Success!

It's been a month since my last post, not necessarily for lack of things to write about. I've been trying to shake a cold/respiratory thing for over two weeks, and it's one of those things that drains the energy out of you. By the time I was done with the gliders I was done for the night myself.

Well, back to our success. About two or three weeks ago we decided to try a different strategy. We moved Sprite's cage within a few inches of the trio's cage, in hopes that Foehn would get used to her being in proximity and relax. The second thing we did is to limit play time to Sprite and CB together by themselves. One thing that was occurring was that once Foehn got everyone riled up by chasing Sprite, they wouldn't settle down again even if she was removed from the cage. Our hope was that Sprite and CB would be more likely to feel comfortable around each other without other distractions.

Over the course of the last couple of weeks we did see small signs of progress. They would briefly approach each other, but then one of them would bolt and that scared the other one. The one very positive sign was that they were not chasing each other down and balling up. CB seemed to be the one who was more skittish about everything and once spooked he tended to keep his distance. It was, for a while, a one-step-foward-two-steps-back kind of thing. Last week we saw the first major step. CB was running on the wheel while in the tent and Sprite jumped on the wheel to join him. Instead of jumping right off as he usually did, he stayed on the wheel for a minute or two. No crabbing, no chasing, just two gliders running like crazy on the wheel. Since that night they have been pretty neutral about things. For example, on Saturday night after I gave them their mealworms CB curled up on a pouch to sleep and Sprite found a spot under the tarp in the tent to settle down. That was it until it was time to put them back in their respective cages.

Last night was the game changer. I had all four gliders in the tent for mealworms. After they all had their fill, I coaxed Foehn and Rossby back into their sleeping pouch and M returned them to their cage. Sprite was in a bonding pouch (M had carried her most of the day) and CB was on my lap. To my surprise, he slowly entered Sprite's pouch. There was one small bark (not sure who it was from), and that was all.  I looked in the pouch and Sprite and CB were getting themselves comfortable in the bottom. We couldn't believe it at first. We went so far as to double-check it was in fact CB with her and not Rossby (made that mistake before). Sure enough, it was CB in the pouch with her. We had decided some time back that if these two ever got together, we would leave them together. So last night CB spent the night in Sprite's cage.

They were still a little nervous with each other, and once they were out in the cage they tended to avoid each other. CB spent hours on the wheel and must have been one exhausted glider this morning. They ended up sleeping apart last night, which is understandable and fine. It will take them a little bit to get used to each other, especially since Sprite has been by herself for so long now.