Can you train a lizard? 

This is definitely a " they can open doors?" Moment

Then this happened: Recently I have noticed Alex going over my taxes. I have decided to encourage this behavior by...

how to train your dragon

So Alex raises his hand, and you immediately let him out... Who trained who?

How to train your discount dragon

I actually trained my monitor lizard to do the same thing, but his right arm became so powerful he was able to shatter the glass enclosure and escape. Then a week later I saw on the news that he won a BIG RIG and $100k at the World Arm-wrestling Championships in Las Vegas. Sure enough he came back home and now we drive around the country solving crimes and tearing phone books in half at high school pep rallies.

This is one off the most impressive thing I’ve ever seen. Also is it just me or does anyone else think that these lizards are so cute.

Reptiles are very intelligent. They have good memories, problem solving skills and some have even been known to form emotional bonds with their caretakers. My Green Iguana learned how to unlock the dog door by observation. She once went missing for two weeks when she let herself out. Then one day she came walking up to me when I got home from school. She managed to survive outdoors for two or three weeks in the California desert and then find her way home. She was a bit dehydrated but otherwise unharmed. My tortoise responds to verbal commands. He comes when I call him and he will stop what he is doing immediately when I give the command "stop".

Healthy, bright-eyes, lovely lizards, a gorgeous, spacious enclosure, supervised outside-time, consistent training... Sir, my hat is off to you! These two are in the best home they could possibly have, with a human who cares deeply for their well-being 💕

In the Lizards mind he thinks finally now I have trained my human to let me out when I want to...

Meanwhile, my bearded dragon: *white noise*

"I didnt want them scratching the glass" *trains them to scratch the air instead*

It is so lovely to see a pet owner put in the time and effort while utilising a monitor's natural behaviour to increase their quality of life. Kudos!

"Free me papa."

can I just say I almost thought this was a professional nature documentary because of your voice :)) your narration really stands out for me

This is actually a very cool way to train your animals, not just lizards. They're all pretty dang smart. The concept of Ignoring unwanted behavior, and rewarding them when they behave the way you want, is a quick way for them to learn how to properly do stuff. And over time, they begin to improve that behavior on their own, like Alex did by progressively raising his hand on his own, and then reaching higher and higher. Giving treats is not the only "Reward" you can give to your animal, giving them attention or letting them out to play also works. I have tried this method shown in the video on my cats, whenever they wanted to be let out in the backyard, they'd have to wait until i did so, I'd ignore the constant meowing and scratching on the glass door, for as annoying as it was, but eventually they picked up the idea i was trying to show them. Now they always wait until i let them out, and do so by sitting in front of the glass door and remaining completely silent. Thanks Man, You Are a Very Effective Teacher

It is interesting that the lizard recognizes being allowed outside as a reward, rather than a natural thing (since there is only a glass panel in between). This would imply they know they are in captivity and only own a small space. And they are also interested in exploring their surroundings, rather than being apathetic. Very nice.

One day he started raising his arm higher and higher. Now he's doing my taxes. Was the next step I would have liked to hear ^^ those are some beautiful specimen.

Just caught myself saying "Now that's a good boy" when he raised his arm as a response to your beckoning

You literally trained him to wave when he wants out. And how gorgeous they are!

This was excellently shot, edited, and scripted. Keep up the good work, my guy.

Can they be trained. Mmmm.. I suppose Is he a good boi? Yes, for certain.

Their intelligence and forward thinking is borderline scary and I love it!

Great work. I kept Piranhas for years. When they got hungry they would form a semi-circle and evil-eye me until I fed them something.

They way you observe and interact with your animals is simply satisfying

"the next time you see a reptile, watch out for it suddenly cloaking and doing a teleport-crossup combo, those can easily hit you for 40% and feeds him plenty of meter."

They are so freaking adorable I almost started crying, they are so intelligent and adorable!!

1. You're a good owner 2. They are beautiful 3. This is sick! Awesome job man.

Incredibly well done - engaging, straight to the point and a thoroughly enjoyable video. Definitely innovative and one of the best reptile videos I've watched for a very long time!

lifting him out is like a cute handshake

I owned a few small pet lizards when I was a kid and enjoyed finding salamanders out in the wild. These monitor lizards are so beautiful! Excellent narration and Alex is a nice buddy to have to spend time with and amuse you with his actions.

Wow, that's amazing

[Insert dog joke]

this is adorable!! I’m a psychologist hoping to use operant conditioning with my baby tegu. Your vid inspires me!!!

He’s a dog in lizard skin he’s really cute and I can tell just by watching this video that lizards are 100% capable of recognizing and reciprocating compassion , gentleness , calmness , and I can also say I think this lizard has an attachment to the owner 100% influenced by food , and conditioning but also I think the lizard loves him in a lizard way , something is humans would need to be a reptile to understand😊😊❤️❤️

I don't know why this was recommended to me by RU-vid, but I don't care, it's great!

The nearly scientific calmness of the footage and the simple but amazing explanation of behavior and training is what makes this video outstanding. They're beautiful, fascinating animals and I really hope this makes more people aware of how responsive these reptiles are if you know how to treat and train them right.

This video is incredibly underrated

I already loved monitors and especially lace monitors, but now I love them even more. This is a great video and demonstrates that lizards aren't just dumb machines. Wonderful work with this pair!

Very impressive. I tried that with my juvenile bearded dragon. He has to sit in the front right corner of his enclosure in order to be taken out. This works 100% of the time. I now touch his ribcage with my index finger and he puts both of his hands on my hand so I can lift him up. Sometimes he even does it when I simply approach him with my hand. My leopard gecko even comes to me when he sees me and I call him by his name. Reptiles are so much more smarter than one would think, your video was really educational and helps me prove my friends wrong :P

Love how intelligent monitors are, and it's amazing seeing that intelligence in action!

This is really amazing, the mutual comprehetion between both is fascinating

I had a conehead lizard for over 5 years when I was a boy and he knew the sound of my voice. When called, he would quickly climb up near the top of his enclosure waiting for me to hand feed him a cricket/moth. He only responded to my voice. Lizards are the best. Great video and God bless you!

When they started waving the video was completely sold for me, congrats for training them so well!

Interesting. I never really realized how often we just seem to tread over the fact that reptiles are perfectly capable of conditioning much like other animals. It's easy to forget that these are thinking creatures too because seem so much more different from us, as opposed to a mammal which is the same classification as humans. Excellent video.

Impressed with their clean, well designed enclosure, that you let them out to roam, that you have two, and that you have taken the time and effort to learn about them! Well done!

Those two are so cute. Reptiles are a amazing creatures

I like the idea of the lizard training his human by gradually understanding that "left arm raised" means he should be let out, and expanded on that concept until he could merely wave whenever he wanted to leave

Adorable puppies

I love videos like this. Animals are so much smarter than people give them credit for. Reptiles included. Those monitors are absolutely gorgeous btw

That looks like a really happy monitor lizard! Your training techniques are so gradual that I doubt it even realizes that you encouraged the behavior.

He’s like doing the dog trick “Give me The paw!”

That's a good way to avoid the scratching.

What a gorgeous, awesome monitor! As a reptile keeper, lover and zookeeper, I just love seeing videos like this! Well done for capturing all of those stages, too! Takes an extra presence of mind.

How fun and interesting to watch how you trained these two beautiful creatures. Well done! You can see the anticipation of getting out of their enclosure. Thank you for sharing and teaching the rest of us about their intelligence.

Omg he is so cute! Love those little hands

*Clever girl*

It's amazing how intelligent they are. And they're beautiful.

Alex is going to be in college in a couple years at this rate. As a professor.

Cute doggos

I have such a soft spot for reptiles. I feel like people disregard them because they can't read their faces or body language like they can with mammals. The result is treating them with misplaced apathy in comparison to mammals. In reality, I intuit that they are just as cognizant as mammals are, and videos like this lend evidence to such.

I never thought reptiles like this were dumb, just not loving but it seems Alex and you have a pretty cool friendship.

Im not even fond of reptiles, but how you delivered the content is exceptional!!

The way they look around reminds me of pets people would consider more intelligent than reptiles such as parrots and dogs. Your cinematography captures that aspect really well. Wonderful work.

You're like Daily Dose of Internet....you don't over talk, you talk and then let the video speak the rest. Really well done, didn't think I'd stay interested for the whole video but I was! And have watched others too.....subbed

Your lizards are adorable. And it is heart warming to know the sympathy and kindness can do just about anything.

I never knew reptiles weren't considered smart. When i was a child i made friends with a lizard in our garden by removing a tick from it. Although that only lasted until i showed it to my sister and it climbed up her sleeve and she freaked out. In any case, both actions on the part of the lizard, becoming friendly and strangers again seemed pretty reasonable to me.

"Can you train a lizard?" Well if that one guy from a movie trained a dragon i don't think a lizard would be that hard :3

That's awesome! reptiles are so intelligent and people don't seem to give them enough credit. Especially larger species like monitors and tegus. Great video!

This is fascinating. They're beautiful creatures.

That arm reach is too adorable

Amazing. Your knowledge and patience with your animals are a true testament as to what you've accomplished with such misunderstood animals. People think I'm crazy when I say my female red tail boa knows me apart from others. She exhibits certain behaviours uniquely to me. But she has nothing on these monitors. Makes you wonder if the largest of monitors i.e the komodo is capable of what your showcasing or possibly even more..

This is a very impressive/educational video. Beautiful pair of lace monitors, you have me wanting a monitor now lol

Your Lace monitors are just absolutely gorgeous!

Your monitor lizards are the coolest lizards ever. I love how you both kinda trained each other with the whole arm raising/waving thing, too.

I never considered LIzards dumb, just mysterious, and calculating. I use to have a Bearded Dragon who seemingly stares off into nothingness at times but I always thought she was up to something. And when I'd feed her, she does the same except her eyes/head follow me...MENACINGLY! xD Soon as I set loose her live crickets or other bugs she liked, and remove my hand she stops holding still and just barrels like for them in jumpscare fashion .

Oh they are so beautiful, I love lizards, these are especially cool though, they are so interesting and intelligent creatures. 😊

Seeing the back legs scramble when you pick him up is priceless.

Why do i find them absolutely adorable

As a psychology student this was extremely interesting to watch. Very informative, and very neat. I'd love to see more videos on how you can condition these lizards to repeat certain behaviors.

Lizards are curious, inquisitive, and rewarding houseguests. I had an iguana for years, and during the winters she mainly stayed indoors with her basking spot in her enclosure. She did her business outside in the summer, but was confined to indoor in the winters, of course. Eventually we were able to get her to do her business in her spot on newspaper, never ever thought a lizard could be paper trained yet she surprised me. She even lived with a cat who slept and ate together with her.

Their little arm raise and wave are so cute

Most reptile keepers don't have their animals long enough due to living conditions. Many reptiles will learn routines, where their enclosure is. They can go out during cleaning, just make sure no predators or open doors/windows are around. Chamaeleons will enjoy climbing wood placed near their enclosure, especially mounted to the ceiling. They will enjoy sitting in plants in the window. Make sure they can go back when they feel cold.

I knew reptiles were smart and I think only people that have reptiles would know just how smart but now we can show the world just how smart they are with your video.

I never thought a monitor lizard could be considered adorable before this video 😊

Your lizards have such beautiful scales.

Love the David Attenborough quote in the beginning. Also, I'm sure this video was not meant to be cute, but it's unbelievably adorable

Well done. Now, do you have any suggestions on training my roommate?

Those are the funniest looking dogs I've ever seen lol. They are beautiful, good video.

Honestly I love videos like this The amount of respect the owners can have for their reptile and these massive perfect enclosures make me happy Like just "Yes!! The good boy gets good things!!

I have a tegu, her name is stella and she learned this extremely easily. It was just conditioning over time. She makes the same hand signal. We take her out, and immediately she goes potty (she doesnt like stinking up her on enclosure. These types of lizards are much harder to train howerver.

Now how do you boop these snoots

Its always great to see someone who knows how to treat their reptiles with care and respect. Also, the making of the video itself is very good. Keep it up, you have one more subscriber now

Soooo cute. He’s like, I just wanna go and explore

Incredible work man. Your videos should be required for all monitor owners!! Keep it up.

monitor lizards are clever animals. they have so many things they have to remember in nature, that I'd hope any captive ones were trained and given mental stimuli like this as a standard. they need to exercise their minds to keep them sharp. also, one reason a lot of reptiles were thought to be dumb originally was because they possess different responses to stimuli that if a mammal exhibited would be considered unusual or lacking a proper one. when exposed to loud noises or bright lights reptiles tend to freeze as a response, so it looks like they aren't responding. it's interesting.

One less video I have to make, bravo. I’ll be referencing this video on my channel for people to view. Well done and great species to use.. Bravo

All it takes is a lizard being named Alex to make me basically cry. I'm normal.

This is such an incredible video. I come back to it periodically and am always blown away. Your enclosure is outstanding. The monitors themselves are extraordinary. Lace monitors are such beautiful and intelligent creatures. One of my favorite reptiles. I wish we could get this species in the US more easily and affordably. Super rare and expensive here.

I found this monitor lizards adorable