How long did it take to get your tort to like you

thatrebecca

Active Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Apr 24, 2013
Messages
928
Location (City and/or State)
Los Angeles, CA
I'm grateful for the unvarnished opinions myself, but I'm from New York. We're not known for our manners. :)

Anyway, back to the original question. I have two torts with very different temperaments. Same species (CDT), same care, not sure yet about gender. But one is super interactive and gregarious and the other is more shy. The one thing that has drawn the shy one out is hand feeding. The only problem with that is I'm pretty sure she thinks my thumb is edible. Oh well.

Oh and we wondered if the shy one was merely behaving that way as a result of subtle bullying, and about a month ago we separated them. No decrease in shyness yet, but maybe it takes time. Also, she's winding down for winter, so that has affected her temperament too.
 

Puckles🐢

New Member
5 Year Member
Joined
May 21, 2013
Messages
123
Your tortoise will eventually feel that you are a major staple to its life, I think tortoises CAN like you, I think any animal can, have you seen those black throated monitor lizards? Like a smaller version of a Komodo dragon, they love to cuddle with humans, infact when I was 16 years old I would feed them, wash etc. and they would get cranky when I didn't pet them or hold them haha, anyways try holding your tortoise then give it a treat like a small bit of apple or a couple bites of strawberry. I do not recommend this everyday unless you want parasite blooms (You don't) best of luck!
 

Kapidolo Farms

Well-Known Member
10 Year Member!
Tortoise Club
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Nov 7, 2012
Messages
5,173
Location (City and/or State)
South of Southern California, but not Mexico
If 'like' is measured by proximity, and response, then all these posts demonstrate like to the OP and their question, YES?

Sometimes pets that sleep on my bed do things hat I don't like, such as shed hair, scream load meows if I don't get up right away and feed him, 5:00am. These are not feedbacks I want or desire, but I still like my cat, and he likes me, even when that food was slow to arrive. All that interaction is about liking - liking the interaction and 'services' provided. Even though I don't like getting yelled at by my cat, it provides important information to me, as far as the cat is concerned.

This question comes up alot, for me when I did talks to scouts and other groups of children at a zoo. Most of those kids were maybe 40 to 80 pounds (wild guess, but not adults). I got a great deal of traction with the answer that the reaction of keeping distance was because the animal was smart and looking to evaluate the risk of proximity to another animal several hundred time it's size.

Think about that for a moment, a 50 foot animal walks up to you, and somehow food appears and you get other services from that 50 foot animal, shade, heat whatever. Some of you might sort it out quick, that giant animal is your friend, and will not harm you, while others of you would take much longer to make that choice. The "whether the tortoise likes or not" is secondary to whether the tortoise assess the risk of exposure a good risk or bad risk. That risk assessment seems much closer, IMO, to what the tortoises is actually doing in their thought, as they are.

To me "like" means a kind of affection. Many animals show each other affection. I have never seen one tortoise show another affection, they don't "do" affection with that as a way to further define a suit of interactions that might be 'like'. My cat will show affection to me the same way it would show affection to other cats, and I 'like' that much. I show him affection the way I know how as well. These acts of affection have overlap, we 'get' each other.

I have had tortoises as wards in a zoo that absolutely recognized me aside from other people wearing a uniform, so we were all sorta looking the same. But to me it was not affection it was "hey there's the guy with the food", even when I did not have food. They transfer that 'allegiance' quickly. That quick change in 'liking' me indicated to me it was the 'food god' kind of like, and not affection kind of like.

Sometimes decomposing the thoughts hidden inside the words helps get the message across.

"Like" is a not so simple word, you know? I like you, but I don't like you like you, you know? I like you, but I don't like that I like you. It's a word that's been beat up with inferred meaning for a long time.

I think the OP probably did mean like from the tortoise, as the OP being a service provider to the tortoise and the tortoise seeking those services, and not so much the affection kind of like. Maybe not?

Will
 

ILoveTortoises2

Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Jul 18, 2013
Messages
479
Location (City and/or State)
Mansfield, Ma
ictteacher said:
Every time I check this forum for information about caring for my tortoise I come across feeds like this. The person who started this feed asked a real question. I also have had thoughts about this from time to time. The manner in which other users respond to their query can be so cutting, Is there any need ??. I don't care if some of this community have be caring for tortoise for 50 years + treating other users with respect is the number one priority. If you can't asks questions on this site with out being cut down where else can you.

I have been sitting here reading all the comments and have not seen 1 rude comment till I came across this one. Tom wasn't disrespectful at all. If you read a few comments above mine you will see that Tom explained that he was not trying to be rude at all he was only answering a question that a member had asked... This person asked a question and she received a lot of good answers. I think this comment wasn't necessary at all. Now lets leave it alone. It was just a misunderstanding by the member that made the thread. Not a big deal.


My torts are both different. Lily ate right from my hands the min I opened that box and put her in a warm soak. Franklin is more shy but is slowly coming around. He only ate out of my hands maybe 3 times but Lily I could feed all day. So just hang in there she will come around :)
 

richybear

Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Sep 22, 2013
Messages
60
Just keep hand feeding it will get used to you . And enjoy

Sent from my GT-N7100 using TortForum mobile app
 

lighthiker2

Active Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Aug 24, 2013
Messages
185
Sully has been with us for two months. Understandably he was very shy the first month. We kept him on a regular schedule of feeding soaking and movie from inside at night to outside during the day.

After that a month he stopped hiding when it was feeding time. Now that the weather is cooling, and he remains on a regular schedule, he is beginning to come out of his hide when it's feeding time. Also he gets run around time in my sons bedroom. Today he decided to make friends with the shy but friendly Yorkshire terrier puppy and explore my feet and red nail polish.
 

AnnV

Active Member
Tortoise Club
5 Year Member
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Jul 10, 2013
Messages
909
Location (City and/or State)
SWFL
Might want to watch what you wish for anyway.
My 2 redfoots lived at my dog grooming salon for their first two years. They desensitized to all sorts of noises.
I purposely attempted to condition them to recognize me as a positive force in their lives. By calling to them and hand feeding. After the first year or so, I noticed a change to be coming over them. They became more active and aware. Now I can hardly enter the room without them heading right on over towards me, pacing the boundary of their enclosure. They will actually walk right over the food to get to me. I have to walk away or hide to get them to eat, if I have set the food down.
Maybe Tom can advise me on how to now modify this behavior! :)

Ann from CT
 

ILoveTortoises2

Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Jul 18, 2013
Messages
479
Location (City and/or State)
Mansfield, Ma
AnnV said:
Might want to watch what you wish for anyway.
My 2 redfoots lived at my dog grooming salon for their first two years. They desensitized to all sorts of noises.
I purposely attempted to condition them to recognize me as a positive force in their lives. By calling to them and hand feeding. After the first year or so, I noticed a change to be coming over them. They became more active and aware. Now I can hardly enter the room without them heading right on over towards me, pacing the boundary of their enclosure. They will actually walk right over the food to get to me. I have to walk away or hide to get them to eat, if I have set the food down.
Maybe Tom can advise me on how to now modify this behavior! :)

Ann from CT

Oh wow really?? They won't eat if your there?? That is crazy. Must of felt like it was the best thing when you first got them to do that now it is just hard with them doing that all the time because they won't eat... Maybe not feeding them all the time isn't a good idea...
 

erica anne

Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Feb 7, 2013
Messages
390
I too value honest opinions and facts that aren't sugar coated. I know the motivation behind it is good and it helps me be the best caregiver for my sully.

I am not sure how much my Franklin "likes" me but he does seem to prefer me to other people. I pick him up and move him around without issue but if a "stranger" does, well lets just say that Franklin gives them a present. If he is comfortable around me then that makes me happy
 

ILoveTortoises2

Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Jul 18, 2013
Messages
479
Location (City and/or State)
Mansfield, Ma
erica anne said:
I too value honest opinions and facts that aren't sugar coated. I know the motivation behind it is good and it helps me be the best caregiver for my sully.

I am not sure how much my Franklin "likes" me but he does seem to prefer me to other people. I pick him up and move him around without issue but if a "stranger" does, well lets just say that Franklin gives them a present. If he is comfortable around me then that makes me happy 😀

LOL... Well as long as he doesn't do that to you then nothing to worry about. :)
 

AnnV

Active Member
Tortoise Club
5 Year Member
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Jul 10, 2013
Messages
909
Location (City and/or State)
SWFL
Re: RE: How long did it take to get your tort to like you

ILoveTortoises2 said:

Oh wow really?? They won't eat if your there?? That is crazy. Must of felt like it was the best thing when you first got them to do that now it is just hard with them doing that all the time because they won't eat... Maybe not feeding them all the time isn't a good idea...

They will eat if I hand feed them. :s
 

rayneygirl

Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Jun 16, 2013
Messages
149
Location (City and/or State)
SoCal
itll be 5 months on october 14th since i've had my rescue. she still gets startled if i sit next to her, or if i stick food in front of her. all her life i don't think she was handled often until she met me. i try not to handle her TOO MUCH. but when its necessary for her soaks and putting her out to graze and moving her into her night time enclosure, and back out to her daytime enclosure, i think she gets annoyed with me. i always pick her up very slowly but she'll still kick and do that "swimming in the air, put me down" kind of thing. she does let me hand feed her sometimes, especially if i have a dandelion or a rose petal. i hope she gets used to me soon.
 

Robbie Denby

Member
10 Year Member!
Joined
Feb 6, 2013
Messages
69
Location (City and/or State)
Nottingham
Pretty sure my tortoise have never liked me they always seem to give me the cold shoulder, the only time I get any sort of 'love' out of my 3 year old Sulcata is when I'm putting food down in a morning, any other time he hides in his shell if I get to close to him.
The baby Lepoard just stares at me most of the time.

Sent from my C6903 using TortForum mobile app
 

Cutva

Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Jul 10, 2013
Messages
165
I have a tortoise named Duncan! My little girl Daisy took 6 months and now she runs to me and likes her shell rubbed!
 

kezilulu

Member
Joined
Dec 29, 2013
Messages
155
I've only had Sheldon since Christmas Day but I'm already seeing a difference! When I first went in for a head rub he hid so far in his shell I thought he'd never come back out but gradually over the days he's his less and less until finally today he stuck his head right out and reached up to my finger during head rub time! I was so happy! lol
xXx
 

New Posts

Top