I've shared videos of me trying to hold Kaiju on this blog as well as on Facebook. When a fellow tegu owner saw her behavior in one of the videos, he said, "Wow, spoiled, er spirited thing isn't she". Lol. It broke the ice and led to a wonderful conversation about taming techniques. Little by little he shared with me an alternative way of tackling the problem. Alas, two other reptile owners contacted me privately after they saw his initial comments on FB to share the same sentiments. Why privately? Well it's not a popular way to go about taming and many would feel very strongly against it. I had already thought of going down this road before he shared his ideas with me. But I never did because I read that I should not to take such an approach many times online. I didn't seriously consider taking such an approach because I had no idea of how to even begin.
The popular approach (Plan A) is to take it slow, recognize the animals limits during taming sessions, grain it's trust, and get your tegu to come to you (not vice versa). Well, as already discussed in previous blog entries, I've done that ten fold. For 8 months. Now some people will tell you that isn't necessarily long at all. Some are hard cases and they can take a year or even two! My frustration however, is that she has stayed stuck in her current mode for a great deal of time now. No improvements whatsoever. Something that jumped out to fellow reptile owners was that she is confident, trusting, comfortable with me, and even very affectionate. Never has she even opened her mouth or threatened to bite me. Not in the face of terror (when she has freaked out at something), not when being dug up, nor when trying to force her to do something. Never. Yet ... she won't let me pick her up safely, carry her around, or sit on me for that matter. Thrashing, rolling, tail whipping and just over-powering me in general to the point that I have to put her down. Everything is on her terms so if she doesn't want me to pet her or hold her. I can't. So in other words, she "is" tame .... just ... "spirited". Ah how tactful is my friend?! Incredibly. But I'll say it for him and others. Brat! She is a total brat and she knows it.
So ... plan B commences. Plan B is described by my friend as showing her who the big lizard is. Another friend, a bit more brash described it as "stop kissing her ass". Plan B will consist of: picking her up when "I" want to pick her up, holding her for short periods of time and not putting her down until "I" want to put her down, possibly hand feeding her (I can do this with my tegu as she is not food motivated at all, let alone food aggressive), including her in every day activities as much as possible (holding her while walking around, taking her into different rooms with me, doing household chores with her, sitting with her while I eat or read my email and so forth). She's gonna get mad. She's gonna huff and puff (or, what other tegu owners say, chuff) and probably resist with much of her might. Without traumatizing her or setting her backwards of course, I am to supposed to hang in there like a champ.
Will I get a trophy for this? I just thought I'd ask. I mean that's a reasonable request given today's attitude of entitlement in America. I will only get a trophy if I succeed. ::gasp:: And it won't be a tall, pretentious, gold plated one. It'll be in the form of a tegu, a kaiju, on my shoulder.
If I don't win that trophy, it's back to Plan A. And that's okay.
To my other friend, Neal Wilder who supported me through Plan A, put up with my whining, and who might be wary of what I'm doing... I promise I won't do this: