How to Train Your Uromastyx

These notes are in no particular order. I’ve put them together from conversations with clients and customers on the topic of building trust with a pet lizard, usually Uromastyx. Instead of a step by step, this is a set of ideas and viewpoints that will help encourage patience and determination. After all, those 2 things are really all you need. These are also posted to my blog, The Desert Mind, on my website.

• Any lizard has the potential to be a fantastic companion. No matter the starting point. 
• Building trust with your pet is an act of welfare. It results in low stress during general maintenance and reduces stress when and if your animal needs veterinary attention. 
• Let go of any idea that you must find a tame or friendly or calm animal from, this is incorrect framing. Lizard personalities are not set in stone, they are highly responsive to routine and context.
• I’ve seen countless animals that are friendly in one home and then turn skittish in a new one, as well as the other way around. Change is challenging for animals. 
• It’s supposed to take a long time. Genuine, dependable trust with a member of another species is hard earned. It by nature takes time. Don’t give up! 
• Different animals respond differently to different interactions. Don’t be afraid to try new ideas or methods. 
• For some animals high visibility from within the enclosure is valuable. Glass sides, lots of ways to view the room around them, etc. can all be a positive. For others it’s the opposite, the visibility makes them fearful and they might need cage sides covered to feel safe. Be responsive.
• When something has a positive result, repeat. Evaluate negative results to determine if you should try again in a different context. 
• Keep your mind open. Lizards are sometimes responding to stimuli that isn’t obvious to humans, exercise cognitive flexibility in trying to figure it out. 
• Rather than trying to grasp or restrain your animal, allow them first to comfortably move across your hands and arms, then graduate to them being comfortable resting on your hand. 
• Always have a hiding place where the lizard can flee where you never remove them. A safe and secure hide gives a Uro confidence to behave normally. 
• This may be disappointing to hear, but many lizards are unlikely to be “cuddle” pets, they are more “observation” and “light interaction” pets. This is not a bug but a feature of what makes them so charming. 
• Uromastyx are prey animals, native to places with very few safe hiding places but many predators, all this effects their psychology and how we must approach them. Changes and stressors can reset them to prey behavior such as fleeing to hide. 
• Think “Toothless” from the movie How to Train Your Dragon. The dragon was nowhere near “tame” when he and the main character Hiccup first meet, but Hiccup puts in the time to slowly and sustainably built trust with Toothless. 
• There is no trick or quick method, the only sustainable trust is built with patience and time. 
• Hand feeding high value treats and foods are your ultimate leverage. Much fear and hesitation can be overcome with a Dandelion flower or pinch of high value treat. 
• Even without trying to tame them, my animals are all very relaxed by 3-5 years old. Uromastyx live 20-50+ years, so a few years of trust building is no big deal. 
• Males can get spicey once they reach maturity, females can become very relaxed during mating and egg laying but often revert to skittishness after eggs are deposited and buried. Think being a teenager, hormones can have weird effects.  
• Note that touching the flanks, the back of the head, and the sides of the tail should be off limits when trust building, these are areas very sensitive, they are where other Uros bite when fighting and breeding. 
• Avoid reaching down to the animal from up above, this resembles predatory attack. 
• Don’t. Give. Up. Your pet deserves your dedication in this matter.