Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Picture below is Rusty...someone recently mentioned he was obese...so much for that comment. You can disagree with Dale feeding his Sav canned dog food (he fed him a variety of food) and I did not know Rusty had died (per that post) but it was probably just "organ failure" like most folks say when their animal dies for unknown reasons. I also never saw Dale making claims that his methods should be followed. He just talked about his own experiences like most of us do.

Stans Savs

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I think the issue is not so much whether or not Rusty died of 'organ failure' or ADR (Ain't Doin' Right - my apologies to the person I stole that expression from), or a one in a million 'congenital heart problem' or any of the other illnesses vets come up with to console bereaved keepers, there is a pattern here. Anyone that has spent enough time on this forum knows that large monitors kept in as housepets in suboptimal conditions invariably die at a relatively young age. No one doubts that Dale loved Rusty, but some animals just aren't meant to be housepets because the conditions they require are different than the conditions in our homes. They do well for a while and usually look good (no dirt to stain their patterns), then they mysteriously die. 'The vet said it was _____ and there was nothing I could do about it'. Unfortunately, die they do.

people that feed their dogs lots of table scraps and then wonder why it has problems and dies early..or like us...we are what we eat...like over wieght people that can develope all kinds of problems associated with their eating habits...well i stopped the feeding of jumbo rats that had a high fat content even though they were cheaper about 2 years ago...good luck with your reptiles dk i'm sure you do a great job.............billy

I got this link from a post up above:

http://www.pizards.com/hbd/cleo.html

It tells the story of a Nile monitor named Cleo which outgrew its small enclosure and was thereafter allowed the run of the owner's home. Although it was clearly a much loved monitor, it too died of one of those vague illnesses that house monitors die of ("Late in 1998, Cleo died from an infection of the heart valve...She showed no earlier signs of illness. I took her remains to the vet for an autopsy".

my apologies to Cleo's owner. There wasn't meant to be a smiley face in that post, but I guess I had the quotation marks too close to a parenthesis and the forum software mistook it for an emoticon.

That pic you show is of Rusty when he was very young, if you look in Daniel Bennetts book Rusty was much larger and older. There are a few pics even newer that come to mind, one of Rusty under a 600watt infared heater outdoors on a cold day (posted on this forum at one time)in which he was standing and almost his entire stomach was dragging on the ground, another which wasnt as new where he was standing next to a cinderblock wall when he was just over 3 ft long, even in that pic he was very, very heavy.
None the less nobody tryed to say he didnt love his pet or try to do what he could for it, but he didnt try to do what was proven to work, he experimented and tryed to prove so many as being wrong, you know as was said "rewrite monitor husbandry". I stated to you to look at the newer pics of Rusty when his owner stated that he weighed 22lbs and was 4ft long. Im sorry but thats obese and so was he in the newest pics of him before his unfortunate death at a young age. Dont try to start problems by pointing the finger at others and referring to pics when he was only 2 ft long and Dale only had him for a few months or less than a year. Unfortunately Rustys homepage is no longer online, or anyone would be able to see any and all pics taken of him as well as the video clips of him coming to food. Im sorry heres a 10lb 4ft 6inch bosc to use as weight reference.

The ones on your site pictured with the half log....

Everything right, in his world as he tries to reinvent bad monitor husbandry. Astroturf for substrate, etc etc, just look at his website.