Freddie

Stats :

Name : Freddie
Sex : Female
Age : About 3 1/2 years
SVL (snout-to-vent length) : 14"
STL (snout-to-tail length) : 40"
Weight : About 3 pounds
Egging history : Produced a clutch of 28 eggs in May 1997, which were surgically removed along with her ovaries.
Favorite foods : cheese, yogurt, pasta (all of which are not offered very often, for obvious reasons... if it's not obvious to you, it's time to do some reading...), and, finally, greens, all except parsley.
Overall character : Fairly tame around us, and very relaxed in her environment, but gets snippy around strangers. Very independant, but absolutely loooooves being petted... when she feels like it... One of those rare igs that doesn't like water, whether it's in a bath or from a mister. She actually gets angry when I mist her, go figure! (And I *do* use warm water for this, and the sprayer is set to the finest mist...) She does, however, enjoy having water poured down her back during bath time, but only if the water's warm enough.

Freddie and I met about three years ago : I was shopping, and I found myself in front of a pet store. As I walked through the doors, I had no intention of buying a lizard; I just wanted to browse quite simply because I like to look at animals. But when I saw those beautiful exotic eyes, I was hooked. So, I jumped on the first employee for more information about this little creature. I already knew that these lizards grew to be fairly large and that they could be tamed. What's more, the employee told me that they were vegetarians, so I could feed it just about any vegetable, e.g. lettuce, spinach, carrots, bananas, and for protein, dog food (*gasp*...). Hey, I didn't have to deal with insects! In my mind, the purchase was already concluded. On top of it all, the employee was willing to give me a discount on the iguana if I bought the "Iguana Kit", which was also on sale. Where do I sign?!

Once I got home, I quickly installed Freddie's home, and leafed through the booklet included in the "Iguana Kit" with great interest. What a surprise! As I read the booklet, I found out that this lizard was not as easy to care for as the employee had said. First of all, the accessories included in the "Iguana Kit" were not adequate. Also, it only took 2 months for Freddie to grow out of her small vivarium, and so we had to build her a cage. Once moved into her new cage, Freddie's behavior changed completely. She had become extremely agressive, to a point where we could no longer approach her without being whipped or bitten. She refused to defecate in her cage (so she'd do it as soon as we'd take her out, namely on my arm, on the floor, on the furniture...), and she hardly ever moved, not even to eat her favorite foods. Her growth had stopped, and her health declined.

The booklet I had helped quite a bit, but it just wasn't enough, since I had no idea why I had all these problems. I asked questions to the pet store where I had bought her, but no one could help me. Also, there were no other books available that were more detailed than the one I had already. So, in the meantime, I simply maintained Freddie, convinced that I couldn't do otherwise, which was obviously very frustrating since the situation just worstened other time and I was powerless to change it.

This is a story which many iguana lovers recognize. Unfortunately, all too often the result is the loss of their beloved pet. I was lucky : My story has a happy ending. One day, I came into contact with a veterinarian, and it just so happens he was a specialist in exotic animals. We got into a conversation about iguanas, and he mentionned to me all the new information now available on the internet. So, at the first opportunity, I jumped in.

Boy, did I ever browse! I had found loads of information, and finally, I had the chance to correspond with other, more experienced, GGI owners. Just about every question I had about Freddie's behavior, health and habitat were answered. I immediately made all the appropriate changes, and it took only a few weeks to see spectacular results : increase in alertness and interest in her environment, better color, reduction in agressivity, etc. I'm happy to say that since then, Freddie has become a wonderful pet and a big green healthy beast. Then, Cujo entered my life...

Cujo

Stats :

Name : Cujo
Sex : Male
Age : About 2 1/2 years
SVL (snout-to-vent length) : 9"
STL (snout-to-tail length) : 22"
Weight : About 600 grams
Sexual history : Came into his first rut in the Spring of 1997, although the only clue was the drastic change in his coloration (from lime green to bright orange). His femoral pores didn't secrete and he didn't produce any seminal plugs or deposits. It is believed that this would have been due to the substandard care he was given at the time, by his previous owner. (The fact that he was infested with internal parasites surely didn't help...)
Favorite foods : Pretty much all greens, cheese & pasta (not given very often...), strawberries, bananas and mangos.
Overall character : You can pretty much guess that one by his name... Since he's been in my care, he has tamed down quite a bit, but is still quite unconfortable around humans. When I first met him, you'd swear he was possessed by Satan himself. I had never, but never seem such a wild iguana. As soon as he'd see you enter the room, he'd puff up and stick out his dewlap. When you got close to the terrarium, he'd wack his tail against the glass and produce a loud, guttural hiss. When you opened the terrarium, his whole body would lean towards you, and of course, more tail-twitching and hissing. If you were brave enough to put your hand in there, he'd leap (yes, leap) towards your hand and bite with all his might and shake his head back and forth. (It's amazing how such a little mouth could have such powerful jaws...) All the while he would repeatedly whip your forearm, hard enough to leave welts. (It's amazing how such whipping power could come out of such a small tail...) And if all that didn't work, e.g. if you were stupid enough to hang in there like humans tend to, he'd try to run away and bash his face against every corner of his terrarium.
When you finally did manage to catch him (after about 10 minutes of chasing, of course), he'd hiss some more, whip, crocodile roll, and snake his head every which way to try and bite yet some more. In brief, one incredibly NASTY fella. On a scale of 1 to 10 on the tameness scale, I would have rated him a 42. Now, I suppose I would rate him a 20.
Unlike Freddie, Cujo enjoys bath time (when you're not near him) and being misted. And, believe it or not, he actually enjoys being petted, and over time is learning to appreciate it more and more. Should I hope that someday he will become one of those wonderful igs that seek out their owners for petting sessions?... I suppose I can dream, right?... :-)

Cujo is a GGI that I rescued from deplorable care in August 1997. His previous owner (which I knew personally) was about as ignorant as I had been on iguana care, so Cujo was pretty much a reflexion of what Freddie had been : stunted, calcium deficient, and very (and I mean very) wild, actually a lot wilder than Freddie ever was. (But you probably already know that, if you read his stats...) And if that wasn't enough, he had a regenerated tail from a previous accident, his toes and jaw were deformed from MBD, he was infested with internal parasites and seriously under-fed, because he was housed with another, more dominant iguana.

And so, when I found out that his owner had dumped both his iguanas at a nearby pet store, I was completely horrified. I knew all too well what fate awaited Cujo : obviously no one would buy a biting, whipping, hissing, sickly-looking iguana... so he would be left there to rot. (I wasn't at all worried about the other ig, she was as tame as iguanas could get, and was very healthy, as dominant iguanas usually are...) Not being able to bear the thought, I decided to take him in and nurse him back to good health. And just in the nick of time, too, because if I hadn't found out when I did about Cujo's ill fate, he probably wouldn't have lasted another couple of weeks...

What I saw at the pet store the day I picked up Cujo could only be described as a concentration camp for iguanas. Both GGIs, each over 2 feet in length, were crammed in a terrarium the size of a microwave. A single basking light was supplied, so the two lizards were forced to sit one on top of another to bask. The reason they were kept in such a small space was because the store was undergoing major renovations, and they had nothing else available. In brief, I don't blame the store for these horrible conditions; I blame the owner. It was he who put them there in the first place, the pet store was just taking them because they basically had no choice. I feel this is a total lack of responsability, taking so little effort to place the animals in a good home. Why he didn't bother to at least call me so that I could help him place them is still a complete mystery to me.

Anyway, getting back to Cujo... When I finally got home and opened the transport cage, my heart completely dropped... I hadn't noticed at the pet store what condition he was in. I reached in to pick him up with gloved hands, expecting the usual biting, whipping and trashing. Instead, he just sat there, staring off into space with eyes as big as marbles, not resisting to my picking him up. As I closely inspected him, I noticed numerous lacerations on his hands, thighs and tail (which also had an abcess), his nose was cacked with dried-up blood, his abdomen was caved in from starvation and his shedding skin had a murky brown color, quite a contrast to his normal lime-green coloration.

So, the first thing I did was contact a friend of mine, who just happens to be a reptile rehabber. I already knew that the first thing to do was to get some fluids into him and to get him to a vet as soon as possible, but because it was the week-end, that had to wait. I had already tried to force some fluids into him with a seringe (the kind used to give children oral medication) but he would immediately regurgitate whatever I managed to make him swallow. It was then that my friend recommended sending the fluids directly into his stomach, by attaching a lubricated aquarium air hose to the seringe and gently pushing it down his gullet, which is what did the trick. (Actually, he had told me to get a force-feeding seringe from a vet which are specially designed for this, because the tip is rounded, but since I couldn't get to a vet right away, I improvised...) Luckily, I only had to do this once, because then Cujo started eating small amounts of food on his own.

A few days later, off went Cujo to his first visit to the vet for x-rays (which didn't reveal any obstructions, thank god) and a stool analysis (which, not surprisingly, revealed parasites, of which I don't remember the name...). After two deworming treatments with Panacur, 7 days of antibiotic treatments with Baytril (intramuscular injections in the arm), medicated baths and topical antibiotics for his lacerations, Cujo recovered wonderfully and is quickly gaining weight. A full-body shed revealed his beautiful coloration (photo coming soon!). His body rounded off nicely, and he's already got swollen femoral pores and leaving seminal deposits from time to time, despite the fact that it's not breeding season for him yet. (Maybe making up for lost time, who knows...) He had spent 6 weeks in a 30-gal. terrarium during his recovery, then moved into his more-or-less-permanent home, a 4-foot by 3 3/4-foot by 2-foot habitat which my husband and I custom-built. (Depending on Cujo's growth, we may have to build him something bigger within a few years...) After about 4 weeks of acclimation, he now seems quite happy and healthy, albeit still a little wild, but he's slowly coming around. Yesterday, November 12th, he ate with me standing in front of him for the very first time. (Even with his previous owner, he would never eat if you were looking at him.)

All in all, I'm quite happy that I decided to adopt him, even after I had always told myself I would never have more than one ig in the house. It gives me quite a bit of personal satisfaction knowing that I saved this little creature from certain death. Despite the fact that he's quite untame, I see a lot of potential in him, because he just loves being petted (after the initial 5 minutes of thrashing, that is). I'm very confident that with time, patience and lots of caring, he will eventually be a great pet and as relaxed and aloof in his environment -- and around people -- as Freddie is.

Now, after reading all this, you may be tempted to do the same... Reading this article by Melissa Kaplan may make you change your mind : Rescuing Reptiles From Pet Stores. Despite the personal gratification I got from rehabbing Cujo, I would not make a habit of doing this kind of thing. The only reason I rescued this particular iguana is because I knew him personally...

Questions ?... Comments ?... Do not hesitate to send me mail. :-)

Julie Chamberlain