Jennifer: Beavers, rats, prairie dogs, squirrels.. They’re all rodents and they’re all built to chew. Yes, that (opening their mouths) is their very sweet welcome to you. They have three different levels of biting that are relevant to the safety of people: 1) the kind where they’re welcoming you or feeling out a material with…
You’ll no doubt find that prairie dogs generate a lot of debris that will inevitably escape the cage and end-up in the surrounding area. This includes hay, chewed-up cardboard, bedding, feces, etc.. Even if it doesn’t push it’s way out, the dogs will tend to dig and kick it out and the shallow pans that…
At one point, the prairie dog that has grown to be more dominant than the rest, Scout, began lunging at Jen whenever she came near the cage. A couple of minutes would pass, and the lunging turned into unprovoked, angry chittering/clicking. A couple of months have passed, and things remain the same. Needless to say,…
No matter how much you try to protect your prairie dogs, sometimes they rush the door, and manage to fall to the floor (a good reason to avoid a high cage, if possible). Because of this, or even just chewing on the bars, a tooth might be cracked or broken. With any luck, they won’t…
Prairie dogs have precious few ways to tell you when they’re in desperate need of something. Pups have even less. If they start gnashing their teeth, there is something seriously wrong, and you need to respond immediately. This is something I missed when I had my first prairie dog. She started making the sound with…
When feeding a prairie dog, it seems as if there’s two considerations: can they feed themselves, and is what I have to feed them available on the prairie? This means that, as a rule of thumb, they should not be eating fruit, and, as a ground squirrel (not a tree squirrel), they should not be…
If you’re curious whether or not your state allows private ownership of prairie dogs, call your local USDA office. This is a listing, for convenience: USDA Offices Listing
There are many things that are easy to miss as a new owner. Indeed, such things would be a lot easier to predict if your eyesight were three inches from the ground. This is by no means a comprehensive entry, nor an authoritative one, but, as I’m still learning about the interior vulnerabilities of my…
Jen and I bought three additional prairie dogs last week. She had lost one earlier this year, and I wanted to get another one so that mine would have more of a family. I would also have more redundancy in the event that tragedy struck the household. Jen didn’t plan to have more than one,…
Jen and I are currently spending a large amount of time every day/evening taking care of our new prairie dogs. We’re experienced owners of prairie dogs, and picked up several new babies just last week. It pains me to say “experienced”, because lately we’ve been learning how little experience we actually have. It turns out…
Prairie Dog Blog 