Newbies have this immediate impulse to handle and grope the monitors. This is not to be confused with taming. Why they think that is taming is often very confusing. Most of the time, they get that idea from other newbies. Simply put, the blind leading the blind. When people with experience tell them thats not how its done, they respond like you did.



The hard reality is, monitors when treated fairly become tame all on their own. You do not need to grope them into submission or handle them X amount of time a day. They will come to you on their own accord.



This idea, that handling them so they won't bite when they grow up thing is also dumb as a stone. Again in reality, monitors are not biters. Once they get used to you, biting is a very last resort. Even tame monitors will bite if severely oftened. If fact, most often bites from longterm captives are feeding related accidents. In these cases, its the keepers fault for not understanding monitors feeding responces and training. EVEN TAME MONITORS, bite in food response behaviors, that has nothing to do with taming. In fact, the tamer they are, the more often your bitten in this way.



What these monitor tamers should understand is, the first priorty with a new monitor is, to attain and maintain proper health. After that taming could start. The problem is, they tame themselves and theres usually no need to do this suedo taming junk.



The other problem is, this has been said many times, but its one of those, I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT DEALS, newbies just "want" to grope these new monitors to death, it really has nothing to do with taming. Taming is only an excuse.



Your saying its about peoples different choices is totally wrong, it is about lack of experience and ignorance. Again, forced handling is not taming, its stressing. As Bob said, stressing into submission, or in most cases, stressing into Omission(which means, to death) So please understand, the folks here are only trying to help the newbies by telling them to STOP the nonsense and quit forcing yourself on a poor little scared animal. FR

[ Hide Replies ]

• Why handle monitors? - kap10cavy, Mon Apr 11 19:58:00 2005
• RE: Why handle monitors? - jayf, Mon Apr 11 20:34:53 2005
• RE: Why handle monitors? - kap10cavy, Mon Apr 11 20:52:21 2005
• RE: I know, I know, - FR, Mon Apr 11 22:46:30 2005
• RE: Why handle monitors? - jobi, Mon Apr 11 23:18:31 2005
• RE: I know, I know, - kap10cavy, Tue Apr 12 00:05:27 2005
• RE: I know, I know, - l_l3lackwolf_l, Tue Apr 12 01:48:54 2005
• RE: A simple answer - tailswithscales, Tue Apr 12 11:30:34 2005
• I agree completely - RobertBushner, Tue Apr 12 12:05:19 2005
• Just my thoughts - Soulskater, Thu Apr 14 04:33:55 2005
• RE: Why handle monitors? - jayf, Thu Apr 14 12:41:00 2005
• RE: The point your missing is - FR, Fri Apr 15 09:17:13 2005
• RE: Just my thoughts - drzrider, Sat Apr 16 07:19:29 2005