ROBERTSON COUNTY TIMES (Nashville, Tennessee) 24 February 06 'Lizard Lady' cherishes reptiles (Sylvia Slaughter)
Around the Correctional Development Center, friends, acquaintances and co-workers call Betsy Moon the "Lizard Lady."
But long before there were lizards in her life, there was the displaced chicken.
Betsy Moon saw one on the fly when she was a young child living in Midtown Atlanta, perhaps the least likely place for a hen to hover.
She took it home with her.
All her life she's dragged home stray dogs, abandoned puppies, forsaken kittens.
"My family and I always had pets," she says. "They were my mainstay. . . . I was an only child, and in a way, they were like brothers and sisters."
Her animal-loving parents helped place the strays she found when her at-home animals became too many for comfort.
Betsy Moon today is still the animal magnet she was then.
At home, she has three dogs and her first lizard, Spot.
At work, she's the coordinator of the new H.E.E.L. program, where she teaches inmates at the center to train dogs from Metro Animal Services for adoption.
"These dogs are what I call death-row dogs," she says. "No one wants them. I bring them to the center where the inmates train them to sit and stay and come so they will be more adoptable. . . .The sheriff's department is totally animal-friendly."
At work, she also has her second lizard, PT, a leopard gecko, which she herself adopted from Animal Services because she felt sorry for it.
"The people who had her . . . they moved and abandoned her," she says. "I can't stand for any animal to be unloved."
PT (short for Part Time because she and her office mate both tend to the gecko) lives in Moon's office at the correctional facility. She's the first animal Moon greets in her workday and the last animal she says goodbye to when she leaves at night.
Unlike the H.E.E.L. dogs she sometimes has in her office, PT doesn't demand pats and praises and cuddles. But the lizard still gets plenty of affection from her caregiver.
"PT needs me for food and shelter," Moon says. "I'm not sure, but I believe she recognizes me by touch. I can reach in the terrarium for her and she doesn't flinch. But, basically, PT likes her solitary life. People can't understand our bond, but they do when they sit and watch her. I find PT a calming animal. She's somewhat like my dogs here and at home; she's just built closer to the ground."
Moon bought her first lizard out of curiosity. She thought it would be a short-term project, but Spot is now 9 years old, and from what her keeper has learned, Spot has a life expectancy of somewhere between 17 and 20-plus years.
"Short-term commitment," Moon says laughing. "Spot and PT will probably outlive me."
Of the two lizards in her life, Spot is more gregarious than PT. Spot definitely knows Moon and will perch on her shoulder as she wanders from room to room.
When the lizard gets upset, which is seldom, she will give a protest "bark."
"I've really developed an interest in reptiles," Moon says. "I didn't know anything about them when I bought Spot, and I thought it was time that I learned. . . .There are few animals I don't want to know more about."
People at work find reasons to stop by Moon's office on one pretense or another, Moon says, when their real intent is to check on PT.
"Lizards are so much fun to watch, though they sleep most of the day," she says. "When you feed them, they really get active."
Moon doesn't mind tending to their menu, either — live crickets and mealworms.
The inmates Betsy Moon trains in the H.E.E.L. adoption program know about PT and their teacher's soft-heartedness when it comes to keeping animals alive and safe.
One of the dogs, Bruiser, is back with Moon in her H.E.E.L. office. Bruiser was adopted by one of the ex-inmates who found she couldn't give him the attention he deserved.
With a dog at her feet and a lizard at her side, Moon is surrounded by her favorite things.
Neither animal pays attention to the other. They seem to intuitively know there is love enough to go around.
"When I became interested in reptiles, I knew I could never feed a live little mouse to a snake," Moon says, "but it doesn't bother me to watch a gecko dine on an insect. I can't explain it. Maybe it's because I like mice, too."
There's only one reptile the Lizard Lady doesn't want either in her office or under her roof: an iguana.
She had one once who was ailing because his previous owner had fed it only macaroni and cheese. Betsy Moon adopted the iguana named Eisenhower, added collard greens and fruit to his diet, doctored and showered affection on him until one day he took a mighty bite out of her knuckle.
Moon quickly found him another adoptive family, one who even built Ike a natural habitat to call home.
"It was either adopt Ike out . . . or make him into a pair of boots," she says laughing. Moon, of course, was only kidding about the boots. After all, an iguana is just another lizard like PT and Spot, only a little higher off the ground.
'Lizard Lady' cherishes reptiles