Angry sav moniter

[HellPuppi]

My bf has a Savannah monitor that up until pretty recently belonged to another person, who had to get rid of him as he was being stationed overseas (ah how many animals get passed around in the military?). I've got all the temp, humidity and cage re-set up (the guy originally only had a hot rock for him =P) , but my question is how mean the guy is.
He seems pretty young (under 2 feet, has the bluish tiny to tounge and mouth), and defiantly hasn't been handled all that much. Right now all I've been doing is sitting by the cage on occasion to get him more used to human contact, as any attempt to touch him gets rewarded with hissing, a good tail-lashing and bites. I've read that these guys tend to get lazier and sweeter when they're older, but I was wondering if there was anything else I could do? Any advise? It's almost impossible to let him get exercise out of his cage, and with a move coming up building him a larger enclosure would be silly (plans for building an outside cage when we get to az are in the making ).

[daniel1983]

Monitors will eventually become accustomed to people, but it usually takes awhile. You are not going to see any overnight changes. If the monitor has had a stressful existance, getting them accustomed to people could take from a couple of months to years. You have to earn their trust. Don't handle it. Feed it and water it. Provide proper husbandry. That is all you can really do. It will realize you are the source of its food and pose it no threat and will begin to tolerate your presence.

Sadly, alot of 'older' savs being 'lazier' is not what you would think. Old savs are rather rare in the first this hobby. 90% of savs will never make it to be over 3-4 years old due to improper care. If you can find someone that has a sav over 5 years old, you would be very lucky. These are animals that can live for 15-20 years if cared for properly. A healthy monitor is an active monitor. Lazyness is a sign that something is wrong. With savs, lazyness is usually do to overfeeding and obesity....which in turn leds to a short life.

Here are a few reliable things to read over about savs since the majority of information out there is not the best.

Pro-exotics care sheet:
http://www.proexotics.com/care_savannah.html

Recent write up going through sav care and breeding:
http://www.nabble.com/file/p12268628...thematicus.pdf

When will you be moving to AZ? Some of the best monitor keepers in the world live out that way

[HellPuppi]

Thanks for the advice!
My bf had no idea even how old the thing was, and wasn't feeding it that often because he heard sav's have a tendency to be obese. He was pretty surprised when I told him the thing was still young! Luckily it's (Bahamut's it's name) responded well to the better environment and better feed and seems pretty active. I was just worried about it not getting to run around, but better to take my time like you said than have it stressed out.
Moving to AZ later this month, and I've been promised a baby ball when I get there!