A lesson to all: NEVER WALK OUT WITH SCREENS OFF. I was doing some work with Zeo's cage, so I had taken him out, and then put his furniture back in. (Replacing substrate, so had to take him back out) I decided to get him some extra salad tonight, and try pellets. I got him to eat from my hand some pellets, so I put him back in the tank and went downstairs to soak more pellets. I left the top off, thinking nothing could go wrong. It did.
His basking log is about 4" from the top of the tank. He's never attempted to jump there, so I didn't even give a second thought to putting the screen on since I was going to need to get back in in about five minutes. After about 5 minutes, when the pellets were soft, I went back up. I didn't see him on his basking log. No problem, the light wasn't on anyways. So I went to move his hide spot to say "Hey, its not bedtime yet..." and he wasn't there. Uh-oh. It took a good 30 seconds for the panic to set in and realize what happened. My rooms a mess, so there were plenty of pieces of clothing for him to hide under. I thought where he'd go first, and then I got even more worried... It's a good five and a half feet from the top of the tank to the ground. So I looked under there. He was right there, under the dresser. Great, I thought, how do I get to him? I can't move the dresser --- with the tank on top of it, it must weigh at least 150 pounds. I tried to coax him with a silkworm. He wouldn't move. I immediately got worried that he severely injured himself, and at 7PM on a Sunday I'd be hard at luck to find a reptile vet open.
So I squeezed my arm under there, just barely getting half of it under. He moved. Good. He was scared obviously, and was avoiding my hand. I went and moved my hand to such a position where he went to the right side of the dresser. (Open spaces on the bottom on each side for him to crawl out of... My crappy diagram:
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0.0.1 Bearded Dragon (Zeo)
0.2.0 Leopard Geckos (Vienna, Chomps)
1.0.0 Golden Retriever, Rocky, 10 years young
