Petting/Loving My Alligator Gar

[Spatula]

Here is a message someone left me on my youtube video:
" cool fish nice to see people still bond with there fish and dont just get them for show".

I mean we all know perun is a little rough around the edges, but come on.
Maybe I should leave the damn fish in his tank and not mess with him at all? I mean it's just a fish, he doesn't require special care or attention or anything.
I do this because I really love my fish and want to interact with him, I don't do it often as not to disturb his slime coat much.
I don't want a freggin dog cause they smell, drool, jump and poop all over and you have to change your life around to cater to the damn thing.
I don't want a kid because they are waaaayyyy too much work and I don't have time for that crap right now. They cost TOO much money and I have things I still want to buy before I go all in on a kid. Also, like they dog the drool, poop on themselves, cry and are overly needy. I don't have time for that BS nor do I want to deal with that right now.

I got a Gator Gar because I like predatory animals that don't require constant attention, and I freggin LOVE fish. However I do like to interact with my animals every once in a while. If i wanted a predator that require no interaction or much care I would have got a damn venus fly trap plant.

Look Perun, you know I love ya man, but just because you can't get any Gator Gars to do what mine does, doesn't mean you have to knock my style.
Hell my fish let me love them, you have to beat yours off with a baseball bat..... Maybe I'm not the one doing something wrong here

 

[Madding]

Here is a message someone left me on my youtube video:
" cool fish nice to see people still bond with there fish and dont just get them for show".

I mean we all know perun is a little rough around the edges, but come on.
Maybe I should leave the damn fish in his tank and not mess with him at all? I mean it's just a fish, he doesn't require special care or attention or anything.
I do this because I really love my fish and want to interact with him, I don't do it often as not to disturb his slime coat much.
I don't want a freggin dog cause they smell, drool, jump and poop all over and you have to change your life around to cater to the damn thing.
I don't want a kid because they are waaaayyyy too much work and I don't have time for that crap right now. They cost TOO much money and I have things I still want to buy before I go all in on a kid. Also, like they dog the drool, poop on themselves, cry and are overly needy. I don't have time for that BS nor do I want to deal with that right now.

I got a Gator Gar because I like predatory animals that don't require constant attention, and I freggin LOVE fish. However I do like to interact with my animals every once in a while. If i wanted a predator that require no interaction or much care I would have got a damn venus fly trap plant.

Look Perun, you know I love ya man, but just because you can't get any Gator Gars to do what mine does, doesn't mean you have to knock my style.
Hell my fish let me love them, you have to beat yours off with a baseball bat..... Maybe I'm not the one doing something wrong here

I think his point was that you are the only one doing it because nobody else wants to, not because you have any sort of a relationship with your gar. It does not benefit or enjoy having you lift it from the water or hold on to it - it has just dismissed you as a threat and is now tolerating behavior that does not cause it immediate harm.

 

[Spatula]

I think his point was that you are the only one doing it because nobody else wants to, not because you have any sort of a relationship with your gar. It does not benefit or enjoy having you lift it from the water or hold on to it - it has just dismissed you as a threat and is now tolerating behavior that does not cause it immediate harm.

Dude, you are very correct except for the part where you said he doesn't benefit or enjoy it. Now I don't know about taking him out of the tank, but he LOVES being pet. When it's not feeding time and I stand in the spot, he comes up and basically asks to be pet. Then when I cup him all his fins go flat back and he goes into a trance like state.... He freggin loves it
Soon he's going in a Natural Pool so we can swim with him and he'll have tons of space so I think all this is a good start.

 

[sericinda]

I defiantly feel fish recognize people... my parrot cichlids and angelfish will rush to the tank to see me, but they will hide from anyone else, even though various people feed them. I'm the one that talks to them and spends the most time in front of their tank and they are comfortable with me, and even though I am not the one that usually feeds them regular meals, I'm the only one that can hand feed them. Same with my puffers, my scats and my knifefish, and my knifefish loves to play between my fingers, nibble on them rubs against my palm and "spoon" into my cupped hand. He won't go near anyone else's hands.

I don't know what to call it and I could care less what anyone else calls it...I call it affection, and it goes both ways

 

[xander]

now i have a headache..haha

 

[Polypterus]

Look Perun, you know I love ya man, but just because you can't get any Gator Gars to do what mine does, doesn't mean you have to knock my style.
Hell my fish let me love them, you have to beat yours off with a baseball bat..... Maybe I'm not the one doing something wrong here

Where do you think that I can not get a gar to do as you are? I've actually trained them to do far more elusive things such as swimming into a sling and flipping over to take Blood samples, I've trained them to swim into crates for movement and many other things....All of which are needed when you are working with these fish in a large scale setting. And we use a bat to move fish not beat them.. However given the size of the animals in question it also makes sense to have that type of material around when your enclosed with them. A large gator can seriously f-you up if it goes off for whatever reason.

As I've said before I'll never agree with you on this and I'm not one that can very much understand your line of thinking or reasoning behind this. Your perceptions of these fish and mine are very different and the experience level is also very different. You want some anthropomorphic pet and have instilled in your mind that is what this fish is. I'm just not down with this...

I've been working with them for years including some very large individuals. My sample size is not one fish but dozens (Really hundreds). I know what these fish do, how they behave and how they do what they do and why. Working with these fish has instilled in me a deep reverence and respect for them for what they really are. This means I've removed myself from the equation and now seriously accept them for what they are. Pluses . negatives..Whatever.. I feel a deep attachment to these fish and know when to just back off and let them be Gar and admire them as GAR. I strive to not try to place my human feelings or emotions on them. They do not require it and they are better without it. They do not care to be pet, handled or messed with and it does not feel love you for you to do so.. You have just merely made that idea up and the fish has been trained to accept that manipulation for some type of reward. That is simple operant conditioning. We do this in the Zoo world all the time but we know it and do not delude ourselves into thinking any particular animal loves us for training them to do something.

You care to do this hell, go right ahead, but just be aware that your preceptions are not really what you think they are and your also not really showing what is good and respectful husbandry in the anthropomorphizing of what you are doing.

In short The dang fish does not need to preform tricks to be impressive. It just needs to be a Gar and that is impressive enough as is.

 

[zspidel]

perun, im not trying to discredit you in anyway, you obviously know the most about this species and i know not even a fraction of what you do. that being said, i was a farm boy most of my life and have broken many large animals. why is this "fish" different than any other animal humans break. you can tame wild horses, you can train them to barrel race. you can work with calves/cows at any age to train the to walk with you in a ring. you can work with a litter of wild kittens and tame them. at one farm i worked on, we had a full grown 2000+lb holstein bull that roamed freely in the stancheon barn and loved to be rubbed and stroked, heck it even liked its balls scratched lol. but at the same time, you have pro bull riders that ride a wide array of wild full grown bulls that will stop at nothing to get the rider off their back. now, i understand these are only a few different types of animals, but honestly, how is it different? if he wants to swim with his gar, why wouldnt he try to break it at a young age. again, not trying to buck your credibilty, just an honest question

 

[Spatula]

He's gonna tell you that it's a fish that has a brain the size of a peanut and is not capable of thought and all that.

I'm not saying I'm gonna teach the thing to get the paper off the porch, or compile code in C+ but I didn't get the thing for a decoration.

 

[zspidel]

I'm not saying I'm gonna teach the thing to get the paper off the porch, or compile code in C+ but I didn't get the thing for a decoration.

lol, thats great

 

[Polypterus]

He's gonna tell you that it's a fish that has a brain the size of a peanut and is not capable of thought and all that.

No I'm going to say the fish deserves to be treated better and with more respect for what it is.. We are never going to agree on this and that is fine.. I can still respect you and your ideas and opinions but just do not expect me to not voice my opinions on the matter as well.