Dog tame monitor

Lip feed this! Young lace monitors are terrified of everything and usually go through a phase as seen here. Satan (whose name has nothing to do with its attitude) remained completely hidden for many months and has only recently started taking food from forceps. Now it is caught between being terrified of me and associating me with food. It will eventually settle down entirely of its own accord, through simple desensitisation over a long period of time. I know from experience that any attempt at handling will only make matters worse, so it's just a matter of time and patience. Whenever I am selling one of the tiger-striped phase lace monitors that I breed (this Bells phase was bred by someone else), someone invariably asks me "how does it handle?", to which my reply is "like a young lace monitor - terribly".

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• lace
• monitor
• bells
• phase
• lizard
• goanna
• dog
• tame
• defensive
• aggressive
• feeding
• response

[wilomh]

beautiful animal, does he ever try to escape through the open door whenever you feed him?

[crocdoc2]

@wilomh not so far. I leave the door open when I change the water and go into the next room to clean the dish. On a couple of occasions it's come flying out of the enclosure to get a dropped bit of food, but very quickly panics once it's swallowed the food and realises it is in strange territory.

[lizardmech]

How long does it take lacies to grow to their full size? I have seen some yearling ones that didn't seem very big. Does their overall size get stunted if they aren't fed and heated well enough when they are young? Or will it just grow more later on when it's cared for well.

[crocdoc2]

@lizardmech how fast they grow depends on heat and food availability. Whether or not reduced food/heat produces permanent stunting depends on the individual animal and the circumstances, such how long they were held back. If you were to keep them hot and give them all the food they can eat, most lace monitors can get close to full size in two years. I don't like to raise mine that quickly, so it takes them three or so years to get most of the way there, after which they continue to grow slowly.

[heylookimfat]

Beautiful guy. How do you go about cleaning cages then? He must hate it when its cleaning day.

[crocdoc2]

@heylookimfat I usually gauge Satan's mood because some days are worse than others. On the worst days, when it'll keep going after my hand no matter what, I either wait until Satan is in one of the hides or distract with fingers against the glass on one side of the enclosure while I surreptitiously slide the other side open and scoop stuff out. It's tricky, but it gets done. On other days Satan is content to stay in one spot and hiss at me as I carefully remove the water dish, faeces etc.

[whiteyr44]

Lip feed this is right, I wouldn't go near that with my hands either.

I agree, where is Kaffir2 now, did he make his wife lose her lips yet trying to feed that BT/WT they had a while ago... lol they really had no clue.

[westywolves1155]

i wish i lived in australia just so i could have one of these. i dont think i have ever seen a more beautiful monitor.

[wilomh]

@crocdoc2 oh.. il send you a PM

[heylookimfat]

@crocdoc2 Thanks!