What's Wrong With This Picture??
It happens to the best of us.....Cousin So-And-So pops over to see your pet monkey and gets his hair yanked in the process.....real hard! It's tough for onlookers, including the proud Mom and Dad, not to break into a few sidesplitting guffaws. It's just so absurd to see a little two pound monkey beating up on a big human! You figure you could stop it, but why interfere with the fun.....The monkey is probably just early with his "terrible twos" stage, you might reason.
But think again.....This reinforcement from YOU, the caretaker, goes a long way toward encouraging more of the same. And laughter absolutely is reinforcing, whether it comes from you or the peanut gallery! Later on, most of us end up with an out-of-control aggressive 2-3 year old monkey and blame it all on the monkey! We say they are just naturally aggressive. But think about it. Of course the most natural thing for a human being with a sense of humor (and having a sense of humor should be a prerequisite for inviting a monkey to live in the house!) is to laugh at all the minor aggressions that a monkey starts out with. Whether it's biting (sometimes called "nipping' by polite folks who don't want to give their monkeys a bad rap), hitting (if you have certain types of Old World monkeys), pinching, hair pulling and kicking, which is more likely to happen if you have certain types of guenons. (Cont. below)
Spare The Time-Out & Spoil The Monkey?!
Absolutely! You notice we don't say "rod". Monkeys are not to be spanked. This is a temporary shortcut to dominance that will backfire with older monkeys in one of two ways: Either the monkey becomes neurotic (which a lot of monkey owners don't recognize) or the monkey becomes more aggressive in attempt to dominate its aggressive owner. So don't succumb to misinformation about roughing up your monkey from people on the Internet!
Does biting a monkey back work? In the short run with a young monkey you can see some results. But come back with your adult monkey whose having a bit of stubbornness or temper and tell me you can bite that monkey back!! A maturing or an adult monkey will tolerate a bite on the tail, if used to it, when he is in a playful mood, but if he or she is mad---watch out!! Your bite will be repaid many fold with a vicious attack that most first-time monkey Moms and Dads have to see to believe!
"Time-out" involves teaching your monkey to reason. The time to teach your monkey is when he or she is young. If you waste time on other methods, don't expect to start in on time-out when you have a mature aggressive monkey. It is just to hard too "unteach" the monkey what you have taught it for the first few years. Time-out is not a "perfect" solution to aggression, (there is no perfect way to handle monkeys in captivity), but you will find it far better in the long run for monkeys and humans than aggressive pinning, spanking or retaliation biting. End of lecture! So remember, time-out is well-worth the effort. And it consists of giving discipline with the love our monkeys deserve!
....q