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Re: Iguana help with taming.

 I'm sure Melissa will post soon (if she hasn't already), so I'll only
 add a short blurb.
 My Perry was kept in my daughter's room for his first three months at
 our house.  Unfortunately, my daughter never got comfortable with him,
 and he never became comfortable with people.  Symptoms: tail whipping
 running from me when I reach for him, hissing (hard exhaling with
 mouth closed), biting, and extending dwlap (skin flap under chin).
 I then began a 4-phase program to reverse the damage.
 Week 1: "New digs."  Perry's enclosure (newly enlarged) was moved to
 the family room.  For the first week, he just SAW a lot more people.
 Week 2: "Petting without picking up".  Especially in the beginning,
 this required a certain sequence:
   a) Approach Perry from the side, not from above.  (This involved
      bending my arm in ways that it didn't want to bend.  What won't
      we do for our little scaled friends?)
   b) Perry "cocks" his tail for a whipping.  (Can't you just hear the
      "shick-shuck" sound of a shotgun?)
   c) I freeze.  Then I slowly move my fingers in a circular motion.
      This seemed to "hypnotise" (sp) Perry, and he closed his eyes.
   d) Now a full petting can begin.  He has never liked being touched
      on the top of his head or the base of the tail.  So I stay on
      the neck, back, sides, and legs.
 This is the phase when Perry would sometimes bite.  Fortunately, he
 was still small and his ferocious attacks accomplished nothing at
 all.  If I were taming a fully grown iguana, I think I would start
 out with heavy leather gloves.
 Week 3: "Mini lifts."  After a couple of weeks, Perry no longer
 "cocked" his tail when my hand approached and I didn't need to do the
 hypnosis thing.  I started doing a "mini lift" sequence.  This
 involves working one hand under his body while continuing to pet with
 the other.  Fortunately, I have reasonably big hands and Perry was
 fairly small at the time.  I could get all 4 feet on one hand.  Once
 there, I would do VERY small lifts.  Just barely bobbing up and down,
 not actually taking him out of the enclosure.
 Sometimes, Perry would scamper away at this point.  I would go back to
 hypnosis and then concentrate my petting on the head, sometimes even
 covering Perry's head with my cupped hand.  This kept his eyes closed
 while I worked my hand underneath.
 Week 4: "Full lifts."  It took about another week to get Perry
 comfortable with the mini-lifts.  The final stage is to lift him out
 and place him on my chest.  As before, constant petting helps at the
 beginning to keep him calm.
 --
 BTW, just in the past couple of months I've modified my method of
 picking him up.  He's gotten way too big for a one-handed lift, so I
 had been putting one hand under the front legs and the other hand
 under his hind legs and lifting him with his body kept horizontal.  My
 new technique is to put one hand under his front feet and slowly lift
 them until his body is vertical (but rear feet still touching floor).
 Then I put my other hand under his rear feet and lift him with his
 body vertically oriented and facing away from me.  Then I bring him
 close to me so that his back is resting lightly against my chest.
 Since adopting this new technique I don't think he has struggled even
 once (unless he was already agitated).  For some reason he feels more
 secure this way.
 -- 
 Steve Ford  --  sford@mcs.com
 Never wrestle a pig.  You both get dirty, and he likes it.
      - John Belushi, 1975 (slightly edited)