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Forget Me Not
Thank You for visiting our little corner of the web. We are dedicating this site in fond and loving memory of our pet lizards. It's hard for many people to understand how someone could own, let alone love, a lizard. Growing up, I had the usual array of pets: Dogs, Birds, Hamsters and Fish, but never a reptile. That all changed in 1997, when I got married and moved to the United States. My wife had owned a Plated Lizard (taken from her by an ex-boyfriend) and wanted another lizard. On a visit to my native England we had become fascinated by a pair of Bearded Dragons we saw in a pet store and upon returning to the US we purchased Spot and Lilly, a pair of BDs, from Peter Weiss. As Spot and Lilly grew, so did our enthusiasm for lizards. We were beginning to see distinct character in them and the ways in which they interacted with each other and with us. Dragons have their own 'language' consisting of 70 + documented distinct gestures (head bobbing and arm waving). We took them with us on car journeys and found that, like a cat or a dog, they would snuggle under a blanket with us. Within a year we had added 2 Rankins Dragons (Hannibal and Clarise) to our collection. Our small, one-bedroom, apartment was beginning to fill up with lizard cages. It was time to move. Salvation came just across the hallway. A 2 bedroom apartment with a view of Lake Union. Spot and Lilly occupied pride of place in the window, where Lilly would gaze for hours at the world outside. The following year my Wife bought me a pair of Egyptian Uromastyx (Brian and Chloe) for my Birthday and a whole new lizard vista opened up. Uros are the real characters of the reptile world. Highly inquisitive and always active. They have an almost pre-historic look and the most soulful eyes of any creature I have seen before or since. When a Uromastyx stares at you, it's as if they are looking 'into' you rather than at you. Eventually, the rent on our apartment became prohibitively high. To the point where we decided to buy a place of our own. We found a new 3 bedroom townhome about 20 minutes North of Seattle, so, at the beginning of 2000, we packed up our lizard troupe and headed to pastures new. The townhome had two big plusses for us: Lots of living room space and double pane storm windows. All the cages could fit comfortably along one wall and the heat from their lights meant that we hardly ever had to use the heating system to keep the house warm in Winter (although it would get close to 100 Degrees in the Summer, even with all the doors and windows open). Early in 2001 we had a call from our vet. She'd had a call from a lady who wanted to give away 2 Uros. Did we want them ? Well, there was one remaining alcove that didn't have a cage in it (I was going to buy a synthesizer and put it in there) and this was too good an offer to pass up. We were now joined by Fred and Ethel, a pair of Uromastyx Maliensis. Little did we know it at the time, but 'Ethel' was actually 'Ernie'. More about that in the next section.
There Can Be No Pleasure Without Pain Death was a part of lizard ownership we were not prepared for. Of course all creatures must die, but when an animal you have bonded so strongly with is taken prematurely by sickness it leaves a gnawing pain and emptiness. It's what motivated us to create this site but we would willingly give everything we own were that not to be so. We first experienced this pain on May 22nd 2000, when Clarise, our female Rankins Dragon passed away. Clarise was a sweetheart. A gentle, good-natured lizard who could be incredibly feisty when provoked. She would often torment Hannibal our (much bigger) male Rankins by walking over to the corner of her cage that was nearest to his and bobbing her head. Hannibal would come tearing across his cage, mouth gaping wide, and slam into the glass. Clarise would then just raise her head and tail, turn around and walk off (sometimes I could swear I saw her smiling). Little Clarise was plagued by illness from the time we bought her. She had a particularly bad parasite problem that took over a year to treat. Parasite medications are very hard on a reptile's digestive system. They slow the action of the gut and this can result in a loss of appetite. We regularly had to syringe feed Clarise with baby food and fluids. She also developed a calcium deficiency, which left her with brittle bones. The picture below shows her basking on the window ledge together with Lilly our Bearded Dragon. If you look closely at her front leg, you will see a small bandage. This is actually a custom made 'cast' to help heal her broken leg. On the morning of May 22nd 2000 I went to give Clarise her calcium syringe. When I lifted up her half-log I found her dead. It appears as though her poor little heart just gave out. We still miss Clarise a lot and think about her often. Her namesake, Clarise 2, now occupies a place next to Hannibal. She looks a lot like the original Clarise (we bought her from the same breeder) and has a character all her own.
I mentioned earlier that we adopted a pair of Uromastyx, Fred and Ethel, in early 2001. Fred ia a large, Eyed Ocellated Uromastyx Maliensis. Ethel was a smaller male-mimic (a female that had the patterns and coloration of a male), or so we thought. During the course of a year Fred and Ethel adapted to life in their new home. Though not as mellow as Brian and Chloe, the Egyptian Uros, they would allow us to handle them and we would let them take little walks around the house. They both liked to climb, so we hung a large piece of soft nylon mesh at the front of their cage. They would spend hours climbing to the top and back down the other side. It kept us amused and prevented them from trying to climb the glass sides of their cage, as this can injure their backs and tails. At the end of January 2002 we were getting ready to clean their cage, when I noticed that Ethel had a bloodied mass beneath her tail. Recognizing this as a sign of a prolapse (the genitals or rectum literally turning inside out) we rushed her to the vet. The vet was able to reinsert the genitals and informed us that Ethel was a male ! Ethel now became Ernie. The day after this happened, my wife and I returned from shopping to find that Ernie had popped a stitch and was prolapsing again. This time they could not reinsert the hemipenes and so poor little Ernie had to undergo surgery to remove them. The surgery seemed to go well, except that Ernie seemed to have problems co-ordinating the movement in his hind legs. The vet took some X-Rays but this didn't reveal any obvious blockages or obstructions. The assumption was that he had some urates (lizard urine contains solid matter) pressing on a nerve. We were told to give him warm baths, enemas and some medication that would help him to pass any blockages. A week or so passed and he didn't seem to be getting any better. Whereas he used to make some effort tom move his hind legs, now he would just drag them behind him. On February 13th 2002 I decided to take him back to the vet. I put him in his little carry case, placed him in the passenger seat of the car and set off. He seemed a little confused by what was happening so, whenever I stopped at a traffic light, I opened up his carry case, stroked him and talked to him. I remember saying "Don't worry Little One. Your Dad won't let anything bad happen to you". He seemed to relax a little and the remainder of the journey didn't disturb him. When I spoke to the vet, on the evening of February 15th, she said that he hadn't made any progress but he could come home for the weekend. I made plans for us to pick him up on Saturday 16th. Saturday morning we received a call from the vet informing us that Ernie had taken a turn for the worse. He just appeared to be "out of it". In her opinion it probably wasn't good for him to come home. She would take him home with her and call us on Sunday with an update. That day, and the whole of the next, was spent worrying about Ernie. We didn't receive a call on Sunday but had no idea if that was a good or a bad thing. I called the surgery first thing on Monday morning to be told that Ernie had slipped into a coma and passed away on the evening of Sunday 17th. I cried, the vet cried, the people in the surgery were all devastated. None of us could understand what had happened. As I am creating this page they are performing an autopsy on little Ernie to try and find out what happened. I am hoping that this information can be made available to others and may help another Uro in the future. For us, the pain of Ernie's loss cuts to the bone. We tried so hard to do everything we could for him. It just didn't seem to be enough. When the autopsy has been completed. Ernie will be cremated and we will bury his ashes next to Clarise, in the home where they knew unconditional love and will forever be remembered for the precious memories they gave us. This picture is the only one we have of Ernie. It was taken when we still knew him as 'Ethel'.
Now That I am Home Do not weep
for me, Do not weep
for me, Do not weep
for me,
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