New with a gold tegu.

[Miranda2]

Hello, Im new here and just took in a gold tegu. I had an argentine years ago, he was a monster but quite a great pet. Anyway I am unsure if I am keeping him yet.But in the mean time I want to train him. He was fed live mice in his tank before and is now assumes everything coming near the tank is food.
Im hoping to try and use target training to calm his food rampage so I can clean and water him without risk to myself.
He is friendly once out of the cage, Ive only been able to pick him up when he is cool, in the mornings but he seems quite curious once out.

Has anyone clicker trained or target trained a teguixin?

 

[Miranda2]

He actually is very calm once he is picked up. Its just his insane feeding response. The former owners must have thought it was funny to make him leap up to grab his food(they fed him live mice). And he is always hungry so makes it hard to train him. I cant get a bowl in the cage without him knocking out of my gloved hand. He grabs anything coming into his cage and he is so darn fast he can bite 5 different things before I finally get him to bite the actual food.( I feed a variety and thawed mice with hemostats)
But It seems I can only handle him at night when he is sleepy. then its no problem picking him up

 

[Walter1]

Can you slip a bowl of food in there when he's asleep???