"Best trained Savannah monitor"

[nepoez]

Originally Posted by crocdoc

I had my male lace monitor trained to come for food at one stage. I'd feed the female in the enclosure first and would then call the male over. I had to delay the reward (the food) by adding steps between him coming to me and finally getting fed. Consequently I'd call him over, put him into the enclosure, go get the food and then feed him. If I didn't do that, he'd just run over biting and there would be blood everywhere. As it turns out, he started to short-cut anyway. He started off knowing he had to be in the enclosure before getting fed (and would usually look up at the enclosure, tongue flicking, waiting to be lifted up, or even trying to climb up the outside of the enclosure), but eventually he knew the routine well enough that he started getting food on his mind before I picked him up, so I had to pick him up very carefully to avoid getting bitten. Then I gave the whole idea up, as it was too dangerous.

Although he definitely knew he was being called for food (I'd clap my hands at the same time as calling him), it was more the tone of my voice than what I was saying and I could probably have said anything.

You can see this at 0:17 in this video:


Wayne, can you please fix this. The youtube link NEVER works for me.

don't enter the web url just enter the 7NIOeF2ICmo

e.g.

[crocdoc]

Originally Posted by nepoez

don't enter the web url just enter the 7NIOeF2ICmo

Thanks for the tip! Why hasn't anyone explained this to me before. Let me try that out.

More monitor training (old video - they're much better at this now):


It works! You rock, nepoez!