Albino Water Monitors @ NERD

[Skiploder]

im actually gonna disagree with the reply you got before i saw this as i disagree with alot of info he had provided you.. he is correct that a monitor can never really be completly trusted but i disagree they cant be "tamed".. monitors are extreamly smart and just ask any keeper who has had numerous monitors for more then a few years and they will tell u there are some that will want to eat your face and some who will relax next to you.. iv personally seen both.

as for the monitors out of the cage.. its the same idea of u handling a snake for 4 hours is bad.. for a few min to an hour is not gonna hurt em... iv read actually read numerous accounts where monitors and tegus have been aloud to free roam a room with there enclosure door open and had no ill affects.

so i do disagree that a nice or "tame" monitor is unhealthy simply becuse iv seen monitors who are both healthy and nice.. a member on another forum had a 7ft nile who was 14 years old who he would let roam his house and never had a problem.. as long as the knowledge and respect are there then there is no reason u cannot have both a healthy tame monitor

Yeah, I saw that post too.............about the 14 year old ornatus......

See, I've had several varanids over the years........the largest being a big old mellow ionides. The ionides was a beast and I could pick him up and he'd follow me around the yard - very "dog" like, and if you came over to the house, you might actually think he was tame. Oh yeah, I could make a great show of rubbing his chin and I could fool some people into thinking that ol' Peaches would actually like it...and yes, when I got near his enclosure he'd claw at the front to be let out.

But this was the same "tame" ionides that tail-whipped my wife and nailed the vet. It was the same ionides that I would not trust for one second around my kids, my cats, or to have run of the house.

My dogs are tame. My kids learned to walk holding on to our staffie's back. My cats are tame. My daughter can dress our tortoiseshell up in little outfits in her room. My kids can eat in front of the cats and dogs without worrying about getting attacked. Those dogs and those cats enjoy our attention and show it. They are domesticated and tame animals.

But I was never naive enough to think that in his 12 years with us, that Peaches ever enjoyed my ministrations or was ever tame. At best, he learned to accept my intrusion into his world and at best he learned to share his world and not see me as a threat.

We can go around and around on this all day long - and people can keep chiming in here with things they've seen in other people's animals (or read about) and I can can counter with things I've owned. In the end, as a person who has owned several monitors over the years, I will never use "tame" in conjunction with them......and I will never advocate treating them as such.