Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Just wanted to share with all of you the intelligence of tegus. For the past few months when I feed my arg b/w tegu I tap on the floor and call him to come, after a few weeks of this he started to recegnize(sp) when he is called and would come rushing to the food. Now several months later he comes on command every time I call him and tap on anything including my leg as if calling a dog. I should admit though he always expects food but doesn't always get it but this doesn't seem to untrain him. This has proved valuable to me on several times when he gets himself into places I can't get to him and I just call him and tap my leg and out he comes. It should be warned if anybody wants to try to train their tegu to do this to be carefull as mine would get so excited he would rush torward my hand with a gapeing jaw but has never tried to bite it after realizing it was not food but Im still very carefull when I do it untill he sees that its my hand and has become alot calmer about it from not always offering food. Is there anybody else who has a tegu that does anything else liike this? such as from what i read of the agma int. website (i think) a man says his tegu scratches on the door to go outside to poop. now if i can only teach him to roll over

Howdy!

I have a good sized adult blue that is similar. I pat on the floor of his enclosure and he comes out of his hide. He is beginning to come on simple calls for his name. I am not sure if he is just curious what all the noise is and is investigating or if he actually recognizes it as a summon for "Tegan the Wonder Tegu"! I think it may be somewhat of a mix between intelligence and curiosity but those two thigs are not far apart. Interesting to hear it happens with other people's animals as well, thanks for sharing!
-----
Peace!
KofSeattle
Reptile-Like
Here lizard lizard.........

thats awesome! im gonna have to try tapping or something each time i feed mine. that must be pretty neat. later, justin