What would life be without a faithful familiar? Now if you look at our dragon boy - he is actually Chinese Water Dragon. Reptile is not a first choice for many people to take on if they want to feel close and cuddle their pet. We associate them with scaled wet , cold skin and well they are after all dragons . so many are terrified of their looks too .
I thought is important for people to now how amazing Chinese Water dragons can be and many other reptiles . Like with every pet , familiar , the animal learns our behavior and boundaries and also the environment they have been brought up in. Wild caught will always be bit more weary of humans then home breed dragons. Thy have strong personality and like a cat , they don't like to come to you when called , but when they feel like it. You need a lot of patience to let them be themselves , but available if they want company and outings.
We got extremely lucky when we got our boy more than 2 years ago now. He looked down on us not moving really his body, just the eye , little cute wondering eye. Compare to bearded dragons who are much more friendly and easy to handle for inexperienced reptile owners- they seemed too keen for attention, too needy. He was looking ever so proud and we fell in love with him. Hardest part was yet to come .......
They grow rapidly , one very important thing most pet shops "forget" to mention about them.
We have build him 2 custom made enclosures , plus the first one we bought with him and within 6 month he was outgrowing it fast and also we noticed it takes about 3 days for him to learn totally new habit or to figure out ours .
Since lockdown started he has been my muse at creating interesting , unique arts and crafts.
He likes to sit next to me and look closely as I put things together . Be aware though ,it took me while to teach him not to try and eat all the crafting bits and bobs off the table , he is always curious of new things and they smell with their tongue , therefore he does his cute little licks on things he likes .
He is cute and cuddly with me since first lockdown when i fell asleep while he was out...he has then several times tried to get to bed with us at night and goes super cute and flat and quiet so you would forget about him. So some things he learns in a day, after first time .
He is very clever and independent ,but also very social animal if he likes his humans and there isn't too many around and no loud noises . He hates screaming , not crying though, he is very cuddly then, almost like he can sometimes tell what mood we are in and bounces of our vibes .
Sometimes he harasses us a lot for food and attention . He never used to as much as this lockdown as we both work from home and stay at home much more so he therefore gets to observe us much more and also wants out more often and since he is a big boy now he loves his food and snacks. Unfortunately have to be careful not to overfeed your dragon as they do gain weight quick if they don't exercise much nor have to hunt their food like in wild. also in wild they won't even bother trying to get food daily , they like to chill high up in the branch by the rivers and catch the sun. Wild caught dragons can also be bit more aggressive or defensive towards humans, normally not towards their own humans. He is a mummies boy and very much loved, maybe a bit spoiled . Within these 2 and half years he has never been aggressive towards us, annoyed yes , but never tried to bite or whip us. Doctors yes , he did whip them good with his tippy tail. Most he does is flick our hand away or turn his back and hop away to his pillow when he wants to be left alone. Like a cat . His skin in cold , but soft and smooth and tho he has spikes he is very cuddly dragon and he is very much loved.
