"The Dude" - Giant Pacific Octopus

[Youngster Dan]

Originally Posted by jorjef

Um, ya.....ahhh that is just a bit too unsettling for me...How do you tell when he gets mad and need to back off?

That's actually a pretty good question. Really, it's almost impossible to know for sure if what I think is "play" is actually playing, or a sinister attempt to eat me. That said, I interact with him daily and I have slowly built trust with him. It didn't take him too long to figure out that I was the source of food. I can't really explain it, but you can just tell he doesn't mean you any harm.

Though, if he is really hungry and I start playing with him and would rather food he can get a bit more aggressive. I avoid letting him touch me with his larger suckers because they are STRONG. Seriously, it is impossible to pry yourself off if he grabs you with them. There have been a couple times where I wasn't paying attention and he has grabbed me and refused to let go. The only course of action at this point is to hold your hand out of the water and let his weight tire him out and he will let go eventually.

For this reason, I am just starting to train him to let go of me on command. Which is perhaps the only time I have been able to apply part of my education to my job thus far!

Signs that he is mad would be him showing me his beak, or going mostly white while accentuating his eye. Or if I startled him he would ink me and try to escape. He has never done any of these things.

Originally Posted by Lampshade

The ship thing would be hilarious, if i had one I'd mail it. COuld cheap out and use a whitespot pirate pack?

Haha, thanks! Maybe we could pitch that to whitespot! I like burgers after all.