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All chinchillas have special tricks that they use to get attention from their families. My chinchillas are no different, each one having distinct antics to bring attention to themselves. Roo, our one-year old male reverse mosaic, has turned a frightening experience into an attention grabber. We call the rouse, ‘the sympathy paw’. One morning in January 2003, I woke up to find Roo’s front right paw swollen and bloody. He was not walking on it and he would not let me clean up the wound. I rushed him to the vet where we found out that Roo had torn the tip of his longest toe on his right front paw. I think the news upset me more than it did Roo. We started a course of antibiotics for the infection and gradually the swelling subsided. Roo started to use his front paw again, even though he had adapted well to using only 3 paws. After about two weeks, the swelling dissipated, the tip of the toe was gone and the remainder of the toe was beginning to heal. However, Roo decided that if he was clever enough, he might be able to use this episode to his advantage. We started to notice that if Roo thought he was not getting enough attention during playtime, he would stop and hold up his paw, looking at us with the saddest eyes. In the beginning I didn’t realize it was a game so I would rush over to see if he had re-injured the foot. Of course the joke was on me because after he had his fill of “mommy attention”, his mission was accomplished and he would dash off on all fours. With time, Roo began to forget which foot he originally injured and started to hold up his left paw for sympathy. One night I looked at him and said, “Roo, if you want sympathy, you have to hold up the right paw.” I demonstrated to him with my hands how to switch paws and being the little ham he is, he winked at me and amazingly switched paws. He got a lot of kisses for that encore performance. We introduced Roo to his girlfriend, Sydney, after he was all healed. The sympathy paw act seemed to disappear or so I thought. In March 2003, my fiancée Darren was in our computer room, where Sydney and Roo are housed, and he noticed that Roo was holding up his paw, staring at him (mind you Roo was holding up the uninjured paw). Darren checked on him and soon after, Sydney was holding up her paw (she has never injured any of her paws). It looks like Roo has taught Sydney ‘the sympathy paw’ rouse. Both of them continued their performance for a few nights in a row for Darren. I only got to see the trick once, while Darren was out of town for the evening. I was chatting that evening with Roo and Sydney. During chat time I always open both cage doors so I can pet them and we can exchange kisses. Roo was jumping around the cage and accidentally jumped out the door! I picked him up and when I put him back in the cage, he sat in the corner and was holding up his once injured paw. I was so worried that his leap to freedom had re-injured the paw. Roo had once again fooled me with ‘the sympathy paw’ trick…that little stinker! I look forward to the day when Roo and Sydney have kits; maybe I will have a whole family of chinchillas performing ‘the sympathy paw’. |