Matilde's play date

Sharp-eyed readers will notice a new photo album on the right: Matilde goes visiting. 

For some time, my fiancee and I have been worried that Matilde the chinchilla may be lonely.  We've had her since January 2004, and since then we've lavished her with love and attention.  She's had many friends and family come by to visit, and has become quite accustomed to being handled by humans.  But in these past 16 months, Matilde has not so much as seen another chinchilla.  (She does watch the squirrels who play on the patio outside, however, with at least a passing interest.) We've been thinking that she might be happier with a companion, though we have no intention of breeding her.  Any companion we chose would need to be another female.

We've heard from experts that introducing chinchillas can be a tricky thing.  Simply going to Petco and buying a new female and bringing her home could be disastrous; a fight for dominance could easily ensue and leave one or both chins seriously hurt -- or worse.  Our advisors in the chin world told us that Matilde ought to be taken on a "play date" with other female chinchillas in a neutral setting, where she could make a friend without either animal having to defend her territory.

On Saturday afternoon (the first anniversary of our girl's near-death experience), we drove through heat and smog to the glorious suburbs of San Bernardino County.  A very kind woman, "Mary", who has been rescuing animals for years, lives there with over thirty wonderful chinchillas of various colors and sizes.  Mary invited us to bring Matilde to play with a few of her female chins, to see if, well, a "companion match" could be made.  We put Matty in her little cat carrier, climbed into the car, cranked up the air conditioning and drove east for an hour and a half.

Over the course of a three-and-a-half hour visit, Matilde played with about half a dozen chins.  Her first encounter, with "Beauty", is depicted here.  A half-second after this photo was snapped, Matilde and Beauty chased each other around the room, with our girl horrifying her parents by trying to mount Beauty.  (Apparently this has less to do with sexual frustration than with establishing dominance.  Our little one wants everyone to know "who's boss.")  Other chins came out, including long-eared Smokey, who also played briefly with Matilde.

But as we watched Matilde play, both my fiancee and I began to come to a clear conclusion: Matty wants to live alone.  it wasn't that she didn't interact with other chins, it's that they didn't interest her for long.  She was much more interested in taking dust baths in Mary's fireplace (the living room of this home was a chin paradise), or playing in the "alfalfa basket", or having oatmeal and hay on the floor than in bonding with other chinchillas.  She spent more time crawling on the humans in the room than with her own kind, and we became convinced that we were getting a clear message from her:  "Mama and Papa, I want to be your only four-legged child.  I don't want to share!"  Believe me, in our household we believe we can communicate very effectively with our little girl, and she with us.

Just to make sure, we may take Matilde back out to the Inland Empire for another play date next month.  We had hoped to watch her play more with the adorable little Sweet Boy, who's still little more than a kit.  In this photo, he looks more like a koala bear than a chin; and in this, he shows how loving he can be.  This is just enchanting.  But he's just too young to be adopted yet, and besides, we don't want Matilde having kits of her own.  But holding a not-yet-full-grown chinchilla in our arms, and smelling his "kit" smell (if you know what puppy breath smells like, you know what we're talking about), we very nearly made a commitment to surrender our little girl's chastity.

Saturday night, Matilde and her parents returned to Pasadena.  Matilde was exhausted but happy, and very loving.  We haven't ruled out a future companion for her, but her demeanor during her play date seems to suggest that she is genuinely content being alone at, (or at least near), the center of our lives.

Our "chinchilla charity" continues to move forward.  We'll be traveling to the Midwest next month (without Matilde, alas) to meet with folks very active in the "pet homes for ranchies" movement, and we expect to have a fully incorporated 501(c)3 charity up-and-running by the middle of summer.  I'll keep everyone posted.

Comments

[Fred]

I have one of these little rascals myself and I've noticed that they like their independence, but this doesn't necessarily mean that they want to be alone.