I got tired of my Savannah Monitor being reclusive, and started pushing.

[Oxylepy]

Savannah monitors are notorious for being reclusive, hiding in burrows and just generally not being good pets. People tong feed and gentle get the Savannah to accept them slowly.

After a year of owning my Sav, it still had a 20ft bubble. If the door to the room opened, it would hide under its basking rock or water dish. It hated me, and wouldn't return to the surface until I was gone. Even when there was food present, still a recluse, but would come out to eat after I had left. Tong feeding was out of the question.

I was kicking around adult enclosure ideas and all this finally hit me. If it went to an adult enclosure the same thing would happen. It would never be seen, it would merely live in there and never become acclimated. This took its toll on me, so I decided to push.

I took away its comfort by finding its hiding spots and taking it out. It had more than enough soil to dig burrows, but either the humidity was high enough, or the soil was too dense. It just burrowed directly under its rock and its water dish, with the rock or water dish as its ceiling.

Every couple days to every day, I'd lift the rock or water dish and take it out, with a lot of fuss and hissing involved. Then let it swim in the tub.

After about a month of doing this, its bubble shrank from 20ft to 5ft. Then I didn't bother taking it out every time and would just go in and touch it, with every few days me taking it out to swim.

A couple weeks back it would only move its head back under its rock if I was about a foot from its tub. It actually ate regularly without even waiting for me to leave.

Today I took it out to swim and it began to rest on my hand when I would pick it up. I was able to pet it and stroke it. It doesn't like being touched around the rump, but will flick its tongue and not just remain motionless when pet on its upper back, on its head ot flicked its tongue a lot, but closed its eyes. Instead of just jumping back into the water, it ended up clinging to my arm, and let me handle it. It only froze a few times during the entire encounter (uncomfortable defensive behavior), and readily let me pass it between hands and would go swimming without remaining rigid.

Oh, when I return it to its tub it was running quickly, hiding, or trying to escape its tub. It would hiss and tail slap a lot as well. But when I returned it, I'd let it calmly leave my hand, even waiting ten minutes for it to unfreeze. Today it merely stepped out of my hand, and hid the moment I went to cover the enclosure. And today I also didn't need to use something to transport it on the way back (even though I had a small tub handy). On the way back it was curiously looking around while in my hand, and flicking its tongue.

Despite their typical personality issues, in this case, stressing my lizard by pushing has actually worked out well. While I would highly suggest most keepers work slowly as has worked for many lizards. If your lizard is shy, not extremely aggressive unless stressed heavily, and you never have a chance to acclimate it, maybe pushing it will work for you.

I'm trying the same thing with my mangrove monitor. So long as it's eating, I'm going to keep pushing. It was very very shy in the beginning, but now it is only trying hard to resist, instead of impossibly difficult (I could only initially get it out if it tried running via its swimming pool).

[Ba11er]

That's great ! Sometimes all it takes is a little extra effort on our part to help an animal come around. keep working with him and you'll have a great pet.

[Oxylepy]

I should probably share some behavior traits as not everyone knows what things mean...

Puffing up, hissing, tail slapping, open mouth, and running are all self explanitory. It's unhappy, possibly aggressive, scared, or defensive. I figure you should know these things already.

Tongue activity: This is the same for ball pythons, and other snakes. Short tongue flicks are unhappy behavior, the tongue doesn't go out far, and doesn't seem to wag much when it is out. Long fast flicks are more comfortable, guaging the surroundings, looking for food, etc. You often see long fast ones which gradually get shorter when the animal is hunting prey and honing in on it. Finally there are the ling slow flicks, this is a comfortable animal, guaging its surroundings. When your snake or other reptile is doing this, it's a good thing.

Freezing: An animal which isn't moving is terrified. You're a predator, it wants to be unseen by being unmoving. This is like a ball python in a ball, it is defensive and scared. With my savannah this includes rigid limbs, unmoving completely and will remain in that position, even if what it was holding is removed (like your hand).

An animal with long slow tongue flicks, and which is moving comfortably (not running away, but not really being still) is what you want to see. That's a comfortable animal.

At least this is my own experience.