Jun
19
2011

That Can't Be A Comfortable Way To Sleep

Sunday, June 19, 2011 - 11:39:53 pm
(Posted Under: Genevelyn)
Before the weekend we'd noticed Genevelyn seemed a little bit off. Her appetite had certainly dropped off, and on Friday her stool was too runny. We've had her two weeks today, and certainly on Friday the whole 15 day covered period was still in effect. It didn't take much to agree that she should see a vet.

When buying through Petco, anything illness or death that happens during the first 15 days they'll take care of. Or so we thought and expected. But what a fucking scam. When Katie inquired about it yesterday, she was informed that they buy the reptile back, monitor it and have it treated, and then sell it back to you. Talk about something that sounded convoluted as hell, not to mention scammy. We're too attached to our girl, we're not selling her back to anyone. And do I trust you to sell me the same lizard back? Hell no. And really, after today's experience, do I trust you to actually take care of her? Nope. It took barely any discussion yesterday to know we just wanted to foot the bill and have her checked out ourselves. The reptile hospital got us in today.

The verdict is that we were correct, she wasn't feeling well thanks to parasites. Apparently Bearded Dragons hide illness well, and we've only had her two weeks, but it was pretty easy for us to know that there was something up with her. I've got to say, our experience with the reptile vet was more impressive (to me) than anything I've seen with actual human health care since living here. No waiting for test results, no "we'll do some more tests", no following up with clinics. He took a fresh stool sample (Katie isn't sure she'll recover from witnessing that [wink] ), checked it out himself, came back with the prognosis and gave us medicine on the spot. Bam, everything done within a half an hour consultation. Brilliant, and like I said, completely different to the fuck around every time Katie has gone to the doctor lately. And of course, it all put's our feelings about Petco into perspective. If you sold us a dragon with parasites in the first place, I have no faith the you'd have gotten it treated if we purchased her back.

So she should be fine, she's got medication for the next days (feeding a 6 inch lizard medicine one a day is going to prove to be fun!), and we completely disinfected her terrarium today, and will be doing so again next weekend. After which she'll have another stool test, but should hopefully have a clean bill of health.

This weekend has been absolutely exhausting, but we gave everything of hers a complete disinfecting, which ate up the remainder of the afternoon. We did most of it outside, and we put her in a large box and brought her outside with us while we worked. She seemed to enjoy it, watching us both inquisitively. After about an hour she jumped out of her little Petco box and seemed to enjoy running around the larger box, seeing and hearing the outside world. Certainly she looked in much better spirits this afternoon.

Once we gave her terrarium a final rinse and was ready to go, we brought her back inside and decided to have a little play with her before she went back into her terrarium. It also seemed like a good opportunity to give her a spritzing. It's the first time I've really had any hands on time with her. When we first brought her home, we didn't want to stress her out too much before she got used to her new home. And had actually planned on playing with her this weekend, but didn't after she didn't seem well towards the end of the week. I held her while Katie gave her a spritzing. She was clearly thirsty after being outside in the desert heat (understandably, so were we) and lapped up the water in my hand while Katie sprayed her. She seemed a bit perturbed the first time we spritzed her when we first got her, but today she wasn't fussed a bit and really seemed to enjoy it. There is something incredibly cool about holding a 6 inch lizard and having it lap water off your fingers with it's tiny tongue.

Photobox ImageAfter that she went back into her terrarium, now lined with paper towels (until she's got the all clear) and devoid of anything but her food and water dish, since we're soaking her rock pretty well and want to ensure it's free of any disinfectant before we put it back in there. I'm not sure she's entirely thrilled by the lack of her rock and branch, but was incredibly active this afternoon, which was a vast improvement over the past few days. Frankly, with the basking lamp on, her home actually looks like the sterile, completely white set of a weird mid 90's music video (that Michael / Janet Jackson one comes to mind). I can understand why she wouldn't be happy about that. [wink]

Photobox ImageWe wondered what she'd do when it came to bed time, as she's really taken to sleeping on the highest part of her branch since we got that for her. Almost immediately after turning out her lights, she climbed up her food dish, with belly and arms against the glass and closed her eyes. God, it looked hilarious! I jokingly said "I will die laughing if she's still in that position in the morning", but that was two hours ago and she hasn't moved in that whole time, so by all accounts, this seems to be how she's going to sleep tonight! I can't even fathom how that could be comfortable!

Edit: it's a little after 7am the next morning, and she's still in the same position! [lol]

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