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Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2005 11:11 pm Post subject: Hand Trained Argetine Tegu!
Yes, she is hand trained. That is, trained to go after my hands!
I need to figure out how to try and calm her down. Whenever I open the cage she thinks it is feeding time and she will lunge for my hands. Then, if I just stand there for a minute without bothering her, she will calm down and I can reach right in and pick her up.
I don't understand why she does this. I never hand feed her, I use 18" hemostats when giving mice, and everything else I feed from a shallow dish, of which I also use the hemostats to place the dish in and out of the cage.
Once she is out, she is great. I can put her down on the couch or my office chair and clean her cage, and she will just curiously walk around without causing much trouble. She will also hang out on my shoulder, in fact she will often climb up there herself.
It is just the opening of her cage that sets her off. Is there anything I should try and do to correct this? I am thinking maybe I will have to get a big rubbermaid bin and feed her in that everyday, and then put her back in her cage when she is done.
Also, another question, anyone ever notice that tegus seem to be intrigued by fluorescent lighting? She will constantly jump up and try to attack the fluorescent. She pulled it off the top of the cage once and I found her sitting on it inside the cage, lol. Needless to say, it has like 10 extra screws in it now, and a cover protecting her from breaking the bulb, lol.
(If any of you visit fauna, yes, I just copy and pasted this here. I found this site while browsing fauna, and figured I should post this here as well ).
Joined: Nov 06, 2004 Posts: 972270 Location: Central Maine
Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 11:24 am Post subject:
The easiest way to resolve this issue is to place a large storage bin (if you have a small tegu) or a 4' by 4' board (if you have a larger tegu) on the floor. Please the food bowl, with food in it, in the bin or on the board. Then go in and get your tegu. At this point I use a dog clicker and click repeatedly while sitting the tegus down to eat.
The tegu will not associate you opening the enclosure as feeding time. It will instead associate the board/bin with the bowl and the clicking as feeding time. That should resolve that issue and it is also the first step in training your tegu to come when called.
If your tegu is loose and you start clicking the clicker, what do you think the tegu is gonna do? He is going to head to the feeding bin/board.
In reply to your second question, I do occassionally visit faunaclassifieds, but not daily like I do here.
I don't think it relates to your circumstance, I wanted to point out that it was brought up by Beardiedragon in the past and is important, that if you don't hold or touch your tegu daily and the only time you are in the enclosure is to feed it, it will be hard to break that habit.
Joined: Mar 07, 2005 Posts: 328 Location: Chesterfield, UK
Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2005 7:38 am Post subject:
I also had this problem originally, until I started to feed well away from the enclosure. He's really tame now, and hasn't attempted to bite me for a few months now, except when I tried to grab him the other day from under a wardrobe.
Joined: Dec 08, 2004 Posts: 998 Location: South Florida
Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2005 9:07 am Post subject:
LOL....call me crazy but I use this to my advantage. Before I sent Rick the B & W tegu I would tap the mulch in the front of the enclosure to get him to come running. If he was burried, he'd quickly appear! At first my hands were food but if you kept his interest (he'd be 1/2 out of the cage) then he would soon settle down in a minute or 2 and I could mess with him then. He would open his mouth everytime I got close with my hands if I didn't give him his 2 minutes or so. I must be one hell of a Risk taker! I've been hit by some decent sized monitors (not fun) but then again I really don't really care to much about it. LOL...I guess I'm not the safest person around! Ever mess with a full grown 4-5ft dwarf caiman fresh off of the boat? LOL Now that's some fun, did I mention the size of their teeth? Safety isn't much of an issue to me. You just need to know what your doing, and not be stupid about it. _________________ John Light
http://www.jlexotics.com/
Well, she seems to be getting better already, after just 2 weeks of feeding out of the cage.
Only thing she still does is go nuts trying to eat the (metal) glas lock when I open her doors. So I am probably going to have to remove it or move it to the top of the doors because where it is now is eye level, and she whacks her face on the glass trying to eat it, lol.
Anyway, once she calms down from hunting the lock, I can go in and pick her up, and then I put her into a big bin on the floor with her food bowl there and she just walsk up and starts eating (as opposed to when I fed her in the cage, she would attack the bowl, fling it all over the place, and then after she made a mess would go around and pick up all the food that was no longer in the bowl, lol). I can even go as far as to touch her while shes eating, without having her clamp onto a finger, lol.
Now the only bad thing is that it seems if I am handling her for moe then say 10 minutes, she likes to releive herself. On my lap, on my couch, in mid air so it splats onto the floor, etc. Unfortunatly, I dont think there is much I can do about that as far as training goes .
Joined: Dec 08, 2004 Posts: 998 Location: South Florida
Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2005 1:26 pm Post subject:
Feeding on the floor isn't doing much if the animal is still trying to attack when you open the cage. Just open, give her a minute and then grab her. I'm a firm believer that feeding out of the cages does absolutly nothing. _________________ John Light
http://www.jlexotics.com/
Joined: Nov 06, 2004 Posts: 972270 Location: Central Maine
Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2005 6:46 pm Post subject:
Goanna wrote:
Well, she seems to be getting better already, after just 2 weeks of feeding out of the cage.
Great news. I am glad it's helping you.
Quote:
Now the only bad thing is that it seems if I am handling her for more then say 10 minutes, she likes to releive herself. On my lap, on my couch, in mid air so it splats onto the floor, etc. Unfortunatly, I dont think there is much I can do about that as far as training goes .
Draw a tub of warm water (or I prefer to use a storage bin since it easy to dump in the flush and wash out) and place your tegu in the warm water for 5 to 10 minutes. If your tegu does not relieve itself in that ten minutes then it's very unlikely it needs to go. Once it 'goes', just dump it, rinse the container and go hold your tegu in safety for at least a couple hours.
Feeding on the floor isn't doing much if the animal is still trying to attack when you open the cage. Just open, give her a minute and then grab her. I'm a firm believer that feeding out of the cages does absolutly nothing.
It is definitly doing something. She used to go nuts just when I walked in the room. When she saw me, she wanted food. Now the only time she runs is if she sees the cage lock sliding back and forth (Its shiny, need I say more). So, I figure if I move it to the top of the cage she may not try to go after it anymore. If she does, then I can just get rid of it altogether. Then I get to see how long it takes for her to figure out how to open the sliding glass doors. My Argus monitors used to do that all the time, lol. They were the reason I started locking my cages .
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