Puffed up whole body when put into harness!

Okay so I just bought my beardie a harness, and was trying it on him. I had it pretty loose while trying to get him to get in it. He started to like gulp air and puffed up his stomach really big, and I hurried and took of his harness. I had a tiny delay because the situation made me super shakey because of how bad it scared me. Am I doing something wrong, or can it be where this was his first time he just freaked out really bad? I Dont want to be considered a bad beardie mom, but I really need help. After I took him out of the harness and put him in his tank and ran into another room to grab my phone to get ready to type this, I came back like a couple minutes later, and he was fine, just running around a little in his tank. Can anyone help me on this? o:

It worked,lol! Silly Hooman thought she could make me wear that contraption, showed her... [evil smile on face, happy dragon mode activated]
Seems that he didn't share your enthusiasm for the harness. Keep trying, he'll give in.

Hi! Don't worry, you're not a bad beardie mom, they do this in the bath because it helps them float but they also do it when they get spooked. Stubborn horses will do the same thing when you put a saddle on them, if you would have put it on even if it blew up like that, it would release all the air and try to wiggle out of it because it was adjusted for the balloon belly.

Yeah. They're not gonna be happy with the strange feeling of wearing a harness. I made one with stretchy t shirt material so it doesn't matter if they pancake. Still, it gets some getting used to.

Its a good idea to get beardie familiar with wearing the harness fairly loose to begin with (don't be surprised if he gets out of it) before adjusting it to fit as well as possible.

Like other users said, this is just animal behavior when being put into a new situation. Same thing as putting tack on a horse(or getting your kids into one of those child harness's for that matter) and the only way to stop the behavior is slowly bringing the harness out more and more.

My experience with beardies in a harness were , give beardie nice long snuggle and lots of petting , and while beardie is happy, content and relaxed, place the harness on beardie with lots of petting and verbal encouragement .... my beardies (Puff and Rex) were perfectly OK about the harness and I let them roam about for a while on the floor wearing the harness and trailing the leash.... I don't think they cared about it or were the least bit phased.

Still have the harness and leash but not used it since as it's too dangerous in my yard with pack of dogs next door and free roaming cats about.

I have a friend who claims his beardie will go get the harness and bring in to him when it wants to go outside for walkies in the garden .... I'd didn't believe him until he showed me this behavior on his camera as video file .... now that's a pretty smart beardie
.... well , my beardies have all sussed out and can open kitchen underbench cabinet doors , and are only blocked from the hallway because they are too lazy to simply push the "gate box" open or climb over it (Toothless did this today because he wanted to see what mommy was doing in the study and what was making all wurling clicking sounds in there ...LOL).

LapisWaterQueen":2w1d7c5n said:

Okay so I just bought my beardie a harness, and was trying it on him. I had it pretty loose while trying to get him to get in it. He started to like gulp air and puffed up his stomach really big, and I hurried and took of his harness. I had a tiny delay because the situation made me super shakey because of how bad it scared me. Am I doing something wrong, or can it be where this was his first time he just freaked out really bad? I Dont want to be considered a bad beardie mom, but I really need help. After I took him out of the harness and put him in his tank and ran into another room to grab my phone to get ready to type this, I came back like a couple minutes later, and he was fine, just running around a little in his tank. Can anyone help me on this? o:

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Arent they cute when they do that! Keep trying! Mine did that when I put his leash on I have a hip leash . He still does it if I am not fast enough to put it on , he just wants to roam around! I was like too bad huff and puff but your putting this on! When he huffs and puffs I put one hand on top of his body and one at the bottom and rock him gently to say shhh and he settles down ...