Change in personality after boarding

[honeywoods]

Hey everyone - we hope someone can help with our question!

Charlie is almost 1 yr old, male, veilded cham. Up until recently he was very friendly, couldn't wait to jump out of his house and onto our heads at the end of every day.

We've recently been on holiday and boarded him at a local reptile shop. He seemed fine when we collected him but as soon as we got him home and back in his own house, he's had a personality change. He seems terrified of us and hisses at us (a lot!). He is eating really well so no problem there. We were hoping he just needed to settle back into his normal routine, but its been three weeks now and he still hides from us every time we open his door and hissess wildly when we have to take him out for cleaning the cage etc.

Has anyone else had this happen and if so, was then change permanant?

Claire and Chris

 

[Syn]

Do you have any idea if the people boarding your reptile had housed him improperly?

 

[Warrix642]

Not to jump to conclusions but it sounds like the store you left him at abused/mistreated him.

 

[Dinky]

i left for two weeks and left in the care my veiled to my mom (mistake) as i went to Deutschland and when i came back the same thing happened hissing lunging and hiding. beside not dusting his food and the start of a minor case of mbd (which was taken care of) he hasn't come back to fully being back to himself but his personality flip switched and he somewhat is back to be normal but it requires a waxworm for him to come out for cleanings

 

[slowfoot]

It's also possible he's just grown up: my veiled boys always underwent a personality transplant at about 8-10mos of age or so.

 

[honeywoods]

Thanks for the responses.

We initially thought of bad treatment at the shop but then we also know that males can change anyway around this sort of age, so it is really difficult...I don't want to make unfounded accusations . Hubby has already mentioned it at the shop and they got all funny with him. Besides, we can't change what (if anything) has happened so we want to foucs on getting our Charlie back - I'm just really worried the old Charlie is gone for good.

Any ideas on getting him back? We though leaving him alone might work but then we worry that he will get used to no human contact and that might make him worse?!

 

[warpdrive]

honeywoods,

try a lot of hand feeding while he is in his cage.
don't try to take him out but for cage cleanings, but let him see you watching him as much as posable.

what you need to do right now is have him get used to you again.
so by hand feeding, he wil think of you as the "food god".
also, when wanting him out for cage cleanings, let him come out on his own before going to pick him up....less stress that way.

good luck

Harry