Ok so I jus got my gliders (emmit, r.j. and chloe) on christmas and i first saw them being advertised in the mall and they were trained to jump and do tricks... well i'd like to train my gliders to jump or better yet stay when i get them out. how do i go about doing that? Do i use apples, cheerios or something as a treat? thanks --Kittykat14

Someone lied to you. I guess if you call it trained, I have one that will glide to me if I hold my arm out and wiggle my fingers but glider are not the kind of pets that get trained to perform commands...especially to "stay". I'd love to see that.

did you get them from Perfect Pocket Pets?

Im pretty certain I know what you saw them doing when they sold you the glider and told you they are trainable. The glider they have likes to sleep in the man's shirt pocket. When selling, they have the glider out during the day when the glider would normally be sleeping. He takes the glider out - hands the glider to you - and they glider jumps back to him and goes right into the shirt pocket.

This is what I saw when I purchased my Tilly.

The glider isnt trained. The glider simply wanted to go back to his bed (pocket) so he could go back to sleep.

this is a serious issue, and I want you to know everyone here will help you, but if you got ur gliders for ppp then you may be seriously harming them b/c of lies you were told. Id hate to see anything happen (yet again) to another glider bc they were told lies about how to care for them. Please tell us what you were told about feeding and caring for your glider..thanks!

You guys are definitely a lot of help. I can't think of the name of the courperation that were being shown off at the mall but like rita said, he took it our of his pocket handed it to me and told me to hole him out... he said pocket and it jumped right to it. He never said anything about training them so he didn't lie but he did get them to jump back to him. guess they jus wanted their bed back lol.

i think they can learn to do things, its just seeing a behavior and rewarding it. I taught one of mine to wait (when i open the cage) and to come to me when hes running around. i used a clicker and then gave a small treat. this took days to learn and i did it at 2-3 in the morning when they were wide awake. I know this first hand and clicker training is in no way bad for an animal. please dont think im "abusing" my gliders.

Mary, you are the biggest animal abuser I know! You can't fool anyone. bwahahaha

I do think that some of them are capable of learning the meaning of a few words, but its not 100% and it won't be with every glider. I have five gliders. The one that has been with me the longest is LittleBit, and he is also my only boy. He will come to me if I call him or tap on the surface of something. I didn't use treats or intentionally train him to do something, and I don't really consider it training... I just think he's really bonded to me. If I call his name during play time and he's getting too far away from me, nine times out of ten, he will come running back to me as he definitely knows his name. Tapping on a table or chair is another thing that gets his attention and if calling his name doesn't work, that will. But like I said, he's very much bonded to me. He's a mama's boy and he knows it. When I take him out for play time, he never goes very far, and one of his favorite things to do is to jump to a chair I have in my living room, then from the chair jump to a fake tree, then from the tree, he jumps to me and then back to the chair and we repeat and repeat and repeat until we get tired of this. It can sometimes take a good twenty minutes of doing this before he gets tired of it, and heaven help me if I try to walk away from him! lol! He'll become quite determined to chase me down. I'm not allowed to even take two steps away from him.

But gliders are not dogs. You will not train them to stay or sit. What you saw when that man took the glider out of his pocket and handed it to you was just a bunch of bull. ANY glider would respond that way during the day. The poor baby was scared and just wanted to sleep. That man's pocket was the only place he could go to that felt even remotely safe to him. I seriously doubt he was responding to the word "pocket".

haha i know! im very evil to animals! i havent been on in awhile and i didnt want some of the newer members ripping me to shreds.

And, to chase a rabbit for a minute, can I just say I HATE the term "sugar bear". Ugh.

Me too!

quote:

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Originally posted by Dahlia_2020

I do think that some of them are capable of learning the meaning of a few words, but its not 100% and it won't be with every glider. I have five gliders. The one that has been with me the longest is LittleBit, and he is also my only boy. He will come to me if I call him or tap on the surface of something. I didn't use treats or intentionally train him to do something, and I don't really consider it training... I just think he's really bonded to me. If I call his name during play time and he's getting too far away from me, nine times out of ten, he will come running back to me as he definitely knows his name. Tapping on a table or chair is another thing that gets his attention and if calling his name doesn't work, that will. But like I said, he's very much bonded to me. He's a mama's boy and he knows it. When I take him out for play time, he never goes very far, and one of his favorite things to do is to jump to a chair I have in my living room, then from the chair jump to a fake tree, then from the tree, he jumps to me and then back to the chair and we repeat and repeat and repeat until we get tired of this. It can sometimes take a good twenty minutes of doing this before he gets tired of it, and heaven help me if I try to walk away from him! lol! He'll become quite determined to chase me down. I'm not allowed to even take two steps away from him.

But gliders are not dogs. You will not train them to stay or sit. What you saw when that man took the glider out of his pocket and handed it to you was just a bunch of bull. ANY glider would respond that way during the day. The poor baby was scared and just wanted to sleep. That man's pocket was the only place he could go to that felt even remotely safe to him. I seriously doubt he was responding to the word "pocket".

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mine are bonded to me too, but rockets just a fatty and loves any opportunity to get some grub. i use it to my advantage.

why don't you like the term sugar bear?

I personally don't like it because it ones of the terms those fabulous millbreaders use to entice children and their parents into buying gliders. Making them seem like these snuggly little teddy bears. *gag*

I hate the term for the same reason as suppressedtearz.

yea thats what they called them when i was first introduced to them. but i got mine from some1 selling them off the internet. but i thought they'd be like hampsters and be cuddely all the time. but so far their not.

why would they do that tho? how does it benefit them?

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Where do they get the name sugar bears? I thought the aborigines called them little monkeys or something like that?
I so wish there were some way to close down PPP and any other mill breeders once and for all. The information they give is so dangerous to the poor little glider they are selling. I have never come across them and hope I never do, I don't think I could contain myself and i would probably get thrown out of the place.

i got three cuz i thought they'd be easy---- their definitely not.

Kat, if you need any advice, everyone here will gladly help. :)

I've realized. every1 here is really good help. if it wasn't for you guys... especially you wintersSong.... they wouldn't even be eating right.

Sadly the first time I saw suggies was at the rodeo... I work on a committee and at the end of the night when all the drunk people were leaving, we were still on duty. We would watch the drunk people spend a lot of money on these babies and be carrying them out the door... and it was cold outside. AND... they almost got me on the "you can teach them to fly into your hand" and by showing me how they would fly off my hand into their pockets... one of the guys wouldn't let me hold he smaller one cuz he said it was too young... but he was holding it... that set off a few bells in my head..
Audra

quote:

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Originally posted by nurseotter

... at the end of the night when all the drunk people were leaving, we were still on duty. We would watch the drunk people spend a lot of money on these babies and be carrying them out the door... and it was cold outside. ...

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I can't find words to express how sad and angry this makes me. Audra, this is just one reason we hate mill breeders.

Kittykat, training gliders is like herding cats.

I know why they seem to be trained to go into those douchebag's pockets. It is because they show them off to people all day long and cause them to be awake when their natural biorythms are telling them to be asleep and the first chance they get when they think they might have a chance to go back to sleep (the pocket) they literally run for, only to be yanked cruelly back out again. They were actually telling people at a craft show that they were diurnal (they said awake during the day because I doubt they have a lick of scientific lingo in their heads) instead of nocturnal. How many people get these cuddly little guys home to wonder why they are not trained and why they are asleep when they think they should be awake and either take them to a vet, abandon them, or try and switch their sleep patterns causing them to become sick. Yes you can alter what times they wake up and go to sleep by about an hour or two, but not a complete reversal.

I also got my babies from the PPP,not having any idea who the PPP was or what a "sugar bear" was. I will totally admit I should of done a whole lot of research on these beautiful animals before we purchased and should of tried to get them from a rescue instead.They just made it sound so great. You feed them this very easy cheap diet, change there cage every couple weeks, you only need one of them,they are very friendly from the get go and will always stay "on you" so on and so on.
I am so thankful for finding this amazing site and getting all the accurate information before it was to late. I first found this site when my poor little sugarbaby was really sick and her face was so swollen up. I got advice and took her to the vet asap, she is doing GREAT!!!! She is a bit smaller then my other glider which is the same age (at least that is what I was told about there age) But she is very active, eats great and loves me :) She did lose her two front teeth but is doing great now and her follow up was nothing but great news:) Anyway, my point was, if it wasnt for you very helpful people (dahlia thank you for all your help on diet) I am not sure where I would be today!!! We all need to do our best on trying to get the PPP people out of the public eye and stop them from all there evil ways!!

Lots of us were "duped"...don't feel bad!