REVIEW-JOURNAL (Las Vegas, Nevada) 09 April 06 Forget The Doghouse: Furry pets are fine for some, but others prefer the scaly kind (Heidi Knapp Rinella)
On the cuddly-pets scale of 1 to 10 -- 10 being your average puppy or kitten -- Leslie Newman's Goliath ranks a good, solid 1.
That he's a 5-foot iguana isn't the point. That his personality is as armored as his appearance is.
"He was just a charm before," Newman said. "It's like he sexually matured on me and turned all belligerent and nasty."
Still, Newman chooses to share her home with the recalcitrant reptile, joining a growing number of pet owners who eschew furry mammals and find beauty, tranquility and, yes, quite a bit of entertainment in their scaly counterparts.
Ken Foose understands completely.
"I was a little boy playing out in the woods," he said. "That's what you did -- you caught snakes and frogs. Some little boys grow out of it. Some don't."
Foose didn't; he just studied them more and more. He earned a master's degree in zoology and has worked in zoos, eventually turning his passion for reptiles into a business, Exotic Pets, at 2105 N. Decatur Blvd.
Foose's fascination is focused on snakes, although he also likes lizards and tortoises. And while he has a dog and cats at home -- and a macaw that "hates me but loves my wife" -- he generally considers himself "mammal-averse."
"They're much dirtier than reptiles," he said.
It's true that reptiles don't leave hair all over the place, and that their less sanitary aspects tend to be confined to enclosed spaces. But you can't play with a reptile, can't take it for a walk.
Don't tell that to Leslie Newman. Goliath, you see, occasionally goes for a stroll.
"He just walks himself and we walk alongside of him," Newman said.
And the neighbors?
"That's why we stay right there with him," Newman said. "They just stare and gawk."
Newman came into her reptile habit much as Foose came into his.
"The boys had leopard geckos and anoles and salamanders," she said. "We all just kind of branched out from getting that one first lizard."
Goliath is not the first iguana Newman has had. For 14 years, she had a female who died when the family moved from Colorado to Las Vegas.
"We have a beautiful cage and we were just kind of looking in the newspaper -- 'Free to good home,' " Newman said. "We brought him home (about 3 1/2 years ago), and we've had him ever since."
The cage, she said, measures about 7-by-5-by-3 feet. The sheer space that iguanas need precludes a lot of people from owning one, or at least owning one responsibly. Newman has to cover all of the mirrors in her home because "he thinks it's another iguana."
Goliath also has an outdoor cage. That's a lot of accommodations for a pet whose own owner describes him as "belligerent and nasty."
"He just needs a very good home," Newman said. "All animals need a decent home. He is, despite everything, enjoyable -- just the look. They're conversation pieces. They turn out to be a pretty cool pet."
And there is some degree of companionship.
"I know when I come home every night, he's in his cage," Newman said. "He is right there, ready to come out of his cage. He knows I'm home. He knows the voice."
Not all would-be iguana owners are as enlightened as Newman. Randy McDowell, whose wife, Annalisa, owns The Snake Shop at the Fantastic Indoor Swap Meet, 1717 S. Decatur Blvd., doesn't sell iguanas.
"Iguanas are a throwaway pet," McDowell said. "They get big, get aggressive. They didn't pay much money for them" -- McDowell said an iguana can be had for $15 to $20 -- "so it doesn't matter to them. I (also) won't sell Nile monitors, because they're large and aggressive and hard to tame. They're just neglected and die. I have a passion for these animals, so I don't want to see that happen."
Foose doesn't offer the large iguanas either, but he does sell spiny-tailed iguanas, because they reach only about 3 feet in length.
Both Goliath and his predecessor in Newman's home were rescued pets. Diane Orgill, president of the Animal Foundation and director of the Lied Animal Shelter, sees reptiles come through occasionally.
"People get this animal because they think it's unique," she said. "It's kind of like a coffee-table book. And then they find out they need special care. They don't take the time to find out what special care they need, and then (the animals) get sick. And then it's going to take money to fix them, so they give them to us. We try to find a home -- someone who knows what they're doing with them.
"With any exotic animal, people really need to take the time to look into it before they take it on as a pet."
Especially with iguanas, prospective owners "generally are not prepared for what they're getting themselves into," said veterinarian Bryan Kenton of the Flamingo Pet Clinic. "People see them as cute little green guys. They don't realize these things can be 6, 8 feet long at full growth.
"With reptiles, it's all husbandry. If you don't have the environment set up properly, they are not going to do well, period."
But for those who want a reptile pet, there are plenty of alternatives. In choosing one, first remember where you are.
"Desert reptiles are easier to keep here than tropical ones," Kenton said. "Snakes are probably a little easier than most."
"I break them in," McDowell said. "I start them with easy pets -- easy reptiles -- to get them used to it. Corn snakes, king snakes, ball pythons. When you start moving into large constrictors, you're going to have problems."
Foose sells anacondas only "to young men who enjoy pain. They bite constantly."
One of the most popular at Exotic Pets is actually kind of cute. The bearded dragon, Foose said, is "the best pet lizard in the world. They're born tame."
Geckos are popular, as are water dragons. Blue-tongued skinks eat canned dog food, Foose said. "You can't find anything easier to care for than that. For the person who doesn't have time for anything, it's the perfect animal."
Foose said the average price for a baby snake ranges from about $30 to about $100. Baby leopard geckos are about $25 and higher, baby bearded dragons from $50 to about $150, baby water dragons about $30 and baby blue-tongued skinks about $130.
The snakes eat mice, available frozen at pet stores (you leave them out on the counter to thaw). The majority of the smaller lizards eat crickets (also available at pet stores), though some are vegeterian and some omnivorous, Foose said. And some eat special canned lizard food.
Foose has seen peaks and valleys in reptile popularity over the years. "Wild Kingdom" brought one wave, he said, "Jurassic Park" another. Before the movie, he said, 2 percent of the pet-owning public owned reptiles. After the movie, that jumped to 4 percent. Now, the number is 10 percent, "which is phenomenally huge to me" -- the fastest-growing segment of the pet industry.
At Exotic Pets, Foose said, the average customer is a middle-class mom and dad with kid. Another large group is women buying for themselves -- Foose adds that statistics indicate that more men than women are afraid of snakes -- and another group is women buying for kids.
He won't sell to kids younger than 18 unless they're with a parent, and won't sell to a parent who's terrified of snakes but wants to buy one for his or her kids.
"I tell them to go to Toys R Us," Foose said.
Most of them don't know much about reptiles, he said, because they probably haven't had as much interaction with them as they have with dogs and cats, the two most popular pets.
And there are some basics he explains to customers.
"They don't love us," Foose said. "Don't want to be held. Will they snuggle up? No.
"They tolerate us."
On the other hand ...
"They're very fascinating to watch, very easy to keep. Undemanding. Clean."
But they don't show any emotion ...
"I know a lot of people who would argue with you on that," McDowell said. "I personally agree; my wife would argue with you. They have basic emotions; that's basically what I feel. It's hard to tell, with a reptile, their emotions. They don't make faces."
"They don't show any affection, even though some of our customers swear they do," Foose agreed. "People will swear the reptile comes to them when called, even though snakes are deaf."
Forget The Doghouse