It can take some time to tame.
I've only had one tegu from a hatchling and I didn't have much success with taming right away. In fact, every time I picked her up, she tried to bite and pooed on my hand. Very scared little lizard. :-(
Your guy looks a little thin and has been fed a low calcium diet (insects, ground turkey). It's not a big deal, it's just what young tegus in captivity eat. I used to not be a big fan of supplements, but so many young tegus are showing up with MBD (not talking about yours, just a generalization). I would recommend a calcium supplement to be used 3 times a week while the lizard is growing. Some like D3, some don't...I include D3 for all of my animals but 2 tegus that have a strong, unfiltered UV source. I would use a separate multivitamin once or twice a week. When the tegu is big enough to start eating whole food with bones (chicks, rodents, small fish), then the supplements can be reduced.
While the 10.0 light is a good light (providing it is linear and not the coiled/compact type), if it is more than 12" away or sitting on top of a screen, much of the UV is lost before it reaches the tegu. Plus if he's hiding a lot, he's missing quite a bit. Maybe you can lower the light into the cage or raise the basking area by providing more mulch or a little thing to sit on. I have also found that my tegus eat better and are more active if they have a basking spot of 105-110. That's a little thing I went through last spring. My tegus weren't eating when the basking spot was only 95-100.
When mine was little, I only had her for maybe a month before she hibernated. She didn't grow much and wasn't handleable. She wouldn't eat outside of the cage so I feed her inside her enclosure. I used a small plate and paced the food in the middle to reduce the chances of impaction. I also fed crickets in her enclosure. I got her at 2 weeks of age from a breeder and I kept her on paper towels for a while (with a hide box) so she wouldn't eat the mulch by accident. She was so little! I didn't put her on mulch until she was about a month old....then she went into hibernation.
When she woke up, the training deal started all over. Her cage was by the front door so she saw everyone come in and out. She was pretty used to seeing people and we would always stop, look at her, and say, "Hi Kreacher" through the glass if she was up. I would pick her up every day, but just pick her up, touch her, then put her back. Each day it was a little more and a little more until I felt comfotable putting her down without her running off. Then I started feeding her outisde the cage. Eventually being picked up and coming out of the cage = food and good things for lizards. She started coming over to us to come out. Two years later and an 8ft cage, whenever she sees us come into the garage, she walks over to glass and presses her face against the door like, "Pluuuzzz take me out!!!" She is my friendliest and most favorite tegu! (She's my avatar) Now, I got her in early Sept, she hibernated in Nov, woke up in April, and was handleable by next June. It took some time. And she had no history...she was almost a "blank slate" of sorts. Yours has a bit of history with being in a pet store and probably little handling.
I know this is getting long...sorry. I've been listening to an audiobook while driving from Orl/Tampa and back. I didn't know it, but it turns out to be about behaviorism. According to the author's research, animals are driven by certain behaviors/parts of the brain. She was just discussing mammals up to this point, but I imagine reptiles would demostrate a lot of seeking and fear. Seeking is hunting and looking for new experiences. It is very pleasurable and in tegus it would be the deliberate walk, rapid tongue flicking sort of look. Fear is obvious and in tegus that would be freezing with wide eyes, running away, possibly closing eyes in an effort to reduce external visual stimulus. There's also rage that comes when fear is excessively stimulated. I'm just trying to apply what this author is saying to tegus, I'm not certain that this is how it all works out.
I do know that the best way to work with any animal is to reduce the fear response as much as possible and stimulate seeking behavior (such as clicker training in animals, enrichment, any positive experience). A young lizard is going to see himself as prey and anything taller than him and anything that grabs him is going to elicit a fear response. He's not going to eat when his fear center is activated because eating makes him vulnerable. So both diet and environment play a role in young tegus. Now everyone lizard is different and each one has a different threshhold or tolerance of uncomfortable situations. Maybe yours can only tolerate your hand being in the cage at this point. But I'm pretty certain that in time he'll become the tame tegu you are looking for. You just have to move small and be consistent.
Anyway, I don't know if any of these ramblings help or not. It is an interesting book and I thought maybe I could share a bit that might possibly help.
Laura R (FL)
1.0.0 Colombian Tegu
1.4.0 Argentine B&W Tegu
1.2.0 Red Tegu
1.2.0 B/WxRed Tegu
1.0.0 Green Ameiva (yet another teiid)
7 other lizards
1 little gator
3 FL box turtle
1 Sulcata tortoise
16 snakes
5 fuzzy pets
4 little frogs
a bunch of creepy bugs
and a partridge in a pear tree
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