or a bathrobe.