Quote Originally Posted by Skiploder View Post
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.
i completly agree with the tame part, really i do but being only 20 i have to rely on reading and research as opposed to personal experince as mine is limited so i wont call your experience into question, and after reading your second post i feel we actually agree and it boils down to one defines the term "tame" which im my personal experience is completly overused especially in the reptile community.. none of our reptiles are tame, they like you stated have been conditioned to accept our little intrusions as we all know science has proven snakes get nothing from our interactions. i just think it is not only an unfair stereotype but a false accusation to say all monitors are man eaters and unmanageable or if they are nice enough to allow u near them its not that they are unhealthy just theyv been conditioned to do so.