suddenly territorial/aggressive about food

[thumpers momma]

hey guys! so in the last month and a half or so, thumper has been really aggressive/territorial, but only when i’m putting food in his enclosure or if i put my hand in his enclosure without very slowly letting him see me. he’s 10 months old and neutered. even since i moved him into my bedroom yesterday, he already thinks he runs the place! he will lunge at me even if i’m just putting pellets down for him. he never used to do this. any ideas what could be up with him? he still lets me pet him and pick him up if i have to, but if i want to pick up some poop or even grab his water bowl he acts like this. again, i try to let him see my hand first and give him some pets, but earlier, for example, i had to pick up his pet bed. he was ripping it up so i had to take it away and when i reached in to grab it when he was on the other side of his place, he ran over and lunged like he was going to bite me. i’ve always pulled my hand away so i don’t know if he actually intends to bite me or…? just want to make sure my baby is healthy and if this is normal behavior or what!

[Luna]

Just caught up on some of your previous posts . Maybe the bonding attempts have contributed to his territorial behavior? But now that they are taking a break on bonding, he might settle down more. Also, I wonder if Thumper smells Baxter’s scent on your hands when you reach inside Thumper’s cage. It could be Baxter’s scent that he is reacting to as opposed to you.

[thumpers momma]

i was wondering if it would be about that! it would make sense for him to seem irritated at/scared of me since he was probably scared being next to baxter 🙁 hopefully it gets better now that he will have plenty of time to forget about it all!

[Author]

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