Which room to keep my beardie in?

I'm picking up my new beardie tomorrow (yay!), and originally I was gonna keep him in my room, but someone told me to put him in a busy/high traffic room so that he doesn't get lonely. The only thing is, we have a cat, and I'm worried the cat might stress him out (he's only a month old, too). Which is better; high traffic room with a cat (a very interested cat, who loves staring at lizards through the windows and will likely stare at this guy for hours), or my room with just me (and a big chunk of the day alone when I go to school)?

Heya!
I believe it was me that mentioned the room positioning

Honestly, it's totally up to you, and really depends on your cat.
I have a cat as well (my little Yoshi!) who would NOT leave my dragon alone when I first got her. What was worse was I lived in a relatively small apartment. My living room was also my office, and the enclosure was near my computer desk. My cat would jump onto my desk and then onto the enclosure. I eventually put a large board in her way for a few months while she "got over it."

I now have both enclosures in my living room, and my new addition, Richter, is basically cat level. especially when he was super new, I would yell for the cat to leave him be, but I could not monitor this while at work. He never seemed bothered by her, and my cat is such a good girl. She'll still sit and watch his enclosure like it's a TV if he's walking around, but he doesn't seem to mind.


You can see the positioning in this photo, and also the aforementioned cat. If you feel comfortable introducing your new guy to your cat, do so early but be cautious. It depends on your cat's personality if they are more of a "hunter." What drove my cat insane was the sound of them climbing on those styrofoam walls that come in some enclosures.

Yeah it depends on the cat. He will be OK in your room, especially if you interact with him when you are home. Give him some good logs and things to climb around on and maybe an interesting background. If you do set him up in the living room, try to put him relatively high up and ensure the top is secure and the lighting is secure so the cat doesn't knock them off. A young dragon might be more intimidated by a cat but it really depends and needs to be taken on a case by case basis in my opinion.

Personally , I'd never introduce a cat to a lizard.

They will never be friends and the risk , a very real and very strong risk , is the cat will sooner or later maime or kill the small lizard.

They are perfectly capable of breaking into an enclosure and only need to be able to get an arm (and claw) in to snag the hatchling and drag it out and then torture (play with it) until it stops moving (due to having it's back or neck broken or because it's been impaled by the cat's claws or fangs through internal organs) , even if the hatchling survives the attack , there are very nasty drug resistant bacteria and viruses on a cats teeth and claws which will most likely cause a terrible systemic infection leading to death - these cat induced systemic infections are extremely hard to treat and completely cure and can (I found out the hard way with Lucky) linger in undetectable internal abscesses in a lizard who appears cured and thriving then suddenly the abscess bursts or leaks and it's common for the lizard to be dead within 12hr - 24hrs).

If you have a cat , my advise is never ever let the cat near the hatchling or his tank , never ever introduce the two , it's simply not worth the risk.
This means , in order to keep the hatchling save, you need
>>>to make the tank totally cat proof (cats are sneeky and will wait ages for an opportunity when you at not around to break into a tank and have their evil way with you defenseless little hatchling) , sorry - it's only a matter of time....so puss never gets to meat the hatchling and is banned for life from the room the hatchlings tank is kept in.
>>> never allow puss to loiter where the hatchling can see it or hear it, this will stress the hatchling greatly
>>> if hatchling is out, puss must be locked up, it only takes seconds for a cat to spot a hatchling on the bed , on the desk , on the lounge , on the floor and for the cat to attack the hatchling (guaranteed to result in tears being shed).

I can not state more bluntly, cats are hardwired killers.

They are one of the few animals who will stalk , attack and kill other animals NOT BECAUSE THEY ARE HUNGRY but because they enjoy it. A lot of cat owners think their cat is a wonderful pet who wouldn't harm anything because it is so well fed and lazy.
Another aspect of cat personality is they get insanely jealous of their human giving attention to another animal, and will often attack the new comer out shear vindictiveness.

Cat's are irristably drawn to smaller animals than themselves . A hatchling will be stressed by a large cat loitering near it's enclosure , ontop it's enclosure.

If there was no cat in the house, I'd recommend the dining area, lounge room where the hatchling can watch it's human-zoo and enjoy watching TV .
BUT there is cat in the household, so you are best off keeping his enclosure in your room SO LONG AS PUSS IS BANISHED and never allowed back in there while the hatchling is there, and learn to close the door behind you and ensure puss never slips in.

The boy next door to us found out how bad cats are one day when everyone was out and someone forgot to close his bedroom door, his big sisters very fat , very well fed cat , was left inside the house, (it was usually free roaming 24/7 another issue and a source of conflict with us (was hell bent on exterminating the wild skinks and frogs and birds who had been living and visiting my yard for years) , it broke into the enclosure his breeding colony of jacky dragons was in , and hooked and removed them one at a time and killed 4 of his 5 pet jacky dragons , and maimed the 5th.

traildrifterphalanx":1wix7vud said:

Heya!
I believe it was me that mentioned the room positioning

Honestly, it's totally up to you, and really depends on your cat.
I have a cat as well (my little Yoshi!) who would NOT leave my dragon alone when I first got her. What was worse was I lived in a relatively small apartment. My living room was also my office, and the enclosure was near my computer desk. My cat would jump onto my desk and then onto the enclosure. I eventually put a large board in her way for a few months while she "got over it."

I now have both enclosures in my living room, and my new addition, Richter, is basically cat level. especially when he was super new, I would yell for the cat to leave him be, but I could not monitor this while at work. He never seemed bothered by her, and my cat is such a good girl. She'll still sit and watch his enclosure like it's a TV if he's walking around, but he doesn't seem to mind.

You can see the positioning in this photo, and also the aforementioned cat. If you feel comfortable introducing your new guy to your cat, do so early but be cautious. It depends on your cat's personality if they are more of a "hunter." What drove my cat insane was the sound of them climbing on those styrofoam walls that come in some enclosures.

Click to expand...

..... :O very unwize , don't care what the cat's personality is like (as directed towards it's humans) , you are playing with fire thinking your cat is "fine" with your hatchling.... very very unwize behavior. It's the hatchling who will pay for your unwise behavior when things go bad and puss suddenly attacks it.

My enclosure is in my living room with a lock on it due to a toddler and my cats. I wouldn't trust my cats near my Charlie ever...but they are indoor hunters aka my cricket catchers lol! They are not allowed outside (we live in the country and coyotes are common). That being said I take Charlie out every chance I get. She loves watching everything.

It's likely the cat will stress a hatchling.
Much of what Kingofnobbies said is correct. But a well made sturdy lid that locks keeps cats out and reptiles in. I have 30+ reptiles and two cats, one is an F4 Bengal....lots of wild instincts. My cats don't care about the reptiles at all. Even if they did it wouldn't matter much. The two will never meet, impossible for them to get to each other.
Stress might be an issue in that case though.

While I appreciate the feedback on my response, I trust my cat 100% with both of my dragons. It truly depends on your cat's personality and I don't believe they should be generalized into the "ruthless hunter" idea. I don't appreciate the assumptions about how my cat could react based loosely on the general traits of a cat and calling my decisions "unwise."

As I said, it truly depends on the personality of the cat and dragon both. My dragons have snuggled up to my cat willingly many times, and the worst she does is just leave.

Too be honest I'm not too worried about most of the reptiles if my cats ever came into contact with them. I would be more worried about my cats if they were to get bitten. Although my reptiles venom won't kill a human (it hurts horribly bad if bitten) but it would surly kill my cat.

I wish I could trust my cats with Charlie - this afternoon was a great example why I can't with one of them in particular...she was watching Charlie like a hawk on my lap and the second Charlie skittered to investigate my leg, I had to scare my cat off as she had hunkered into her pounce posture. UGH. I put Charlie back in her enclosure as it spooked her I love my cats...I think my fat cat would be ok, so long as I was there, but my Spice (she's a tortoiseshell cat) there is no way I can have her anywhere near Charlie (good thing my enclosure is too tall for them to get up on!

I just wrote a long thing and accidently hit the back button...

Rankins, I can't only imagine it would be reversed concern in your situation and I'd be the same way. I'd secondly keep them apart in that situation.

NBGwen,
I'm glad no one got hurt in your situation, and the younger the dragon the more hesitant I'd be to introduce them (though I did early with both.)

My cat will watch and follow them when they're free roaming but more so with curiosity than anything and lose interest. I also have a cat bed in my bay window in the living room and my dragons will crawl in with my cat and look out the window.

I apologize to the OP but I hope this was some good information to help your decision on where you'd like to place your enclosure.