Funny mouth movements?

[NegativeCreep]

I don't know how to describe this...
Tonight I was holding my little girl. She doesn't really like me very much, and she still won't eat in front of me. But, I am being consistent and persistent with her. We are bonding, slowly...

But tonight, we were sitting on the couch. I prefer to put her on my belly, my chest, or my lap since she likes to dart off.. sometimes she ends up in my hair (which is to my waist), that's not a pretty/fun sight. So, she was sitting on my thigh, and she was being good, for about 5 minutes. All of the sudden, her breathing got faster, not like real fast, but faster and much deeper. She opened her mouth and it.. um.. shook? It's like her bottom jaw jiggled. It was almost funny to watch, now that I think back, but it freaked me out. I scooped her up in my hand and she went dark (of course). She did it again while she was in my hand.

After that she became restless, as usual, and tried to get away from me, so I put her back in her viv. It totally freaked me out when she did this. I have had her for about 3 months now, and I've never seen this type of behavior before. Um.. is it normal? (I hate that kind of question, btw!)

Thanks for any help!

 

[jharris08]

it sounds like your dragon is displaying a typical threat display b/c she is scared of something, or like you said has not gotten used to being handled that much. My dragons will usually do this when I take them outside during the summer because the vast open space seems to really intimidate and scare them. I would just try to work with her as much as possible and handle her more and more to see if she will start getting used to it. hope it helps

 

[NegativeCreep]

Cool, yeah, I have been working with her a lot more. It seems the more I am around her, the more she hates me! I have a cat with neurological problems, so I was just concerned that this particular movement was irregular. I guess I'm just paranoid.

 

[NegativeCreep]

We hung out a lot today! She runs into the corner when I come near her cage, but today, she was better. We had a bath (as usual) but she didn't fight me today. After that, she sat with me for about 15 minutes, until she became too restless. I put her back into her tank and fed her.

About an hour after dinner, I went back and got her again. We hung out on the spare bed. She got to move around on the bed quite a bit, and even came back over to me and crawled up my belly. She got mad at me a few times, but generally, she was ok. Once in a while, when I would move and startle her a bit, she would open her mouth and make a clicking sound, but she didn't make the same movements as the other day. She never hisses at me or tries to bite (even though the SO swears she tried to bite him once), but she sure does puff up, black beard me, and flatten out. It's actually pretty cute, since I still pick her up or move her. I'm not going to give in to her attitude, and she's learning that!!