Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Well, I had posted on here that my wife had rescued an iguana and that we had quickly found someone that wanted to adopt it. That seems to have fallen through. I was worried that if we had it for too long it would grow on us quickly and it has. My wife is still trying to quickly find a good home for it as I put together plans for a proper enclosure.

I am amazed at how sweet this little guy is. He was found in a cardboard box at a construction site and my wife agreed to take him in till we could find someone to adopt it or a rescue group to place it with but with the hurricanes most adoption places are booked up with iguanas.

So far other than a few scratches we have had no problems with him at all. While we are at work he spends the day infront of a window with a tv on (he seems to have issues with animal planet every time they show an iguana, so I think it is soaps for him today). He has also been spending much time free ranging in our bedroom (under our supervision) staying almost completely on the top of my dresser.

I am torn on what to do from here. He is not the least bit shy or seem nervous around people. And seems to really want attention. The only drawback at the momment is that to have him in a proper enclosure where we are now it is going to take up a fair amount of space. Right now he is in a 20gal long that my wife's PetStore employeer let her borrow. We know it is too small for him and thought that it was going to be for a couple of short days at most. I am putting a picture on here and given the size he is, what would be a good size for him to use for the next few months at most? We are going to be moving before next summer into a larger home and my wife had been talking about doing more with animal education, he has already been to my son's school (where his teacher kept calling it a bearded dragon... ugh!). I just hate the thought of him going to another home and just being another stop along the way. It breaks my heart thinking of such a sweet animal going from house to house and never having a real home. Am I completely losing it here?

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Bryan, Atlanta GA

1-0-0 Ball Python - Apep
0-1-0 Mountain Horned Dragon - Ki
0-0-1 Aggressive Bearded Dragon - Zeus
1-1-0 Rats... no wait... ROTTEN Little Cats - Ra, Bastet
0-1-0 Little Angelic Kitten - Isis
1-0-0 Horse... whoops... BIG Golden Retriever - Jake
0-1-0 Wife
2-0-0 Kids

You are being very sweet.

A coup[le of our reptiles are "rescues" of various kinds; my own green iggy came to use with a bad cut on his tail, for example.

They can be quite endearing; good look!

..Scott (who has a terrible time not trying to keep every wayward lizard he finds)
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Scott Robert Ladd
1.0.0 Iguana (Rex)
1.1.0 African Giant Plated Lizard (Clyde, Cassie)
1.0.1 Uro mali (Wizard, Dizzy)
0.1.0 Corn Snake (Amber)
0.1.0 Red-Eared Sliders (Emerald)
0.0.1 Musk Turtle (Sausage)
1.1.0 Parakeet (Thor, Zeus)
1.4.0 Homo sapiens (Scott, Maria, Elora, Becky, Tessa)
blog: http://chaoticcoyote.blogspot.com/

Thank you for the kind words. All of our animals were rescued (I think my wife also throws me into her rescue count). I think the funniest part of this whole thing is that the iguana (currently named 'Bud') really does not seem to like me. I go near him and he hisses at me or strikes in my direction. However when my wife picks him up he is a completely different character. He lounges on her head with a content look and does well with the kids too. I think it may be that he already knows he has suckered me into wanting to keep him and is putting his "cuteness" on display for her to sucker her in too.

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Bryan, Atlanta GA

1-0-0 Ball Python - Apep
0-1-0 Mountain Horned Dragon - Ki
0-0-1 Aggressive Bearded Dragon - Zeus
1-1-0 Rats... no wait... ROTTEN Little Cats - Ra, Bastet
0-1-0 Little Angelic Kitten - Isis
1-0-0 Horse... whoops... BIG Golden Retriever - Jake
0-1-0 Wife
2-0-0 Kids

Well, if you can manage it, my vote would be for you to keep him. It's really hard to find genuine loving homes out there for igs. If you think he can be potty trained pretty quickly you can also let him be a roamer. My female is paper trained and loved to hang out up in my closet. They really like hight. So, we hung some lights up there and let her stay. We bathed her every day so she could potty and if we weren't home she would come down and use her paper in a certain spot. The reason I'm talking about her in the past tense is because we had a kitchen fire this summer so we are relocated for a bit and renting. I have her in a temporary enclosure for now. I've also seen a friend of mine build a shelf unit with rope ladder, etc and a basking spot on top with UVB etc. Her boy would stay up there all day. Another friend converted one of her bathrooms for her ig. There are a lot of possibilities for you should you keep the little guy. Good luck in your decision! Here his her picture below. JN

I vote you should keep him too. Rescues tend to be almost ggreatful to their new owners....Sunshine was a rescue that i was going to be rehabed and re adopted. To my husbands dismay....she has not yet been relocated....for the past 2 and a half years. It is hard to relocate igs when YOU know deep down that they love you just as much as you love (or in my husbands case dont love) them. frustrating? ya a little, but i would personally feel much better knowing that sunshine has a great homme with me...not eating iceberg lettuce and scrambled eggs like she was in her first 2 homes.

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"Brains for dinner, brains for lunch. Brains for breakfast, brains for brunch. Brains for every single meal; why can't we have some GUTS?"-Misfits

1.0 ball python- Azazel
1.0 red blood python-Hiss
1.0 peach phase thayeri-Sancho......MIA
0.1 creamsicle corn- Pandora
0.1 partial stripe ghost corn- Raven
1.0 Sunglow motley corn-Ernie
1.1 hognose- Pricilla and Odd
0.2 leos- Boji and Kodama
0.1 beardie- Indie
1.0 BTS- Griffon
0.1 Iggy- Sunny
0.0.1 crested gecko- Jubeh
0.1 leucistic texas ratsnake-Ojo
0.1 pacific parrolet- Mishka
1.1 cats- Cairo and Oberon
2.0 bettas
0.0.1 goldfish-fishwad
1.0 Husband (hes my favorite, but i dont let the 'kids' know that. )

Sorry I was answering the messages and forgot the way that they branch off, I was trying to answer each seperately. Thank you for your vote of confidence too. We have build a semi-team effort between the kids and I ('Bud' is helping too in his own special ways) and hopefully we will get her to agree to him staying soon. My wife is really one of a kind and has more compassion that anyone I have ever met. It drives me crazy sometimes, but I have learned to live with it. She always wants what is best for animals and I know once she realizes that the "best place" is with us she will accept it. With two of our cats, she and a friend from work found a mother and some kittens that were living in a really bad area and she got all except for one kitten (it drove her nuts trying to catch it) and went back every day for a week after work trying to help that last one. We kept two (including the one that she worked so hard to catch- I can not imagine the little rat actually going back outside... it would be beneath her) and the mother and others were adopted out to good homes. Like I said before I want to give any of our animals the best home possible and don't want to be just another stop on their paths.

Your husband is lucky to have such a caring wife that will willing to frustrate him with a large lizard, LOL.

Of course on the flip side of things as nice as my wife is, she did try to feed me to a tiger...

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Bryan, Atlanta GA

1-0-0 Ball Python - Apep
0-1-0 Mountain Horned Dragon - Ki
0-0-1 Aggressive Bearded Dragon - Zeus
1-1-0 Rats... no wait... ROTTEN Little Cats - Ra, Bastet
0-1-0 Little Angelic Kitten - Isis
1-0-0 Horse... whoops... BIG Golden Retriever - Jake
0-1-0 Wife
2-0-0 Kids

Off topic but i love that Misfits song.

G

Thank you for your help in this (with this and my prior post)! My wife actually broke (a little) last night and informed me that the owner of the local skateboard park volunteered to help us create a nice enclosure for him, so I think I am getting closer to getting her to crack. 'Bud' seems to be putting everything that he can into the effort too (except for pooping on her yesturday). I think in the back of her mind she knew that he would end up growing on us quickly (both emotionally and physically!). I am just looking forward to getting this completely resolved. We are getting rid of our kids for a week (that didn't sound right, oh well) so I will have more time to spend with 'Bud' and see if I can get him to warm up to me a little more. I think he may have been mistreated by a male in the past or I may just be reading too much into his actions.

Also, what part of North Carolina are you in? I am from Charlotte and lived their till a couple of years ago.
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Bryan, Atlanta GA

1-0-0 Ball Python - Apep
0-1-0 Mountain Horned Dragon - Ki
0-0-1 Aggressive Bearded Dragon - Zeus
1-1-0 Rats... no wait... ROTTEN Little Cats - Ra, Bastet
0-1-0 Little Angelic Kitten - Isis
1-0-0 Horse... whoops... BIG Golden Retriever - Jake
0-1-0 Wife
2-0-0 Kids

I'm in Goldsboro which is outside of Raleigh. JN

And yes, like everyone else here (practically) I found my iguana. One iguana is not so hard to care for, once you get organized and just make it part of your routine. It's when you have more than one that it starts to get really crazy, so maybe you should talk to your wife and tell her that if you can keep this one, you promise to adopt out any future iguanas you might find.

Don't laugh, I actually found a SECOND iguana almost one year to the day after I found Bud. As much as it broke my heart, I had to adopt him to another family because iguanas tend to hate each other.

As for not liking men, some iguanas just don't like one gender or the other. Sometimes it has to do with hormones- During breeding season, Bud will do ANYTHING to bite me. He thrashes against the walls of his enclosure and can not be allowed out, because he will chase me around and launch himself at me. For my boyfriend (or any other male), he is a perfect little gentleman!

Here is a picture of Bud at this time last year, in his house. It works pretty well for him right now, although I'm saving up for a new Bud house from Custom Cages.

The cage in the picture is a ferret cage from PetSmart. It only cost around $200, is fully collapsible and portable, and every part of it can be disinfected in the tub or washed in the dishwasher. It comes with a base that has wheels on it. Best of all, he CAN NOT get out of it when we're not home!

My Bud loves to watch cartoons... maybe you can try that for your Bud, too.