When Dreams Come True

Ziggy went to his forever home today and the pictures of him with his new owner make me SOOOO very happy. This is why I do rescue-- to see beardies loved forever & forever.

I lent SweetPea out to a friend who unexpectedly & tragically lost her beardie a few weeks ago. Here's SweetPea sporting the latest in beardie fashion:

SweetPea is being loved & adored. That warms my heart-- even if I am missing her myself.

Merry Christmas! From our Zoo to Yours!

"What is this new thing?"

"It must be a fabulous new climbing toy just for me!"

"Wow! It sure goes up high! What's that thing at the top? "

"Why does she get the best spot on the new toy? She's been up
there ALL day! That's not fair! I want a turn!"

"Now *I've* got the best spot in the house!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!" 

POOP is a BIG, BIG, BIG deal in Rescue

And it is with GREAT excitement that I tell that you Steve/Rocky POOPED today!

Hooray!

That means he's taking in his food and fluids. That means he's not impacted. That means that his digestive systems did not shut down.

That means he is doing GOOD!!!

I remember the day that Nubs pooped after all his forcefeeding. I was 12 hours away from taking him to the vet to get an enema, but he did it on his own.

Eating is a big deal, but it's even better when it comes back out!! :)

Steve/Rocky has an iron will to live. He's going to make it barring anything crazy going on.

Picture of Rocky taken 12/19/13

My Bruminating Beardies

These are my three bruminating beardies.

Max

That's about as wide as his eyes have been open for over a week

Lizzie

My daughter makes sure he is covered with his blanket every night and he
stays like that every day. She still gets him out to snuggle so he's not
totally asleep yet. 

Georgie (aka "Pickle 2")

Georgie is happiest when she is all wrapped up. I check her every day to
make sure she is okay. She ate a couple days ago so she'll be okay.

My other beardies (Toothless, Pickle, and Ziggy) are too young to be bruminating. I can't let Spike bruminate because I'm still doing wound care on him.

Cuteness Overload!

This is my friend Kristin's kitty cat snuggling with her beardie. Aren't they adorable?? I just had to share it here.

A Chance to do Something Good for a Beardie

The people I know in my reptile community are AWESOME when it comes to helping out other people and their rescues. I feel very blessed that way.

Here's an opportunity to help save a bearded dragon's life in Florida. The poor sweetie keeps getting egg-bound and needs a $900 surgery. Would you consider donating a few bucks towards her? I'm going to send her $15 today.

This is what Felicity's tank looked like when she was rescued

Click HERE to donate it. 

Pickle is such a ..... well, a Pickle!!

Pickle came to me as a super grumpy 4 month old beardie. Then he came back to me as a super grumpy 8 month old beardie. He is still a super grumpy beardie.

I have never met such an aggressive beardie.

I used to be able to wrap him in a towel and he'd sleep with me, but a couple days ago he started shedding and I went to get him out, he bit me good.

So I've been leaving him alone. He's happy in his tank by himself. He prefers to not have me walk by or look at him or talk to him or touch him. He may just be a beardie who is "For Display Only!"

I figure I'd give him a few more days to finish shedding and then I'll see if I can go back to wrapping him up at night. If not, well.... my next step is to deworm him to see if that will help him feel better and be less grumpy. If that doesn't work, then..... we'll come up with Plan F.

What do you do with an aggressive beardie who hates everyone and everything??

An Update on "Steve"

"we have been boosting the uvb light and have been hand feeding him babyfood mixed with a complete nutrition vitamin powder suppliment through a dropper and pedialyte and he has excepted it very well and has not rejected any of his feedings so far...just since we have got him last night he has already shown some progress and has been moving around on his own

"..opening his eyes nice and wide, and turning his head and reacting well to movement...we put a basking place in his tank and he is already moving himself off of it to regulate his temperature...we are confident that he has enough fight in him to pull out of this but he is still critical and it will take a while to get him out of the dark...we believe he has a condition called mbd (metobolic bone disease) along with a few other viruses...generally when a reptile has mbd it is accompanied with other diseases as well

"...sadly even if he makes a full recovery the disfigurment from the mbd will be permenent but im confident he will will be able to function well even with disfigured arms...looks like his jaw and skull area have been affected slightlly also...like i said so far he is already showing some signs of progress in just the night that we have had him we are putting him on a schedule of liquid feedings and fluids every couple of hours or so and constant monitoring and are very hopeful right now...my husband even stayed up last night to keep an eye on him lol...we will be keeping [his rescuer] updated on his progress..thank you for your email and concern on him and it is refreshing to meet someone else who has a passion to help lizards and other creature...liz

"He is definately up there in the charts. Worst as far as him being emaciated. I do believe i have seen worse in the case of MBD but mainly in iguanas. We dont mind you posting it. We will have pics through out the preiod of rehabilitation. No,still to cold here. We are keeping a 5.0 uvb bulb on him now when we feel confident that he is advancing we will put a 10.0 on him but it could be a shock to go straight to the max on uvb. Another concern will be impaction as we arent to sure if he can deficate on his own yet. We have named him Rocky balboa because he is definately the underdog in this fight but were hoping he bounces back. "

A Disturbing Picture of What True Neglect is

This picture horrifies me. It sickens me. It breaks my heart. I bet it does for you too.

And it should.

This is why EDUCATION IS KEY to owning any pet.

This what happens when people don't care of animals entrusted in their care. This is senseless and wrong.

UPDATE on 12/16/13 at 11:27 am--

I've been on the phone with this little guy's rescuer for the past few hours. I was ready to give up on him when she text me and said he was licking his lips. So I had her dribble water on his nose and he lapped it up. That's when we knew he had some spunk left in him! Hooray! She got in in a Pedialyte bath and soaked him for 10 minutes plus. He was so tired and lethargic that the experience wiped him out. But he drank! He got in lots of nutrients and such. The next step will be to get him to eat some baby food squash or something else bland and pureed. He has a vet visit at 3:45 today.

There are SO many issues to deal with still, but right now it is a matter of triage and he's passed the biggest hurdle-- he's at least drinking on his own.

He didn't have a name so the rescuer is calling him "Steve." :)


Will update more later.

UPDATE on 12/16/13 at 8:00 PM

The rescuer found a couple in her area that rescue & rehabilitate beardies like I do! So they took Steve and have a whole game plan now for what they need to do to keep him alive: fluids, heat, light, and food. I think he has a really good shot at making it now. The rescuer said he perked up a lot just after getting a Pedialyte bath with some fluids & electrolytes.

It's amazing to me how much lizards can go through and still be alive. It blows my mind that he's surviving. As long as the new rescuers go slowly with nutrition, he should be okay. He'll most likely never be full size because he has had such a crappy life the last few months.

The rescuer I've been helping today has all these pictures now as evidence and plans to show them to the principal over the teacher who bought Steve as a classroom pet and then took him home for a couple months. Yes, that's right, the neglecter is a TEACHER!! (GAWK!) But the rescuer will make sure the school administration knows what happened with this school pet so it never, ever, ever happens again. I think the teacher just took him home and forgot about him.


So what do you do to prevent something like this in your world? Make sure YOU have the knowledge you need to care for your animals well and if people talk about their pets, ask about them. Ask to see their pets, offer suggestions (don't be bossy or pushy), but offer suggestions if necessary. Animal cruelty is against the law in most statements so if it comes down to it, call Animal Control and get them involved in bad animal abuse/neglect cases.

WHATEVER YOU DO-- DO SOMETHING! Don't do nothing and assume someone else will take care of it. YOU do it. YOU be the hero that saves a life. You can't save them all, but you can save some. To Steve today, one rescuer made ALL the difference. For Nubs, his rescuer and now owner made all the difference.


UPDATE from 12/19/13-----

Rocky is eating still. He's not FLAT anymore. He's getting color back in his body. He's still got a long road to go, but he's got a fighter's spirit that will keep him alive. Hooray for his dedicated rescuers in Oregon. You can see from his arm how SEVERE his metabolic bone disease is. It's going to take a long time to get his calcium levels back up.

Rocky's rehab couple aren't accepting donations right now, but there are many other organizations who do bearded dragon & reptile rescue that you can donate too. For suggestions, "Like" my rescue page on Facebook and I'll post suggestions. I know of one lady trying to raise enough money right now to pay for her female beardie to have surgery. Thanks!

Update on 1/16/14--- For some reason, Rocky's rehab couple have cut off all contact with us. We don't know why or if Rocky is still even alive. There have been multiple attempts to contact them with no response. So I can't update you on him. Sorry. :( We are all attached to the little guy and now we might never know what happened.

Pickle 2, rescue number 34, now known as Georgie

I got another juvenile aggressive beardie today. My daughter calls him "Pickle 2" but that won't be his official name. He's been bounced at least 4 times this year alone and hisses & puffs up at everyone. I have been sick today so I sent my hubby & kids to go pick him up. I pulled him out of the box and he was cold. So I put him on my chest and did a "kangaroo pouch" for him. He's been asleep there very since.

"Pickle 2" or whatever his name will be

I'm hopeful he'll be easier to tame than Pickle. Pickle is, at the ripe old age of 7 months, the biggest stinker beardie I have EVER met. EVER. We do have a truce and he'll let me wrap him in a towel at night and put him in my shirt. Tonight, though, when I went to pick him up, he tried to bite me several times. Everything freaks Pickle out. He is anxious and aggressive. Poor guy. It's going to take awhile before I can get him calmer.

So having Pickle 1 as a basis for what a grumpy beardie is, Pickle 2 seems to be a piece of cake.

Pickle in his favorite place-- a towel 

UPDATE 12/18/13-- I finally decided to call "Pickle 2" by the name of "Georgie."

Ah, the joys of owning an iguana

Plant? What plant? 

"I make a better angel than that thing!"

This is one happy iguana

"A climbing toy just for me!" 

"Uh Oh! Is my beardie dead?" Learning about Brumination

This is the time of year when I get frantic texts & calls from people who are wondering if their bearded dragons are dying. "He's not moving!" "He won't eat!" "She hasn't moved!"

Take a deep breath. It's totally normal.

Adult beardies bruminate-- it's in between a torpor and a hibernation. For a few weeks or a couple months during the summer, your beardie slows way, way, way down. Bruminating beardies don't move much, they don't run around, they might not eat or drink at all.

The first brumination can be very stressful.

So this is what I ask:

1- is your beardie over 1 year? Juvenile & sub-adult beardies should NEVER bruminate. They may slow down, but they shouldn't stop.

2- do you have a good UVB light? is your basking spot between 95 and 105 degrees?

3- has your beardie pooped recently? is their stomach still squishy & soft?

If you answer "Yes" to these questions, chances are your beardie is bruminating. Leave him alone and let him sleep. Our beardie, Lizzie, slept for 4 weeks last winter. We poked him every so often to make sure he wasn't dead (because he looked dead!). We took a piece of cardboard and made a little shelter for him. We turned his basking spot down a bit and left him alone. One day he was back up and moving around-- and HUNGRY!!

Right now, Max, my super size boy, doesn't move much. He doesn't eat. He won't eat roaches (his favorite). Sometimes he's standing up, leaning against the perch in his tank; sometimes he is laying on the ground. He doesn't move much. It's totally normal. No need to panic.

Here's a cut-and-paste paragraph I found from one of my favorite beardie websites:

Brumation

Brumation is basically hibernation-lite.  It occurs is some dragons that are a year of age or older, although it does not occur in every Bearded Dragon.  Brumation can happen at any season of year, but the vast majority of the time it happens in the winter of whatever place you are in.  Every Bearded Dragon brumates differently.  Some just slow down for a few months, some slow down and stop eating, some take long naps, and some sleep for months at a time without break.  Its also possible for a Bearded Dragon's brumation habits to change as it gets older.  
During a typical brumation, your Bearded Dragon should not lose any weight to speak of. 
They should get a vet check just prior to brumation, when they are showing the first signs of lethargy, and the vet appointment should include a fecal check. 
You should provide your Bearded Dragon with a hide of some sort on the cool side of the habitat in which he can rest.  Temperatures can safely fall into the low sixties during brumation.  If your Beardie wakes up briefly offer water and food.  They may not take the food, that's normal.  If they do eat, encourage them to have a bowel movement before they fall back to sleep, otherwise the food may rot in the stomach.  Bearded Dragons have an instinct about this, and probably will not fall deeply asleep while still carrying lots of food in their stomach. 
In a few weeks to a few months, depending on the Bearded Dragon, normal activity should be resumed.  

 Here's another link to check out: 

BeardedDragon.org

Ziggy is Available for Adoption now!

My little buddy Ziggy is ready for adoption! He comes with everything you need set up wise to keep him healthy & happy till he is full grown (then you'll need to upgrade his tank to a bigger size). Just add food & water & greens! 

He LOVES to snuggle with me at night in his purple softie blanket. 

He has a kink in his tail-- that's why we call him "Ziggy."