Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Well about a week and a half ago i was called by a guy to come get his iguana. He was supposed to be about seven years old and pretty tame and the guys fiance was scared of it so he wanted to get rid of it. He agreed to surrender the cage lighting etc. We arranged to pick him up on Sunday. Then on last Thursday we were contacted by the animal control about a "mean" "male" iguana that they had in the basement. They had just found my name on the internet and wanted to know if I would come get it before it was euthanized. I agreed to come get it on Saturday.

Well we got to the shelter on Saturday and got the release filled out and everything. A very large male animal control officer led us to the basement explaining how only the supervisor was allowed to feed or care for the large mean iguana. We got to its cage, luckily it did have a heat lamp but no UVB. They were feeding it vegetable but only lettuce, grapes etc, although I guess it's better than dog food. The "large" male was a little over 3ft. Besides which it isn't a male, no pronounced jowls, no large femoral pores and the head shape of our other female (we had it confirmed at the vets). When we got it out of it's cage (the officer stood way back so it couldn't "get him" it did not extend the dewlap, open it's mouth and only gave a very small tailwhip. It has parasites, MBD, skin that has stuck in layers and is very malnourished besides missing large portions of two toes and nails on several toes. It is being treated for all this. We put it in a new cage and thought at first it was too weak to climb because it stayed where my husband sat it. But Rex later climbed to the top and has been roaming all about.

Then we went to pick up the other one on Sunday. We got to the house and the owner wasn't there he had left his fiancee to let us in. We went to get Twiggy out and at first thought he was hanging his tongue out but instead his lower jaw was completely raw and bleeding. His spikes are smaller than the one year old females we have here. He has a fungus growing on his back where he hasn't shed, parasites, MBD and malnourished. The lady told us yeah he feeds it greens every couple days or so and the only lighting they had was a small heat lamp. She also said yeah he's just so big and ugly and he makes so much noise. The cage was about 4ft long x 1ft wide x 2ft tall. The iguana is right at 3ft. We stopped on the way home for my husband to run in and get some greens since our stores don't always have them. The iguana was so starved it went wild when he put the greens in the car and started lunging at the side making his mouth bleed more. I immediately fed him two cups of greens which he finished in about five minutes. He has been eating more than our five foot male, two large heaped over silver pet food bowls a day. He is not in the least aggressive but will lunge when he sees you coming with food!!

Hopefully with us they will have a much better home until or unless they get adopted and they will only be adopted if the person knows how to care for them!!!

Sorry had to complain a bit and let you know wha't going on!
Stephanie

Hey,
I rescued a baby ig this past weekend, although luckily he is a lot healthier than either of your rescues. He is my second rescue, my first one was last August. I could really use your advice.
The first one probably about two, and he's my baby. I could never give him up. The second one would probably stand a good chance of being adopted, since he's a cute little iglet, but as the week has gone on, I just don't want to give him up. I don't want to become an animal shelter, but I know if another ig comes along, I'll probably try to help it, too. I don't have any more money. And I want to know- how do you keep from getting attached to your rescues, and put them up for adoption? I'm afraid that they'll just keep coming, and, I don't know, I won't be able to let them go, but it will ruin me to keep them. I guess the money issue should settle the whole thing, but somehow, it doesn't.
Anything you can tell me is good.

Well I know what you mean about money issues but we don't take in an iguana unless we know we can take care of it in all ways including monetarily. There are times you just want to save them all but you can get burnout and the more you take in if you can't take care of them the quicker it happens. Then you have a rescue who needs rescuing!! But anyway I do get attached to them all. They are all my babies but I know they need individual care and most would be better off in a home by themselves where they can get more attention. That's not to say we don't give them lots of attention but it is easier with just one or two than with a bunch! The way i get over it though is I make any potential adopters fill out an application, first. If they can't do that they can't adopt!! Then I meet the person and let them meet our iguanas. If they can interact with them and seem to know what they are talking about or don't mind being instructed on them we go to the next step. This is the home visit. If the home is too far away i settle for many pictures but it is not ideal (and I don't ship they have to pick up!). They must already have a cage, lighting, food, vet all waiting before they can take one home. We do build and design cages and do sell them if the person wants to buy one, otherwise they must have a suitable one ready. Back to the money issue, I have taken courses to do some simple vet care. I can do the fecal samples, checkups, medicine dosing, and have even done a minor tail amputation (just the tip). For anything serious we go to a real reptile vet who we have been lucky enough to find works with payments etc since we usually have several to bring in at the same time. But as much as we would love to save them all we don't take one in unless we have the cage space (which only takes a couple days to build one and we do have a holding cage, quarantine area) and the money to care for them. I also do educational programs for schools and have been lucky in that they always pay for my gas and usually give at least a small donation towards the rescue. I have applied for a non-profit corporation status and have made it through the first hurdle but still have mountains of paperwork to go!!

Stephanie

You have My Admiration and Respect. If you scroll down a few topics, You'll see what I've had to turn down just this month. I honestly don't know how you do it and stay sane.... I'd go completely out of My Mind... I am now with not being able to help them..... How do you deal with the felling of not being able to help them all??
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2.0 Iguanas, 2.1 Beardies, 0.2 Saharan/Nigerian Uromastyx, 0.0.1 Leo, 0.0.1 African Fat Tail, 1.0 Columbian Rainbow Boa, 0.0.1 Fla Garter Snake, 0.3 eastern garters (plus 24 babies!!!!), 0.0.1 Banded California King Snake (M.I.A.), 0.0.1 Corn Snake, 0.0.3 Fire Belly Toads, 1.0 Eastern Painted Turtle, 0.0.1 African Sideneck, 2 Horses, 4 cats, 1 dog, and I'm still not done.....

That is so sad how people treat animals in general. so so sad.
Is anything done to these people for neglect??? Can they just say come and get em and not take responsibility for the neglect? I couldn't stand it. I took in 2 uromastyx's from a pet store and turned him in. And even tho I purchased them knowing the condition they were in (near death) I STILL testified in court AND won the case. I think it was more than worth it to get one person stabbed back for what he did to the uro's.
any chance of these people being taken to court?

Hope they do well for you!!
Renee

Wellll. The first was picked up at the animal control headquarters and they are already carrying through with neglect and abandonment if they can find the people (moved out of state I think from what they said). The other is in a city where I have already turned in two petstores and I did call him in but if my experience goes as before they won't really do anything except tell him to not get another iguana again. On a brighter note both petstores now keep my business cards in a prominent place on their desk, hand out my care sheets and packet and call with any problems or questions!!

On the other post I do just feel sick when we can't take one in but luckily so far have only had to turn one away and I helped the owner as much as I could (mainly felt overwhelmed but still cared about the iguana) he is doing much better on the care and i help out when I can.

I also have been in contact with a couple other new rescues I will just have to wait and see how that goes but we are trying to work with each other if either of us get an overabundance. he lives in another state but is withing about a four hour drive, quite a ways but we have went farther to pick up a rescue before just in the opposite direction!!

Stephanie