So I have been working for the past few months to condition my Dante to see how he responds to verbal and physical queues to come out of his cage on his own. I had really low expectations aside from I just wanted to see if I could do it.
I started observing how he behaved throughout the day and how different approaches to picking him up out of his cage impacted his stress levels. Now I used to simply handle him only a few days per week and would remove him without regard to his current activity and curiosity level. It would often require him to slowly come out of a balled state before maybe relaxing and exploring. What gave me this idea was his occasional sitting by the front of the glass looking back at me while i disinfected my hands.
After testing him during different hours of the day and removing him inside and outside of his hide I came to the observation he was far more active normally at night than during daylight hours. This gave me the idea after watching some monitor lizard training videos to try a similar approach of trying to lead him to the front of the cage sliding door.
For the first week I simply would sit in front of his cage and tap a few time to get his attention then just talk to him. I started noticing a definite interest in my presence and response to my talking. I kept this up a few times a week and would start engaging with him when he started to leave his hides in the late evening.
Fast forward to the past two weeks. I started opening his cage door slowly and prompting him verbally to come out. Now I know the words I say have little meaning but for consistency I would simply asking him to come out and play. He would occasionally move his head toward me and flick his tongue but stayed in his cage without coming near the door.
Jump to tonight. He was wrapped around his branches just hanging his head up looking at the top of the cage. I came and sat down and opened the sliding door. He slowly moved toward the door and after about 5 minutes sat his head on the door opening. After more verbal prompts he started to climb up my presented arm. Now it wasn't perfect and he did recoil a few times after bumping his head against some things but this was the farthest he has ever approached me while I was sitting in front of his cage.
After about 20 minutes I did manage to have him rest on my arm with his head and be about 1/4 out of the enclosure. I eventually picked him up with no signs at all of stress and him more relaxed than he has been in the past 7 years.
This was an important milestone and a great observation of how relaxed he can be allowing him to exit his home on his own. The amount of calm and at the same time curiosity was really inspiring.
Most of this may mean nothing and be wishful thinking but the joy of seeing a calm and inquisitive snake rather than a slightly balled up and slightly stiff snake makes this experiment definitely worth the effort. I have a long way to go to see how much of this is actual conditioning and how much is simple coincidence but the early results are extremely promising.
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