Aggression or not?

I've had my bearded dragon Nacho for a little under 2 months now, she's approximately 6 months old. This is my first experience with juveniles so I'm not sure if her behavior is normal growing up stuff or something else. Previously i had an adult bearded dragon who was given to me by a family friend who couldn't take care of her properly anymore. Unfortunately Spike had to be put down a few months ago at the age of 9 1/2.


Lately (within the last couple weeks) Nacho been actively scratching at the walls a lot so I've been trying to make more of an effort to get her out to move around outside of her enclosure within the house. For the last couple days she's been puffing up and gaping whenever I try to reach in and pick her up. Never has she been so skittish and freaked out when I reached in before this. She's fine once I get her out and hold her, but once she's on the ground to move about she's back to gaping and puffing up. Her beard doesn't darken at all, and only once has she hissed a little when I attempted to grab her. Is this some sort of aggression issue I caused from not spending enough time handling her or is this something else?

About a week ago I had taken her outside on our patio and she ended up in the water heater room due to me not anticipating how big the gap under the door was. That's the only other time she's puffed up like this toward me.

It's possibly just hormones or an active phase. Sometimes sheds get them wound up like that too. How has her appetite been? There could also be something off in the setup that has her upset. Can you post some details about temps and lighting in the tank? If you could post some photos that would be helpful. You can upload photos here https://www.beardeddragon.org/useruploads/ and post them to your thread using the XIMG button.