I recently got a sumatran water monitor from pro exotics and its a really beautiful looking one.. its only a little over a foot right now. Ive had this monitor for about 3 months now and its still scared of me.. I handle him all the time but he always stops moving when he can see me. He also wont eat if im around or if he can see me. Hes constantly looking at me to see if im gonna get close to him so he can get ready to run. His heat is fine and he is in a 40 gallon cage with plenty of room and a nice water dish and branches for him. He eats well though so im pretty sure hes not dying on me. Its just a little frustrating that hes acting this way. I used to have an argus monitor and that argus wouldnt care who was around. It would eat and be constantly moving. With this monitor , sometimes i feel he is unhappy because he can always see me. How do i fix this problem , or is this how baby sumatran water monitors act? also is there a difference in behavior from your typical asian monitor and a sumatran? when i see the typical ones in stores they seem to be pretty active and arent scared of people. As for the sumatrans , ive never seen them in stores so i wouldnt know.
There's the answer to your question. It's scared of you BECAUSE you handle it all of the time. Leave it alone, let it learn that you aren't going to grab it every time you enter the room. Wait until it starts feeding from tongs and getting used to your presence before slowly trying to get it to crawl onto your arm. Sounds like you're in a bit over your head - water monitors get huge and it sounds like you may have not done your research.
ive been around reptiles for over 10 yrs.. I am aware of how large these monitors get however i have never had a shy reptile. Ive owned 2 fully grown argus montiors which my brother now keeps and they were never shy towards me even when they were still young. They used to be aggressive and tried to whip thier tail but that eventually stopped. My water monitor doesnt try to bite or anything like that.. hes just scared or shy so its kind of a new thing for me to get used to. Also i only handle it 3 times a week and its not even for very long.. its more like just a few seconds so that i can clean certain areas or change the water . Basically all i wanted to know is.. how many times should i handle him a week? How long do you think it will take for him to start trusting me " just an estimate .. and what is the best way. I understand that he might be a little diff then the argus's I had so I just want an experts opinion on taming a water monitor .. I also wanted to know if the typical water monitors personality differ from my sumatran monitor. [/quote]
I didn't ask you how long you've been around reptiles before, it's how much experience you've had with monitors that counts. If you've never seen a shy reptile before, you haven't been around monitors for long. Most of them are terrified of people when they are young. That's 3 times a week too many, by the sounds of it. 0 Leave it alone, let it learn that you aren't going to grab it every time you enter the room. Wait until it starts feeding from tongs and getting used to your presence before slowly trying to get it to crawl onto your arm. Could be a couple of months, six months, a year. Maybe a few years. Maybe never. No two animals are the same and no two keepers are the same. It mostly depends on how you are around it. I've never force handled my monitors and they've all turned out tame on their own, once they got over fearing me. Leave it alone, let it learn that you aren't going to grab it every time you enter the room. Wait until it starts feeding from tongs and getting used to your presence before slowly trying to get it to crawl onto your arm. No difference. Sumatran water monitors ARE a 'typical' water monitor.
