Duckie
I adopted Duckie on November 14, 2000, she was 6 weeks old. I knew Xylo was lonely and I wanted to get him a playmate. I thought they would be a sweet couple and might even have babies someday. After seeing how quickly Xylo took up with Sugie, his first girlfriend, I was expecting to be able to introduce him to Duckie with no problem. But Duckie was so small and so afraid, she just ran from him whenever he came near her. Actually, she had good reason to run, because he charged at her every time he saw her and it looked like he was trying to bite the end of her tail. A couple of times he pounced on her before I could do anything. They rolled around like a screaming, blurry fuzz ball for a few seconds and then Duckie broke free and went zooming across the carpet like a bolt of lightning. Once she ran away from him, he didn't follow. It all happened so fast, it scared me to death. I checked her out to make sure she wasn't injured and after that I was afraid to let them out at the same time. I have kept them in separate cages and at night, I placed her cage up against his so they would see each other. I had hoped they would get used to each other this way. But each time I let them out of their cages to play at the same time, if Duckie wandered into Xylo's line of vision...there was an incident like the one I mentioned. Finally it occurred to me, to hang Xylo's food dishes on his cage right below where Duckie's food dishes were hanging in her own cage. The idea was to make them face each other sitting eye to eye at meal time. After several days of this arrangement, I decided to test them again. I opened the top of Xylo's cage while Duckie was climbing on the outside of it and to my amazement, he eased slowly over to her and began licking her hands through the wires of the cage. Duckie didn't seem to be afraid at all. I put my face right up to them because I wanted to make sure he wouldn't suddenly bite her or anything. It was so sweet, they were kissing! They climbed on top of the cage and Xylo reached his hand out and gently held her chin while he licked her ear. After a month of being afraid to let them near each other, you can imagine my relief and joy. It was so adorable to watch them as they held each other's face in their hands and licked one another. Later, Duckie crawled into Xylo's sleeping pouch and they've been snuggling like two bugs in a rug ever since.
