Hey, you never know when you’ll run into a stressed-out lizard. Despite what you might have seen in the movies, lizards are not out to conquer the world. Lizards basically want what anyone else wants — have a good time and avoid stressful situations. Since mankind is moving more and more into natural habitats once inhabited only by lizards and bugs and birds, it’s good to know how to get a stressed out lizard to relax. This also can help get on their good side when they do eventually decide to take over the planet.
What NOT To Do
First off, lizards prefer to avoid confrontation whenever possible. Don’t provoke a confrontation with a lizard. This might seem like a no-brainer, but some people need practical advice. Lizards don’t like to be chased, picked up or screamed at. If you can avoid somehow manage all three, you’ll greatly relax the lizard and thus relax yourself knowing the lizard is not plotting on how to take over your home and business. Only move a lizard when you HAVE to.
However, there are some instances when a wild lizard needs to be moved for its own good, or you are lizard-sitting someone’s pet lizard and it needs a health inspection. Or, you could wake up one day to discover that lizards have invaded your home and intend to use it as a bunker in which to plot out world domination. These lizards need to be moved. You might as well have them nice and relaxed before you move them.
What To Do
The goal is to gently stroke their belly. You don’t even need to flip them over onto their backs if you can somehow manage to stroke their bellies while they are upright, but lizard whisperers recommend flipping the lizard onto it’s back first. I once managed to help calm an iguana by using a fuzzy cat toy to stroke the iguana’s belly. (Don’t ask — okay, I was working in a pet shop at the time, which I now regret). This belly stroking seems to trigger a complete relaxation response in the lizard — perhaps a "paying dead" response for survival.
How relaxed do lizards get? Ever hear the expression "lounge lizard"? They completely conk out. They will let you pose them in compromising positions for about a half hour. This is what Florida adolescent Lily Capehart discovered, being a minor celebrity on the national talk-show circuit since 2006 with her scene-stealing Anoles. But please — don’t go picking up any strange lizards just for the heck of it. Especially strange lounge lizards.
Now, apparently, you can also calm an alligator down by stroking its belly, but I haven’t personally tired that and don’t recommend it. I also But isn’t it less stressful to know that by stroking a lizard’s belly, you know how to relax a lizard? That’s one less worry for this lifetime.
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