Quote Originally Posted by OctagonGecko729 View Post
Enrichment is not being in an environment where you need to defend or attack other animals. Taking her out for 1-2 hours under close supervision is fine so that she can stretch her legs and enjoy tongue tasting the furniture. Exposing her to threats from other animals, unsupervised at that, in captivity where it could be prevented but is rather chosen by the keeper is frankly bad husbandry to say the least.

One of most keeper's (including my own) guiding principles is to reduce the stress and suffering of every animal within our collection that we can. If we take on breeding animals and we get a snake that has to be put down, we have to be prepared to euthanize in the most effective way, even if it is something as hard to do as pithing. If we have feeders, we treat them as humane as possible to relieve them of stress up until the moment they are fed. If we have animals which are stressed because of incorrect husbandry, we fix it, even if it means purchasing hundreds of dollars worth of equipment to achieve those parameters.

Your example is literally like me throwing a 500g ball python in with my 3ft savannah monitor just because I can do it so the ball python gets some "enrichment". Except, if I'm understanding right, it is also unsupervised which makes it worse.

Instead of letting them free roam, why not target train them with food. Get them tong trained and then make them chase you around the house with a feeder at the end of the tongs. Works for my savannah monitor, which is a even more intelligent species then beardeds and requires higher levels of enrichment. I can get him doing backflips when he is jumping for feeders. We also let our bearded roam the house but it is for 1-2 hours and we do not have any predators in the house at all. If we did have cats or a dog that showed too much interest, we would let the bearded walk in a locked room, or lock the mammals up and let the bearded roam.
Opening your mind to other ideas might be a good start and here is why...

You mention "reducing" stress and suffering. I aim for no suffering. If an animal is suffering, the keeper either shouldn't be keeping the animal or adjust how they are keeping them. This requires that you don't look at an animal simply as a species where there is only one possible way to keep them. There is a reason husbandry practices have changed over the years and that is because people have watched their animals and discovered other ways of doing things. The only time that Wyrwrenth has shown noticeable stress is when in what you would deem a 'proper enclosure'. She doesn't flare up, show poor color, or otherwise show signs of stress even when interacting with the other animals. She actually has been showing more stress when being used in the educational programs I do which is why she's being retired.

I haven't considered target training and may very well try that with her to see how she responds to it. She seems to understand the idea of treat rewarded behavior which is something I've been using for many years in our programs. She gets a small treat before the handling sessions which, with the younger groups, mean lots of hands petting and touching her from her snout to her tail. As she starts getting tired of it, she'll look up at me and that's that. She gets a treat after I put her back in her travel carrier where she settles in to destress. While I don't see her doing flips, I would be a little concerned about forcing her to jump as I'm not sure if bone degeneration occurs in beardies the same way it does in humans. Unfortunately, I haven't found many people with dragons her age to relate to though I've considered taking her in for x-rays to document how older age affects them. At this point, she has no problem jumping about a foot in the air to get from the sunken family room up to the level of the rest of the house.

1-2 hours a day is not nearly enough time in my opinion for them to get reasonable exercise. In the wild, they are moving throughout the day with periods of rest for basking. They do not exercise the way humans or even most mammals are capable of by putting all of their exercise into a small span of time while being sedentary the rest. Unless you provide a very large enclosure, it's impossible for them to get proper movement and not only does this lead the obesity issues myself and various vets have been seeing but I have a feeling it's also related to the number of impaction problems that have been occurring and directly affects their shortened life spans.

As for being unsupervised, yes, this is the case once I'm certain I know the way she'll interact with any new animals in the house. I know how my cats and dogs react to her which is with indifference and they even are conscious of her, stepping around her instead of on her. With new fosters, I take care to closely supervise their initial interaction with her to see how things go. If there is any sign of aggression from the cat, I will step in. I do not let her strictly fend for herself. If this means staying a day or two in her enclosure, so be it though she regularly stops eating when kept in it for extended periods of time (another sign of the stress it puts on her). In this way it is not even comparable to the idea of putting a 500g ball in with a savannah monitor. There is a reason I do not own savannahs though I think they are beautiful and intelligent creatures. They are also eating machines that require massive enclosures that I do not have the space to provide.

Though I'm not sure how it has a bearing on this discussion/debate, you mention having to be able to humanely euthanize animals as part of being a responsible breeder. Not only do I agree with you on this but I have had to do it. I bred and showed cats for about 10 years actively including taking care of pregnant queens for other breeders because I have the knowledge on how to deal with difficult births. More than once I had to humanely euthanize kittens that were born with deformities they would be unable to survive with. I've worked for vet clinics and attended vet school for 2 years. Trust me when I say I understand the repercussions that come with breeding any animal. On top of that, I feel that breeders are responsible for every single animal they produce. To this day, if someone who bought a kitten from me 15 years ago comes to me saying they can no longer care for the animal, it is my responsibility to take that animal and care for them because I am the reason they are here. The same has always gone for my snakes that I've bred. Fortunately, I've never had a snake that had to be euthanized though I have taken adults that owners could no longer care for or wanted.

I realize that you're reacting to what you see as a dangerous situation but all I'm asking is that you open your mind to other ways of doing things and realize that there may be different ways that are just as good as yours though it may not be what's listed on the majority of care sheets.