I try to stay away from this subject as its as unstable as any subject concerning varanids.



Most people acquire a monitor, then set about taming it. The problem is many fold, first they do not know or apply proper husbandry. This is first and foremost. You must establish a stable application of husbandry. You must accomplish that before any attempt to "tame" a monitor.



So in order to understand what husbandry is, those folks do their homework, they normally ask another beginer here or on some other forum. Really not how homework is done.



In order to apply good husbandry, you ask, you listen, then you apply what you think you understood. The answer is always with your monitor, not what you were told. Your monitor must achieve normal behaviors and habits. That is, feed like a pig(a varanid trait) grow like a weed(another varanid trait) and have a distint and individual mind of its own. These things must continue for some time to be called a stable application of normal husbandry.



After you have achieved stable conditions and results, then and only then must you start to think about altering your monitors behavior.



To alter their behavior may be considered taming. But much like learning about husbandry, you should really do your homework and learn about taming animals. After all, TAMING animals is an art. It takes practice, patience and education. Then it takes experience. Not everyone is good at taming any kind of animal. The main reason is, it takes loads of patience.(something commonly lacking with newbies)



You really should start at the bottom and work your way through. You should not start to tame by grabbing and holding and petting. You should start by reading and learning and talking to many people who have successfully done this, with all sorts of wild animals(varanids are wild animals). Of course this should occur after you have learned to keep your monitor healthy for some period of time. You know, months, years, etc, not seconds, minutes, hours.



When talking to other people, stay away from people who tell you how to tame a monitor, but their monitor is gone after a short period. Or those who just got a monitor. Cheers

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