grapebasil
Member
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My husband and I are tag-team taming our columbian and I thought it might be useful for others with lil baby colombians to see what we’re doing and chime in perhaps? I know columbians get a bad rep so maybe keeping track of this will be helpful.
When we first got him, he was crazy. Liked to run around, bite, jump off of people’s heads and out of their hands. So far we have been spending an hour or so a day near his cage while he is out, and then a half hour with our hand in the tank, occasionally offering food. At first, he would freak out and run to the other side of the tank and try to climb the walls. Picking him up was a nightmare until he scrambled up your arm to hide in your hair. Gradually, that stopped and transitioned to huffing and puffing. We’ve just been tempting him with food and slowly working with him, getting used to hands and fingers going under chin and belly. Yesterday there was no out of the tank time because we decided not to bring him out if he wouldn’t walk into our hand voluntarily. Today he ate a pinky off my husband’s hand and then spent about a half hour walking quickly over his fingers before he settled down enough to let us pull him out.
There was a lot less huffing today; he was allowed to explore the house a little bit, and decided to nest in some old clothes eventually. He got a bath, some food, and spent some time wedged in the crevices of his favorite chair. He will allow us to pet his head and back if we do it slowly and if we respect his ‘don’t touch me’ huffs.
So far we are adopting a policy of doing things that aren’t his favorite by are neccessry only if he huffs but doesn’t squirm or run. Anything else we just back off and try again later until he eventually stops huffing. Is this a good strategy? I want him to understand we aren’t going to hurt him but also don’t want him to learn that he can just be a lil brat.
When we first got him, he was crazy. Liked to run around, bite, jump off of people’s heads and out of their hands. So far we have been spending an hour or so a day near his cage while he is out, and then a half hour with our hand in the tank, occasionally offering food. At first, he would freak out and run to the other side of the tank and try to climb the walls. Picking him up was a nightmare until he scrambled up your arm to hide in your hair. Gradually, that stopped and transitioned to huffing and puffing. We’ve just been tempting him with food and slowly working with him, getting used to hands and fingers going under chin and belly. Yesterday there was no out of the tank time because we decided not to bring him out if he wouldn’t walk into our hand voluntarily. Today he ate a pinky off my husband’s hand and then spent about a half hour walking quickly over his fingers before he settled down enough to let us pull him out.
There was a lot less huffing today; he was allowed to explore the house a little bit, and decided to nest in some old clothes eventually. He got a bath, some food, and spent some time wedged in the crevices of his favorite chair. He will allow us to pet his head and back if we do it slowly and if we respect his ‘don’t touch me’ huffs.
So far we are adopting a policy of doing things that aren’t his favorite by are neccessry only if he huffs but doesn’t squirm or run. Anything else we just back off and try again later until he eventually stops huffing. Is this a good strategy? I want him to understand we aren’t going to hurt him but also don’t want him to learn that he can just be a lil brat.