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Reptile Forum, Reptile Classifieds - CaptiveBred
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lol93
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Joined: 29 Aug 2006
Posts: 3172
Location: Glasgow
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 Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2007 9:42 pm Post subject: |
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| crocdoc wrote: | | johne.ev wrote: | | i often wondered if it would have been better to have handled it more often. when i first got it i tried holding it every other day, but it would hide for 3 or 4 days after & not even come out to feed. |
It's likely your argus monitor stayed fearful of you because you handled it every second day rather than despite that.
lol93, I'd be surprised if your monitor remained that way as it approached adult size if you never force handle it. Do you ever sit for extended periods of time in the room its enclosure is in? |
Hi Crocdoc,
My monitor is in the herp room with the other herps. It's normally fairly quiet in there, but we're in there a fair bit doing husbandry things and feeding the animals. I don't ever sit in the room and watch, but If I happen to go in and he's out basking or swimming, he runs under his stack and hides.
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crocdoc
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Joined: 07 Dec 2005
Posts: 262
Location: Sydney Australia - best address on Earth :)
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| Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 4:48 am Post subject: |
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| lol93 wrote: | | My monitor is in the herp room with the other herps. It's normally fairly quiet in there, but we're in there a fair bit doing husbandry things and feeding the animals. I don't ever sit in the room and watch, but If I happen to go in and he's out basking or swimming, he runs under his stack and hides. |
Unfortunately, that's not an ideal scenario for the monitor to get used to you. It may stay frightened of you for a very long time. Handling it would make it worse, for it would definitely bolt for its hide whenever you entered the room, knowing what the consequences would be if it didn't (you grabbing it).
What you ideally want is a situation whereby the monitor gets used to seeing you around a fair bit without you reaching in to grab it. Eventually it will learn that you aren't a threat and that it can bask without you bothering it. Then you can try putting your hand in to its enclosure slowly so it gets used to that and ever so slowly you get it accustomed enough to you that curiosity will cause it to approach your hand. It may climb onto your hand after that and then you can think of picking it up. |
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DeanThorpe
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Joined: 19 Jan 2007
Posts: 257
Location: Ipswich, Suffolk
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| Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 12:56 pm Post subject: |
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Our bosc, from the time wqe got him at 4 months old last July has been in our lounge with us where theres loads goin on, tv, guests, often late night gatherings... he now will be moved into the rep room as we move house.
I think being in a busy but not aggressive//hectic place is a help in the "taming" or whatever is the best term.
Some other non monitor species would most certainely not benefit from the same level of interaction and awareness but Do you think this is the case with most or all of the monitor species atleast?
clearly same applies for bearded dragons imo but have not tested the theory with anything else.
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SNAKEWISPERA
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Joined: 15 Dec 2006
Posts: 57
Location: s.wales
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| Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 1:45 pm Post subject: |
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my red tegu comes to me when i call his name "Terrance"  
and he wasn't trained to do that
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DeanThorpe
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Joined: 19 Jan 2007
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Location: Ipswich, Suffolk
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| Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 11:05 pm Post subject: |
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If you call him by his name to an extent that is training.
Our bosc is called savvy and knows his name also [well atleast the sound of it]
he usually only comes [when he is out of his viv] if i also click my fingers.. or atleast attempt to as im not so hot at the finger clicking lol but it works all the same.
Terrance is a cool name for a Tegu mate.
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Beardies
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Bosc
Eyed Lizard
Leo's
Tokay's
Cresties
Garg
Berber skinks
Ocltd Skinks
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oplurus cyclurus+Cuvieri
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Long Tailed Lizards
Dwarf Sungazers
Water dragon
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puddlesplash
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Joined: 16 Jan 2007
Posts: 83
Location: North west of england
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| Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2007 5:37 pm Post subject: |
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My bosc will react to its name, takes food 'nicely' out of my hand (with my hands obviously safe from risk) and will go to his slab of stone when he knows its time for feeing.
He's kept in a room alone and only the cats go in to see him, however he seems to be quite fond of the cats and not stressed out by them.
He hasn't been specifically trained to do any of it, he's just intelligent. I don't believe in giving him food for donig certain things as the only specific thing he's gone through is 'taming' and that didnt require any reward either, just understanding of his body language.
It doesn't take an animal expert to keep a bosc happy, just takes an understanding person who can respect their animal. If an animal is respected it will have no need to be bad tempered and 'badly behaved'. It will respect your wishes but it will also expect limits to being your rag doll so to speak. They need their own space at times. |
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crocdoc
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Joined: 07 Dec 2005
Posts: 262
Location: Sydney Australia - best address on Earth :)
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| Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 2:55 am Post subject: |
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| puddlesplash wrote: | My bosc will react to its name, takes food 'nicely' out of my hand (with my hands obviously safe from risk) and will go to his slab of stone when he knows its time for feeing...
He hasn't been specifically trained to do any of it... |
This is exactly the sort of 'inadvertent' training I was referring to. Your bosc has been rewarded for going to the slab of stone by getting fed there. Recently one of the keepers at work was asked to train one of the animals under his care as part of his animal tech course, so he chose our male perentie. I videotaped the process so he could later show the tech class. The idea was for him to train the monitor to do what your bosc does – go to a specific rock at feeding time – in other words, rather than rush the keeper whenever he enters the enclosure with tongs and a bucket, go to the basking rock instead. Unfortunately (or fortunately) after only a couple of training sessions the monitor’s training could never be tested, as every time the keeper entered the enclosure the male perentie was on the rock. What we were hoping for was for me to videotape the monitor going onto the rock on sight of the tongs, but it seems he goes to the rock when he hears the keeper’s key in the door before entering the enclosure |
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puddlesplash
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Joined: 16 Jan 2007
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Location: North west of england
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| Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 4:01 pm Post subject: |
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i dont class going to a slab of rock as training, he just know thats where food goes when i put it in the viv, I dont use a dish. A bosc doesn't need to be taught something as minor as that. By referring to trainign them I'm afraid I think you are underestimating their ability to do something just by viewing it, and going to a rock for its food when thats where i always put it is blatantly obvious. I also dislike that you refer to it as rewarding him his meal, he gets his meal regardless of him being there or not.
He isn't in a circus and he doesn't need to show intelligence for his rewards. In fact in more impressed when he pops the bellies of a chick and makes a hgue mess with it, as thats more natural monitor behavior than standing at a slab for food.
If it was exciting unnatural learned skills we were discussing then it would be impressive, but waiting for food is not. |
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crocdoc
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Joined: 07 Dec 2005
Posts: 262
Location: Sydney Australia - best address on Earth :)
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| Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 5:15 am Post subject: |
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| puddlesplash wrote: | i dont class going to a slab of rock as training, he just know thats where food goes when i put it in the viv, I dont use a dish. A bosc doesn't need to be taught something as minor as that. By referring to trainign them I'm afraid I think you are underestimating their ability to do something just by viewing it, and going to a rock for its food when thats where i always put it is blatantly obvious. I also dislike that you refer to it as rewarding him his meal, he gets his meal regardless of him being there or not.
He isn't in a circus and he doesn't need to show intelligence for his rewards. |
Hmm... it's clear that you completely misunderstood me. Whether you like it or not, whether it's intentional or not, whether you approve of training or not, your monitor has learned where he gets his food through operant conditioning. That's a form of training. He gets food on the rock, he doesn't get it somewhere else. That's inadvertent training - you've taught him to associate the rock with food.
This whole thread has been about exactly that sort of thing. Not the intentional training but the unintentional, inadvertent training. If you always feed your monitor in the same spot and it learns to associate that spot with food, the food is a reward for that behaviour. That doesn't mean you withhold food at other times - it means that monitors like to eat and learn quickly to associate certain things with food. If you bought a bowl and put the bowl full of food in a different spot each time your monitor will associate the bowl with food, rather than the rock. You've 'trained' it to target the bowl.
Do you understand what I am getting at? Funnily enough, that sort of learning is far more natural than your bosc popping a chick's stomach open. In the wild a bosc will learn to associate certain areas with food (not food bowls, but cricket burrows etc) but is less likely to encounter a chick with yolk in its belly.  |
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puddlesplash
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Joined: 16 Jan 2007
Posts: 83
Location: North west of england
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| Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 2:47 pm Post subject: |
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| crocdoc wrote: | | puddlesplash wrote: | i dont class going to a slab of rock as training, he just know thats where food goes when i put it in the viv, I dont use a dish. A bosc doesn't need to be taught something as minor as that. By referring to trainign them I'm afraid I think you are underestimating their ability to do something just by viewing it, and going to a rock for its food when thats where i always put it is blatantly obvious. I also dislike that you refer to it as rewarding him his meal, he gets his meal regardless of him being there or not.
He isn't in a circus and he doesn't need to show intelligence for his rewards. |
Hmm... it's clear that you completely misunderstood me. Whether you like it or not, whether it's intentional or not, whether you approve of training or not, your monitor has learned where he gets his food through operant conditioning. That's a form of training. He gets food on the rock, he doesn't get it somewhere else. That's inadvertent training - you've taught him to associate the rock with food.
This whole thread has been about exactly that sort of thing. Not the intentional training but the unintentional, inadvertent training. If you always feed your monitor in the same spot and it learns to associate that spot with food, the food is a reward for that behaviour. That doesn't mean you withhold food at other times - it means that monitors like to eat and learn quickly to associate certain things with food. If you bought a bowl and put the bowl full of food in a different spot each time your monitor will associate the bowl with food, rather than the rock. You've 'trained' it to target the bowl.
Do you understand what I am getting at? Funnily enough, that sort of learning is far more natural than your bosc popping a chick's stomach open. In the wild a bosc will learn to associate certain areas with food (not food bowls, but cricket burrows etc) but is less likely to encounter a chick with yolk in its belly. |
If a bosc escapes outdoors, and learns in the wild that the bunny hole in the field is a good source of food, and he goes back everyday for a baby bunny, who has trained it then? Nobody, because nobody is training it, its learnt it itself. It doesn't NEED anyone to train it. Thats my point. Or shall we argue the mummy and daddy bunny trained the bosc as they chose where to burrow and have their babies, and kept it there so the bosc didnt get confused. |
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