This is the story of my bonding experience with my first sugar glider. Her name is Sugie. We bought her from a reptile breeder in the year 2000 and she and her sister was living in a ten gallon aquarium. Her parents were also living in a ten gallon aquarium. We got her home and set up an aquarium like she was living in and was told to feed her cat food and/or ferret food. It just didn’t seem to make any sense it’s not a cat or a ferret. So we started doing research and bought books and went to library and asked pet stores, some questions. The response was what is it or we don’t know never saw one before. We kind of used a loose diet of time with a few changes please see diet . The bonding practice at that time was put in pouch and hang around neck, we bought a pouch from exotic nutrition. I tried to put her in the pouch but all she did was crab, lunge and bite(she drew blood several times). I talked to my father and he said it was scared and I said I know but what could we do. He again mentioned about how when he was carrying mail and had aggressive type dogs on his route how he would make friends with them. Dad would walk up to strange dogs and offer his hand out(back of hand and/or back of fist, as it would be harder to get a severe bite),for them to smell and talk to them Thank god and rest dad’s soul that he never got a dog bite! So I started a slow process of offering my hand very slowly to Sugie and then leaving her alone. I did this for three to five times a day until her crabbing behavior stopped or the intensity changed as she recognized my smell and voice. After doing this for quite some time I would try and pet her briefly and eventually put hand under her and tried to pick her up. She resisted at first but time and patience won her over and I still remember the joy as the first time she climbed on my hand as I held it out to her. We gradually got her a bigger cage and then bigger and then huge cage as she is in a 4 by 4 by 7ft tall cage and she loves it. We got two males from the same person and then we had four gliders two female and two males. We kept them separated as we bonded to two of them closer than the other two and finally when sugie was old enough we let everybody loose in a glider room which had plants, large boat type ropes that went from corner two corner of the room. Well needless to say Sugie and Chip was instant love, they always stayed near each other as they played and as they checked in on us and talked to us near our ears. One day as we had them all out running and playing Sugie and Chip disappeared from playing area. We frantically looked for them and could not find them. At this time we still separated boys from girls. I said I wonder and as we looked in the cage there were two pairs of eyes looking back as to say we made our choice, is that ok with you? Of course it was ok and NEW AGE PETS was born. When she was carrying her babies in the pouch we still played and held her and chip. Once the babies were out of pouch(oop) we held her and chip and the babies right from first day oop, she actually took a baby away from Paulette and brought the baby to me and made a noise and dropped the baby off in my hands and went back to exploring the room, playing, rope climbing or running. If the babies cried she would come and check on them and look at me and then run off again. She has never killed any of her babies in six years.