When my fiancé and I moved in together we moved into his house. Blink, his cat was already living with him and I had a bearded dragon called George. Bearded dragons are known to get stressed in new environments and he refused to eat for weeks and when he did eventually eat, it was barely enough. No matter what we (the humans) tried, George was wholly miserable. I thought he was maybe afraid of Blink, seeing her as a predator, but any time George came out of the vivarium to exercise, Blink was his go to. Since all else failed we asked Blink to explain to George that this was his new home, he was wanted here and we just wanted him to be healthy and happy.
We proceeded to offer George his favourite fruit and locusts. He once again refused. We left him alone so as not to stress him out. While we were away from him, Blink walked up to him, put her nose on his, sniffed around him for a while and kind of nudged him. He walked towards the vivarium we keep the locusts in, looked at us and licked his lips. This was George’s way of asking for food. I got one locust out and offered it to George.
He seemed uninterested but we left it a little and when we looked back around George had munched on the locust and Blink was patting him on the head. They bumped noses, Blink went her own way and George has had his appetite back ever since ❤️ if not for Blinks intervention, things were so bad, I expect George would have just curled up and died of starvation. Also, when George was outside in the garden in summer we would ask Blink to stay close to deter seagulls from trying to take George for a meal. She never left his side and it became routine in the morning for George and Blink to make their way to the back door, sit beside each other and catch some rays