http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A3UJ5NF6BG3BZK?ie=UTF8&responseType=info&responseCode=etps
Sam Sweet is a professor of Vertebrate systematics and evolutionary morphology; herpetology.
at the faculty of Ecology, Evolution & Marine Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara.
Contact Information
Phone: (805) 893-3730
Fax: (805) 893-4724
E-mail: sweet@lifesci.ucsb.edu
Office: Noble 1124
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And I am the author of the book who may be reached via youtube (kaffir2) where you can see the training videos that supplement the book along with the vids of our savs (& baby BT).
Since Sam has placed his good name behind some very serious accusations, I suppose I'll refute everything refutable point by point, after which I'll invite an explanation for his ... well, i guess the best word is libel or slander.
oh... where to begin...
"Like circus ringmasters, the authors play to the crowd while dispensing some of the worst advice imaginable about the care of savannah monitors,"
It is a training book. There really isn't anything in the book about care. The focus is on behaviours that help a sav live with people. This is basically safe feeding and potty training. Desensitisation, postural indicators of mood, operant conditioning and natural behaviours, as they figure into this, are also discussed and illustrated. There is no calliope. It is not a circus. It's just basic domestic requirements.
"along the way scoffing at the laws of physics, principles of physiology,"
That's not possible. Operant conditioning is applied to savs. That's not superstition.
"and hard-won experience of serious hobbyists."
I still scoff at the ones who say savannah monitors are mindless eating machines.
"They drown and "rescue" their lizards to "tame" them,"
Do you think that would actually work, or do you just expect someone else to think so?
FYI, it's an idiotic notion. You can't scare an animal into being tame.
"advocate keeping them in your bed and in your clothing, and expect them to eat from your mouth, among other things."
Yes, the savs sleep in our bed and as babies climbed around in our clothing. They do learn to take food safely from the lips and overcome 'the predator stare'. I don't know what are the unspecified 'other things'.
"Buzzy and Lilly (both males, in fact) became morbidly obese from inappropriate food and temperatures, and both died in less than two years (in less than 10% of their potential captive lifespan)."
I'm not sure how you reconcile their fabulous growth rates with inappropriate food and temperatures or how you know could possibly know what they were...lol. sorry...
Buzzy didn't get the memo. He made a movie for youtube only yesterday and a movie a couple of days earlier of a game he made of diving into the bathtub, climbing out and diving right back in again. (He loves the bath.)
Lilly did die and it was heartbreaking. The book is dedicated to Lilly. What was your internet diagnosis, again?
But yes, for what it's worth, Buzzy is fat. It doesn't keep him from doing what he likes to do, apparently, so maybe my standards of sav svelteness need adjusting. That's something for Buzzy and me to work on.
"The authors did not miss a beat, learned nothing, and continue to advocate cruel and abusive treatment under a banner of caring."
Cruel and abusive treatment, Sam? Are you delusional? Why would you put yourself in this position of being so easily caught out as a liar?
I'll be interested to follow this as it develops. Anybody is able to read the book or watch the vids and learn for himself that there is a nutcase lurking in the hallowed halls of the herp department at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
Please comment!
Sincerely,
Danceswithsavs!
Author: kaffir2
Keywords: tame pet trained bosc savannah monitor lizard Buzzy Sam Sweet UCSB insane cyberstalker
Added: September 7, 2008