Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi all, I just wanted to share my Argentine B&W's latest antics. I have been conditioning him that the sound of a bell = food and he is really picking up on it. Today I slid open the front door of his cage and rang the bell in the entryway. I looked away for a second, and in that time he had shot across his cage and leaped out through the air towards the bell. It was pretty funnny, he thinks the bell is the ultimate source of food. This will work well in case he ever gets lost, I can just ring a bell and he should come running.
JonV

I had to work with Rufus so that what is in the food dish is food and he would not try to taste my fingers. He gets sooo excited when food is around. Most of the time I feed when I get up at 5am. The exception is tuesday when I feed the snakes. Rufus gets a live mouse. That is one contented Tegu.

Mike B

Were you around when I posted the videos of me getting my tegus to come to me when I patted the floor? They got to be very responsive too when they were hungry, I think it'd be safer to use a bell! We stopped doing for a long while (months) then when I tried it again it didn't seem to work. Maybe they don't have such a good long term memory. At least I've got some good videos from our time together when they were kids!

Here are a few older ones that just happen to be up on the site.
http://mavweb.mnsu.edu/toupar/Tazswimming.MOV
http://mavweb.mnsu.edu/toupar/landho.MOV

Here's my favorite "food call one" that shows Jazz spin around when she hears it.
http://mavweb.mnsu.edu/toupar/P1110001.MOV
If you can't get it to work try right-clicking on it, "save link target as", then run it off your hard drive.

spin around

Hey Rollin, yeah I did see those vids. The swimming one was really cool! I couldn't help but think that if his collar came off he would just keep on swimming away. Do you think he would? And that one of you tapping the floor was really neat too. You mentioned that you didn't do the tapping for a while, and then tried it again and the tegu didn't respond. This is called "extinction", when the stimulus no longer elicits a response from the animal. It happens in all animals regardless of how good their memory is.

Say, have you ever had your big tegu (Taz?) mistake you for food? That's a prob I'm having with mine (he's still a baby), although I'm trying to work on it quite a bit. A bite from a large tegu would probably require stitches wouldn't it?

Keep the vids coming!

JonV

Cool, I'm glad you like the vids. He would swim to the other shore if we didn't have the leash on him. Of course so would I! I think it'd be easy to catch him once he made land though. He doesn't ever try to get away from us, hide, or even run. I do make sure the leash is on him good though.
We've always let Taz walk around the house since he can get in and out of his cage when the door's open. A couple times when he was younger I was sitting at the computer when I'd feel something on my big toe! He was much smaller and didn't latch on to it or anything so no damage done. I did were socks around the house after that happened twice though.
You'll find when they get over their growth spurt they aren't nearly as hungry all the time. I don't think it'd work to retrain them to come to me for food now. For one thing I only feed them once every 4 or 5 days. You should probably keep at it with the bell if you want him to do it as an adult. On the other hand I'm not worried about him biting my toe anymore because he isn't as hungry as he used to be. When they're babies food is like all they think about.

It really seems that they do have one track minds, doesn't it? It's like my little guy will be running around the cage sniffing for his food (which he can smell from the other side of the room, a skill necessary in nature) and then he'll run under his basking light inadvertently, remember how good it feels, and lay there for about 15 seconds. Then he'll remember he was looking for food, and go do that and so on. It's usually not too hard to tell whats on their mind.

I am glad that he will be not as hungry when he is bigger. As I said in earlier posts, he has NEVER bitten or whipped me defensively, but ALWAYS thinks that I and other people are food. I do not try and reprimand him for this, hoping that he will just outgrow it. Someone told me he will eventually learn there's no point in biting me, and I hope he does. Else, I was thinking about getting a puppet that looks like an owl or a hawk and exposing it everytime he bit me, while simultaneously making a bird of prey type noise . That would scare the sh@t out of him! hehe, but, I'll just hope he outgrows it and try to modify my behavior.

Say, do you think I should be handling him after he eats? Right now I do it before, and that's why he bites me probably. If he were full he probably would'nt do it, but he seems to go to bed very soon after he eats. Whatdya think?

And how was it getting Taz used to the collar?

The leash never really bother Taz at all. He did try to shed it when I put in on his hip but he doesn't do that when it's around his neck.
If I was you I would feed him till he's full in the morning then try to handle him. Not that you're doing anything wrong but maybe it'll help if you try that for a few weeks. I never had to do that with either of mine. I would wait till they came out on their own, that usually meant they were hungry.