Toilet Training Your Iguana

Most people have it easy and their iguanas poop in their water bowls others need a little bit of training and some of us are just plain unlucky and have stubborn iguanas.

Here are a couple of techniques that are mentioned in books and that did work for most iguanas.

Inside the habitat:

If your iguana poops twice on the same spot in his habitat then you can place newspaper and paper towels down in that area for easy cleaning. They also suggest that you cover the whole floor with newspaper as you do with a puppy and over time remove little by little until the iguana is trained to only poop on the newspaper. (Done that - did not work for Forest)

Most iguanas prefer to poop in a tub that has a little bit of water in, like their water dishes. If your iguana does poop in the water dish then supply more than one for drinking water.

Outside the habitat:

To train them outside you first need to catch them in the act and that is a bit difficult. When you see the back legs bending down then it is time to pick the iguana up and move him to the area where you want him to poop. If your iguana has not chosen a spot you can place newspaper down in your selected area. Smear a bit of poop on the newspaper to try and trick him in believing that he has pooped there before. Again you can place more paper than necessary and reduce it when your iguana knows the spot. Second best option is to find where the iguana poops and place newspaper there.

When you move your iguana to the spot then it is important to hold him gently otherwise he might feel threatened. If you get excited then your iguana will feel excited, dont move fast, be angry or irritated. But do keep moving, as you are carrying a delicate poop bomb, if you move too slowly it might go off in your hands. After you have put your iguana on the paper you can either move away or stay there motionless and dont look at him. You iguana will lift his hindquarters up so it doesn't come into contact with the poop. When he is done he will lift his tail up and move it to the left or right of the poop to avoid getting poop on it. Once he has moved away from the poop he will drop his butt to wipe off his vent, iguanas are very clean animals.

If your iguana does poop in a tub inside the habitat then you can also use this tub outside the habitat.

Most people that I know place their iguanas in the bathtub or shower with a little bit of warm water. Most iguanas poop when they are in the water. This technique does not work if your iguana does not fall in the LOVE soaking category. Placing Forest in the bathtub is like torture for him, he hates it with a passion.

Some iguanas cant help but poop when their butts touch something soft like your bed. Forest was one of those!

How I trained Forest

Actually, I think he trained himself because everything I did failed. Forest refuses to poop in his room, he will rather go blue and stop eating than mess in his room, this also applied to his outdoor cage and to when he was still in a cage! Every night when I got home I used to take Forest and try the bath technique, it never worked, we sat in that bathroom for a long time and nothing came of it. After the bathroom attempt we used to go and sit in my room (this was when he was still a baby) and this is exactly where he pooped - on my bed! I tried everything imaginable, I had the tub ready, had newspaper ready, picked him up and moved him and nothing stopped him from doing it again the following day. At that time we stayed in a small house and there was no other place where I could go and sit with him. I did not stop with the bathtub technique and kept on with it every night, eventually after months, Forest started pooping in the water out of frustration. Of course this was not the answer, pooping should not be a pain.

When he was tame enough I started training him to go outdoors with a leash and I blocked him from going into our room until he pooped, it only took about a week for him to learn!

Only weeks after Forest moved into his room he started scratching at his door during the day, this resulted in us putting a flap in his door so he could come and go as he pleased. Sadly I came home and found poop on my bed! We even started covering our bed with plastic to prevent him from pooping on it, but it did not help. The only solution was to keep our bedroom door closed until I got home and he could go and poop on the grass. I watched him on the cctv cameras scratching and scratching at our door for hours on end.

We had a lot of rain this year and it meant that Forest could not go outside, instead we had to do the hated bath technique again, he gave me more than just stinky eyes he sighed over and over again. I used to act as if I was using the toilet while he was in the bath and I flushed in the hopes that the trickling water will trigger a reaction from him.

Then amazingly in the beginning of the year we found poop in the bath when we got home, he started doing this routinely and my maid opened our bedroom door for him. He understood that if he pooped first he will be rewarded with tv time. (He is a cartoon addict.) I bought a rubber mat and through it over the bath so he could easily get in and out, but sadly this behaviour stopped after about a week. This meant the bedroom door was closed again and we were back to bathing on rainy days. One day Forest decided he had enough of this and pooped next to the toilet before I could put him in the bath. From there on he figured out that if he pooped next to the toilet in the morning my maid would open our bedroom door for him. He now poops in any one of the 3 bathrooms in the morning and spend the rest of the day happily in our room.

Forest believes he is a human and I suppose that he was frustrated because why must he poop in the bathtub when I use a toilet? I suppose that is why he is now pooping next to all the toilets, amazingly enough he avoid messing on the bathroom carpets. I said to Craig we will have to make him a little ladder so he can climb up onto the toilet seat and do his business there. (I AM still going to train him this.)

I had it hard and Forest is most probably again the worst case scenario. So please, dont complain when your iguana poops in his water bowl, they do this because they dont want their 'homes' dirty, it is really something to celebrate.