Chins are delicate animals with a strong willpower and a need to trust their caretaker. With proper care, your chin will learn to trust you and maybe even your friends and family. Remember it will take time for your pet to get used to you and the slower you move with it and around it, the better. Stressing your chin out can actually take years off its life. Even with a life span of 10 to 20 years, stress will make a healthy, friendly chin sick and irratable.
Preparing to Train
Let the chin stay in the cage with the door closed at first
Speak softly
Don't force anything to try and speed up the process
Their fear and your rough handling provokes a bite
Use treats to show you are friendly
Don't tower above the cage, it's intimidating
Move slowly
The Training Steps
Once they come up to the bars willingly, open the door and let them investigate your hand, arm, shirt, ect.
Once it crawls on you(use a treat), pet it on the head and speak to it. Let it go back when it wants.
When it knows to come to you, let it out of the cage into a small, enclosed area around the cage(free of dangers!)
Over time, going through all the above steps first, introduce it to a larger play area(chins should not have the run of the house!)
Never let it out for hours on end because they can overexert themselves and not know it. Also never chase the chin as this increases stress.
What hidden dangers lurk in the chin's play area?
Electric Wires/Cables- Cover and/or unplug and coil up(my chin went straight to a cord when he found one)
Important documents- they love to destroy, and if they want something bad enough even very young chins can jump at least a few feet up off the ground.
Nothing sharp- If any other chins bolt around the room like Duncan, sharp objects could put a severe halt to their racing around
Ingestables- Chemicals, cleaners, chipping paint; anything they can strip off a wall or box, they'll eat!
Remember to keep things around that they can chew on and also they can squeeze through cracks and jump very high!
