Chirping when Scared? Stranger Danger?

[ritachick]

So our Chinchy Elvira made a new sound the other day. She immediately ran under her cage when let out and began emitting a very loud "alarm" sound. We've heard her bark but this was very loud for a Chinchy in our experience.

Only thing we can think of was for the first time someone else let her out. My daughter had her friend let her out of her cage while she took a shower. There are (3) family members one of use lets her out twice a day. This is the first time it was not one of us.

She would not come out from under her cage until I was the only one in the room, and she was still pretty rattled.

Was she scared because it was someone she did not know who let her out? If so I did not realize they were all that observant. Regardless I felt terrible.

 

[Amethyst]

They may not have the best vision but they do have a good sense of smell so they definitely know who is and isn't their family, a lot of chins even bond to one person the most. However if she isn't normally a scary chin and nothing bad has happened to her in her life (so the friend didn't remind her of someone that did something to her) I wonder if the person just had a smell the chin didn't like. For example does the person use any strong smell like perfumes, soaps, lotions, etc? Or does the person have any other pets of their own like a dog or cat, or other predator animals?

 

[ritachick]

Thanks Amethyst, it mirrors my research could have been the smell. The teen has (2) dogs so that could have been a factor too, didn't think of that!

 

[_els__]

To add, I always say: Nobody will ever know how cuddly most of my chinchilla's are. Most come for a cuddle and a kiss when I open the cage, but they don't do that when someone else is standing next to me. They're very attached to people they know and strangers are scary to them.