Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a bt who is... lets see, wow he is about 6 months old now, almost to the day... anyways, should he still be hissing at me when i reach into his cage to pick him up or trying to pick him up once he has wandered off at me?? he hisses alot, i allways think its kinda cute but im slowly getting more concerned about him not taming up before he is full grown.. and suggested methods to tame?? About how often should I be holding him??

Hissing means back off, just like posture it is communication.

Rather than dominating (holding) it, why not limit interaction to positive things, like feeding. Forcefully holding does not create trust, it is quite the opposite.

--Robert

My blackthroat puffs up and hisses alot too. I don't reach in and pick him up when he does. I will sit down and let him see me. Sometimes it takes awhile for him to calm down enough for me to change his water or clean his cage.
One day, probally as he grows and doesn't feel threatened he will calm down. I may be wrong but, I'm letting him to be the one to tell me "It's ok, I aint scared anymore"
As for "tame". I like monitors that act like monitors. If I wanna pet something, I can always call the dog. lol

Scott
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Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

My male blackthroat who is 7months old is bad in cage. Hisses, puffs, whips like mad! He is very dominant and even opens his mouth occasionally. Out of cage he is usaully fine though. He is pretty tame, but still needs work.

There are many many different personalities in monitors (they are all different), they all like and dislike different things. Taming is a bad word to describe what you should be after.
First 99.999% chances are your animal was imported and you can never tell whats been done to it so its gonna be hard for it to trust you for a while, you can try regular handling in a way that promotes positive responses in an area with little to no noise allowing more and more freedom as you both learn to trust each other, or you can allow the animal to come to you which may take days to years. The animal will show you which method will work by its behavior. Ive had a bunch of albigs that were good to great pets, and a bunch that were not handleable to not approachable. Ive had other species that were the same. You have to get to know each other.
Unless you have a rare CBB albig you can never tell how old the bugger is, Ive even obtained a CBB banded WT male for a friend that is a sweetheart but he was 18 inches long at 18 months old (impoper care former owner), while my 18 month old female albig from Rob Faust was 5.5ft long and bound up with 44 eggs (bad choice of substrate, ie improper care on my part at that time), she was 18 inches at 2.5 months old. I used these examples because they are CBB so I know how old they are, yet they varied in size by age. Oh and I have a male thats 3.5 years old about and only 49.5 inches long, yet he was 2 ft when I got him at 2 years old (hes the result of bad incubation with mental retardation, and deformities), from Fausts babies, but Id never change a thing about him, hes a great animal.
Heres my little 2 year 5 month old girl Sobek. My fiancee is 5ft tall and Im holding Sobeks tail tip from 2 ft below the bed, she was 6ft 1 inch long the last time I measured her (few months or so ago). She chose to enjoy human interaction from the begining and had a good start from Faust and ProExotics.

Wow, It seems like I'm doing something right.
Thanks Shvar, I was hoping you would post to this thread.

Scott
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Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.