Wednesday 26th March 2008.
Today I wanted to write about the awful weekend I've just had ... but I can't. Every time I think about what I did yesterday morning it makes me feel sick. I'm going to leave that for tomorrow and write about happier things today.
I had a major reshuffle yesterday.
The bearded Dragons are now split and separated, no more unexpected eggy-pops in our house.
Assante (bosc monitor) has had two foot lopped. She doesn't use the full six feet of her viv so we've demoted her for the time being to a four foot, even though with tail she's touching four foot in length. The four footer is a cube so she has a lot of internal space and it's ample for her for another few months. What a flipin` differance. Half an hour after going in she was all over the viv. She tried to get out of the door and was definitely interacting with us, something she's never done before, she climbed every inch, explored the entire viv, including the top most branch. She basked happily out in the open with us watching her. For the first time ever she didn't run and hide when the dog got too close to her viv. She ate well and was bright, active and alert. I've told the lads that if she knocks to come out tonight I'm going to just open the door and let her roam.
They think that's a terrible idea. Assante is still a nasty piece of work and only gets handled freely in the bath where she's more interested in her buoyancy than taking people's fingers, the rest of the time we still have to restrain her or get bitten.
If she's asking to come out .. then that's fine by me... she can.
My boyfriend and my son have both said that they will not be in. They are both terrified of Assante. We've agreed to lock the dog out of the room for the duration of her 'escape' though. Kali is way too lizard friendly to be let loose with Assante. Kali believes that all snakes and lizards are her children and that they love her. Several times while I've been feeding or attending to Assante, Kali has snuck up on the nearside and stuck her stupid snout in the viv and I've had to pull her back quickly. I know that if Assante came out of her viv Kali would run up to greet her, she does with all of the lizards. “Hello, hello,” wag wag, “I'm Kali, what's you name? Hey you wanna play a bit, I'll get my ball if you like?” Assante's reply wouldn't be pretty.
Next up, the frillies went back into their old six foot viv. I thought they'd hate being back in there after having the eight foot run of the monster viv. They never have really done well in the monster viv and Bali went downhill to the point that I thought we might lose her a couple of months ago after a phantom pregnancy. Five minutes after going back 'home' they both came to life and it was as if they'd slept away the last few months, they flirted and chased each other around. They've both steadily put on weight again this month and have been a lot better but still haven't been their old selves. Last night they moved more in four hours than they've moved in four months. They were in the viv, out of the viv, in my hair (literally and figuratively) all over the living room and then back into their viv playing the 'in and out' game which can keep them amused for hours. Tanimbah minced it up, prancing about like a big old pansy. He runs like the campest lizard on earth because he can't get traction on my laminate floor. Frilled lizards run on their hind legs and Tanimbah has a mince to him that Julian Clarey would go green for. He's a big boy for his species, sitting at just under four foot. He gets up on his back legs and then flaps his front ones out in front of him while bobbing his head and swaying his hips as he runs. When he stops he half frills, a sign of happiness and delight and then he'll lift first his right leg off the floor three times stamping it back down and then the left...we call it his line dancing. It was lovely to see again.
Assante has taken to running at the lizards. Thankfully the glass is between them and she hasn't gone through it yet. Last night Bali and Assante came face to face with only a thick sheet of glass between them. Assante at first went to attack, but then stood back and watched curiously before curiosity turned to fear as Bali changed in front of her and then she turned tail and flew into the safety of her hide leaving Bali victorious. Bali and Tanimbah only ever half frill. Last night, facing Assante she gave us the first ever complete collar. Her head receded into the halo and she opened her mouth wide and hissed like hell at poor Assante. Give Bali her due she stood her ground and was prepared to bluff it out, bless her. I think she thought that if she was going to get eaten then she wasn't going to go down with streamlined ease. Watching Bosc and Frill face to face was facinating. They both looked so very beautiful. Tanibmah, far from coming to the aid of his missus was too busy line dancing in front of the captive audience of my carved elephant who Tanimbah is in love with.
Roma the Blue Tongued Skink has gone into Falcon's (Red Iguana) viv. She also seems very happy with her new quarters and much prefers being on her own to co-habiting. We almost ended up with Roma's sister the other day. The girl who bought her came knocking at my door. 'Sid' isn't eating, isn't growing and isn't doing very well at all. She asked me if I'd take her on. I said that I wasn't really interested in buying her because I can't breed from them with being siblings and if we happened to end up with two males out of the pair (they haven't been positively sexed) then they'd have to be kept separate, which is no good to me as I want a breeding pair eventually. I said that I'd be willing to take the lizard for a couple of months to see if I could get anywhere after they'd failed as a favour to her. Apparently she does eat a few blueberries and some crickets but not enough and that's all she'll take. It's not a varied enough diet for her. The girl said that she'd rather just sell her to me. I replied that as we thought she was female and not in terrible condition despite being very small I'd give her sixty pounds for her. My thinking was that if I could get her in tip top condition I could swap her for an unrelated female, or male if need be, to go in with Roma. This was half of what the woman had paid for her and I felt it was fair. Incidentally, despite them being sold at the same time from the same place I paid five pounds more for Roma. We couldn't strike a deal. Initially she wouldn't come down a penny from what she'd paid for her. I said that there was no way that I was paying a hundred and twenty quid for a semi-fasting lizard who might not pull through or ever make her potential. She finally came down to eighty pounds but I'm not prepared to pay more than sixty. Sid is less than a third of the size of Roma and has hardly grown since we bought them on the same day. More worrying is that she hasn't been properly supplemented. Roma has tripled in size. If I took this lizard on it would be purely for the sake of the lizard and I'm not sure I could cope with the heartache if I became attached and then lost her. See, I had this impressive idea of taking her as a rescue, getting her in prime condition without her ever becoming 'mine' and then swapping her on, but when it came time to part with her I wouldn't. That was the 'plan' with Frog. I was only taking her for a week or two until Col could sort something out for her. The last thing I needed was the hassle of a stroppy iguana... and now I've got two of them.
The big move of the day was introducing Frog (green iggy) and Falcon (red Iggy) in the monster viv. Falcon is the sweetest lizard ever. He's one pain in the arse (and some) to catch. He's like lightening and frets himself into a right old state. I hate capturing him because he's completely out of control of himself at that point intent only on getting away. He head butts the wall and charges into the light guards and glass and I'm always frightened that he's going to hurt himself.
Once you have him in your hands you couldn't ask for a gentler calmer lizard. He's never once attempted to bite and he doesn't even tail whip. He just sits in distress and tolerates the handling until it's over. He has progressively got better though, now I can go into the viv and fiff and faff and I can get close up to him without him schitzing out on me. Even when I'm holding him he's a lot better. The look of absolute terror has left his eyes and as he's becoming more acustomed to being handled he's getting better with it. It's early days yet and I may well come to eat my words but I'm thinking, and hoping, that he's going to tame far more easily than the dreaded Frog.
I put him in with Frog ... oh what a happy boy he is. He was up and down between the levels all night. He roamed and explored and tried desperately to make friends with Frog. Suddenly having al that space had a dramatically calming effect on him and he was fantastic. Frog, true to Frog's temperamental nature was having none of him. She stalked him, chased him, bit him ...but... her attacks were half hearted and did him no damage. Far from being reduced to a quivvering wreck by her he almost seemed to be taunting her. When she bored of him, he'd seek her out for another chase and tussle. He certainly didn't seem bothered at all and didn't run away and cower. I think given a couple of days to settle they will be fine. However I'm not taking any risks, Frog is a lot bigger than Red. ... so because Frog's the easier to manoeuvre she's coming out every night and while I'm at work. I'm only leaving them together while they are attended for now.
The more time I spend with Frog the more I find myself anthropomorphising her. She is without a doubt more trouble than the rest of the troop put together. But she's one on her own and my favourite of them all. I'd be devastated if anything ever happened to her. Considering I didn't want her and was dead against having her when she became too much for Col, we've come a long way. However if she was a human being I'd despise her.
There is nothing likeable or 'nice' about her, apart from her looks... and even then she's got such a nasty look in her eye as a permanent fixture that you tend to recoil. She's sneaky and sly. She's a thief and a bully, aggressive and vicious and her greatest delight in life (after eating) is causing trouble. She does it knowingly and deliberately. If I put something on the coffee table next to where I sit she will sidle over thinking that you haven't seen her ... though I put things there just to watch her do it... and then she'll nudge everything off with her nose until it's lying in a heap on the floor. I admit this can be a pain in the backside, until I got wise to her I lost cups of hot coffee... I was burned .. she remarkably wasn't! I lost my ashtray, lighter, box of choccies and every single time the damned telly remotes.
She will crap in my shoes if I've taken them off to put my feet up on the sofa. This is also willful and deliberate. I'm one hundred percent sure that her only regret is that she's wasted some precious wastage so having that little bit less to spray me with when I pick her up. She loves to knock the phone off the hook. She knows that I have to get up and walk across the room when she does this, she knows that she's going to get shouted at but she does it anyway. Ornaments are a thing of the past, too shiny, too tempting. Kali loves Frog. Frog hates Kali. She will wait for the poor dog to go to sleep and then ambush her. The lizard is almost as big as the dog and although Kali takes it in good spirit, having twenty lizard claws sticking into you isn't the most pleasant way to be woken up.
Last night she hit an all time low when it comes to mean. Falcon had finally tired himself out and had gone to the lower level of the viv found himself a nice branch and had been heavily asleep for about half an hour. Frog almost never goes to the bottom level of the viv. She spends all of her time up on the top being dominant and patrolling her 'patch'. Last night she roamed the top level looking for Falcon, then she went through the trap door, rested on the ladder and watched him for awhile .. planning her assault. She weighed up the branch above him, worked out exactly where she wanted to be and stalked silently over. Positioning herself directly above Falcon she let fire with a torrent of steaming shit. When she'd finished, she calmly wiped her backside on the branch and walked back up the ladder in a haughty manner to settle herself down for the night. Falcon was covered. She really is a cow.
I have still never seen Falcon eat or drink anything at all. I'm hoping that Frog will bring him on in that department, in fact when I put her in with him again this morning she went straight over to eat his greens. He took a branch directly above her (dominance maybe? He's got no chance!) and watched her chowing down, unfortunately he didn't take this perfect opportunity to get sweet revenge as I was praying he would. I was quite disappointed with him, Frog wouldn't have wasted that opportunity. It's weighing day on Sunday and I'm interested to see how much Falcon has gained. I know that he must be eating in secret because he's filling out.
While I'm on the subject, fruit, veg and salad are supposed to be non fattening, right? Why then is my iggy on the cusp of becoming obese? It explains why all these ham salads are getting me nowhere.
Another reason for keeping her separate some of the time. Frog is officially on a diet before it gets out of control .. .as is Isa (Beardie) and if Roma (BTS) carries on the way she is she'll be joining the Reptilian branch of Weight Watchers too. I'm not going to offer Frog any food at all when she isn't in with Falcon and I'll only try Falcon with fattening 'treat' food like wax worm when Frog isn't with him. I won't manage to bath her every night but I'm going to try to chuck her in the bath for a few laps as often as I can.
