So you could not help it and ended buying a young iguana pet.
KUDOS
Now, keep on reading because what I have to say will help you.
When younglings, Iguana pets are revels, hence they seem to be always lashing with their tail whip and willing to byte you.
In every case, you should not fear their teeth since they are not as hard and dangerous as they seem and usually open their jaws when you pull back. You must grab your iguana pet until they get used to be handled by you; first taking them out of their terrarium, grabbing them firmly with one hand while you gently caress their head, back and whole body.
Later on, couple of minutes after you took it out of the terrarium, he will start to close his eyes slowly… then open your hand while keep on going with the caress.
Surely, when you want to grab him back, he will jump attempting to evade yourself. It is very important that you show up who`s the boss. Go, pick him up.
Another good exercise is to grab him to put on his leash… you know, one of those that are available at pet stores and are designed for lizards. I´ve seen some iguanas with dog collars… which do the trick too, but may induce the crest to grow sideways.
Anyway, once the leash is on, it is a good practice to place them on a spot where they can feel some heat and see people walking around. (preferably not much people as it is stressing for the animal.)
The whole idea is that your iguana pet should get use to been submissive to yourself and get use to be around people… After all, no matter how cool they are; iguanas in their wild habitat live very far away of humans.
When I was in college, I used to put mine in a small cage on the couch while watching TV. Your iguana must learn that human are not dangerous. As any other animal who is trying to learn a new trick, this takes time; so patience…
After a while (maybe 4 to 5 weeks) your iguana will be able to stay around yourself with no leash, maybe under a heat light. You`ll notice that he is not stressed anymore while you are hanging around each other and he is not trying to escape at sight… He is minding his own business as well as you are; but if you notice, he is cool with you on the same room, thing that wasn´t 4 or 5 weeks a go when you just got him out the pet store.
Whit these “exercises” no more than one hour daily, maybe in a year or a year and a half the iguana will become 100% your pet and will want to jump over you every single time.
B e aware that reptile, like iguanas, are not famous for having a good memory. This is the main reason why taming the lizard takes a while longer than… let´s say, a puppy.
1 comment:
Interesting post. Having a pet iguana takes commitment to daily training. I imagine it doesn't take long for the iguana to outgrow its terrarium.
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