wendy, wow !! you hit the ol nail right on the head! thanks for the post ;o) nm

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Posted by sue3 on September 02, 2000 at 10:14:31:

In Reply to: BIG subject! L-o-n-g-e-s-t- post in history - sorry! posted by Ally's Mom on August 31, 2000 at 05:14:09:

: Wow. Where to start? I hope you have spent a lot of time reading the forum here, it will give you what you need to know.

: I don't know that I would refer to having an iguana as 'keeping a pet'. Caretaking of a precious life (deity LOL?) perhaps would be a more accurate description. Precious because their health in captivity can be precarious without a lot of knowledge, time and effort, and because there is no other life form living on earth today like it. Also precious because the only reason we are caretaking of that life is because it is humans who have put its life in danger by having it in captivity.

: So you are right, being owned by an iguana is not "having a traditional pet". It quickly becomes a lifestyle. (And what I wouldn't give to be able to ship Iggy to Ecuador where she belongs. I live in Canada. Iguanas should not.)

: Look into the eyes of an adult iguana, really look. You will see an intelligent, sentient being. I figure I'm not missing any bricks as far as humans go, and yet I cannot for the life of me *know* what my ig is thinking. I just know she thinks on an entirely different plane than I. And yes, they are as individual as people - as you would see on this forum.

: Where does the love come from? Now I know, from Ig Joe's post above --- it is just plain mystical. Unearthly, no explanation.

: Let me be clear - I am NOT an animal lover. I do not want ANY animals in my house....I like my lifestyle the way it is/was. However, I am an empathetic and caring person who takes responsibilities (too!) seriously, and I love my children (human). No matter how bizarre they get. I have paid $75 to have a mouse examined by a vet, and over $400 for an egg-bound bearded dragon who finally needed a caesarian (okay so maybe a few of my bricks are a little loose!)

: Then - one day - it came. The sobbing 18-year-old with a (unseen to me) bulge in her jacket got off the bus. In her room, bawling "she's dead, she's dead, ..please don't be dead!!". I think another one of her friends has died from a drug overdose. I leave the poor child alone. Later she asks me to buy some fresh lettuce, and I become concerned about her state of mental health. Bawling again, she tells me she has confiscated her boyfriend's lizard because she thought it was dead from cold!! He lives in an old house with no insulation, and the temps were near freezing. I think, ...okay - iguana. Greeny fat lizard...old ones can grow up to three feet, but this is only temporary until summer, and it is young and only about 18" long. Okay. Weird, but I don't have to see it. Yeah, right.

: Three days later, I went to make sure it was okay, as the daughter hadn't been home since. Eighteen inches my patoooee - I was looking at a freakin' armour-plated dinosaur that looked like it weighed 20 pounds. I stared at it (from a very healthy distance even though it was behind glass!) for nearly an hour. It was not exactly trying to say something, but it was 'meaning' something. It was making a statement? I knew I just didn't get it, whatever "it" was supposed to be. I looked at its food, the romaine lettuce. I looked at the dinosaur, and thought there isn't enough nutrition in romaine lettuce to keep this sucker alive! Went the pet store route & bought books. Yup, lettuce...and crickets. But apparently it needed a bigger cage than an aquarium the length of itself. Maybe more info on the net? Found Melissa Kaplan's site and nearly died. Motherhood instantly took over. Searched for fifty miles to find proper food.....vet checks.....and cage fixin's. Up went the hydro bill by $55/month. Ig food - 3 hours preparation time and approx $20/week. Cost of guilt for caging such a majestic (thanx again Ig Joe!) creature - ten years off my life. Payback for me -- a sense of love and respect so deep it is bottomless. That is why we ALL actually CRY when someone loses their friend. There again, all you need to know is on this forum. I said "friend" without thinking. I don't think any of us ever really refer to our igs as our 'pets'. They are true 'companions' sharing a lifespace with us. We all know the horrid loss it would be to lose our babies! Ha - there it is again...not 'my pet' but 'my baby'. Look at our names....we are "moms" and "dads"; we have our ig's name in our posting names; we 'chant' for each other; and where else would a grown woman be able to or even WANT to describe in detail how she, in scorching heat, put on jeans, sweatshirts, wrapped herself up in a big blanket -- jumps on a milk crate....flaps her arms and blanket like wings...and HISSES....and we all say "Yeah!!Congrats!! You go girl!" What possesses otherwise sane people to behave this way? Why are do we all care about 'poopies'?? What other pet forums have "humommies" or "Sunday a.m. pic'"s? Something very special goes on here..Read two month's worth of this forum and you will find out! Being 'owned and trained' by an iguana is a truly unique experience, and it changes you. You become responsible for a life, in the fullest sense of the phrase - and it is as life-changing as becoming a human parent.

: An anecdote?? Well, my favourite took place a week after Ig pooped ON the daugher's phone/answering machine. (The new $200.00 one she just had just gotten) Now this daughter is a complete spastic screamer on the phone, so I did really wonder at the time if Iggy did it on purpose. After all, she IS potty trained! So, a few days later - daughter comes home and finds out. The machine was ruined - ig poop is powerful stuff! The language and screaming that was coming out of that room!! And me screaming at her to stop scaring the poor ig helped too I'm sure. About two hours later I hear her bellow,..."Don't you DARE, don't you even THINK it!" Now, somehow this humommy (and any others reading this too I bet) knew exactly what was about to happen,...I covered the distance of 1,000+ feet in two leaps and flung open the bedroom door just in time for.....SPLAT!! Big poopie....right on daughter. Much of it tangled in her waist length hair. This humommy really WAS on the floor LMOA, after gripping the doorframe for support and sliding down. The sight of her-whom-I-call-Miss-Supremebi**h (only when she is out of earshot).... being deliberately poopied on by the creature now with its nose in the air - too much! Apparently Iggy had gotten up off her perch, crawled the couch, over the floor, up the daughter's bed, coming purposefully toward her ..."with that look in her eye" says daughter..."and I just KNEW she was coming to s**t on me!" Fortunately daughter had to laugh too, and the ig lived for another day.

: Last words, I promise! These beings are difficult, a little dangerous, expensive, time-consuming, space-requiring, worrying, huge committments that can last 18 to 20 years. Try going away for the weekend!! Is it worth it? To us, Absolutely. But not for everyone, and certainly not for someone who is not mature and in a stable environment. Look at us on the forum - where did we get our igs? Abandonned, and usually ill-cared for, most of them. ****Please do not advocate them being in the pet trade.******* As much as I would love to have a house full of igs, and take in all the rescues I see ... I would rather there be NONE available for our self-indulgent purposes without a special permit/licence that shows you know how to care for them, and can afford to provide for them. But as creatures to respect, there is none as incredible as the iguana. And the feeling of having earned the trust of an iguana, there is none as incredible.

: Advocate for rescues! Don't leave them waiting before the path!! :o(

: Wendy.

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: : : Wow. Where to start? I hope you have spent a lot of time reading the forum here, it will give you what you need to know. : : I don't know that I would refer to having an iguana as 'keeping a pet'. Caretaking of a precious life (deity LOL?) perhaps would be a more accurate description. Precious because their health in captivity can be precarious without a lot of knowledge, time and effort, and because there is no other life form living on earth today like it. Also precious because the only reason we are caretaking of that life is because it is humans who have put its life in danger by having it in captivity. : : So you are right, being owned by an iguana is not "having a traditional pet". It quickly becomes a lifestyle. (And what I wouldn't give to be able to ship Iggy to Ecuador where she belongs. I live in Canada. Iguanas should not.) : : Look into the eyes of an adult iguana, really look. You will see an intelligent, sentient being. I figure I'm not missing any bricks as far as humans go, and yet I cannot for the life of me *know* what my ig is thinking. I just know she thinks on an entirely different plane than I. And yes, they are as individual as people - as you would see on this forum. : : Where does the love come from? Now I know, from Ig Joe's post above --- it is just plain mystical. Unearthly, no explanation. : : Let me be clear - I am NOT an animal lover. I do not want ANY animals in my house....I like my lifestyle the way it is/was. However, I am an empathetic and caring person who takes responsibilities (too!) seriously, and I love my children (human). No matter how bizarre they get. I have paid $75 to have a mouse examined by a vet, and over $400 for an egg-bound bearded dragon who finally needed a caesarian (okay so maybe a few of my bricks are a little loose!) : : Then - one day - it came. The sobbing 18-year-old with a (unseen to me) bulge in her jacket got off the bus. In her room, bawling "she's dead, she's dead, ..please don't be dead!!". I think another one of her friends has died from a drug overdose. I leave the poor child alone. Later she asks me to buy some fresh lettuce, and I become concerned about her state of mental health. Bawling again, she tells me she has confiscated her boyfriend's lizard because she thought it was dead from cold!! He lives in an old house with no insulation, and the temps were near freezing. I think, ...okay - iguana. Greeny fat lizard...old ones can grow up to three feet, but this is only temporary until summer, and it is young and only about 18" long. Okay. Weird, but I don't have to see it. Yeah, right. : : Three days later, I went to make sure it was okay, as the daughter hadn't been home since. Eighteen inches my patoooee - I was looking at a freakin' armour-plated dinosaur that looked like it weighed 20 pounds. I stared at it (from a very healthy distance even though it was behind glass!) for nearly an hour. It was not exactly trying to say something, but it was 'meaning' something. It was making a statement? I knew I just didn't get it, whatever "it" was supposed to be. I looked at its food, the romaine lettuce. I looked at the dinosaur, and thought there isn't enough nutrition in romaine lettuce to keep this sucker alive! Went the pet store route & bought books. Yup, lettuce...and crickets. But apparently it needed a bigger cage than an aquarium the length of itself. Maybe more info on the net? Found Melissa Kaplan's site and nearly died. Motherhood instantly took over. Searched for fifty miles to find proper food.....vet checks.....and cage fixin's. Up went the hydro bill by $55/month. Ig food - 3 hours preparation time and approx $20/week. Cost of guilt for caging such a majestic (thanx again Ig Joe!) creature - ten years off my life. Payback for me -- a sense of love and respect so deep it is bottomless. That is why we ALL actually CRY when someone loses their friend. There again, all you need to know is on this forum. I said "friend" without thinking. I don't think any of us ever really refer to our igs as our 'pets'. They are true 'companions' sharing a lifespace with us. We all know the horrid loss it would be to lose our babies! Ha - there it is again...not 'my pet' but 'my baby'. Look at our names....we are "moms" and "dads"; we have our ig's name in our posting names; we 'chant' for each other; and where else would a grown woman be able to or even WANT to describe in detail how she, in scorching heat, put on jeans, sweatshirts, wrapped herself up in a big blanket -- jumps on a milk crate....flaps her arms and blanket like wings...and HISSES....and we all say "Yeah!!Congrats!! You go girl!" What possesses otherwise sane people to behave this way? Why are do we all care about 'poopies'?? What other pet forums have "humommies" or "Sunday a.m. pic'"s? Something very special goes on here..Read two month's worth of this forum and you will find out! Being 'owned and trained' by an iguana is a truly unique experience, and it changes you. You become responsible for a life, in the fullest sense of the phrase - and it is as life-changing as becoming a human parent. : : An anecdote?? Well, my favourite took place a week after Ig pooped ON the daugher's phone/answering machine. (The new $200.00 one she just had just gotten) Now this daughter is a complete spastic screamer on the phone, so I did really wonder at the time if Iggy did it on purpose. After all, she IS potty trained! So, a few days later - daughter comes home and finds out. The machine was ruined - ig poop is powerful stuff! The language and screaming that was coming out of that room!! And me screaming at her to stop scaring the poor ig helped too I'm sure. About two hours later I hear her bellow,..."Don't you DARE, don't you even THINK it!" Now, somehow this humommy (and any others reading this too I bet) knew exactly what was about to happen,...I covered the distance of 1,000+ feet in two leaps and flung open the bedroom door just in time for.....SPLAT!! Big poopie....right on daughter. Much of it tangled in her waist length hair. This humommy really WAS on the floor LMOA, after gripping the doorframe for support and sliding down. The sight of her-whom-I-call-Miss-Supremebi**h (only when she is out of earshot).... being deliberately poopied on by the creature now with its nose in the air - too much! Apparently Iggy had gotten up off her perch, crawled the couch, over the floor, up the daughter's bed, coming purposefully toward her ..."with that look in her eye" says daughter..."and I just KNEW she was coming to s**t on me!" Fortunately daughter had to laugh too, and the ig lived for another day. : : Last words, I promise! These beings are difficult, a little dangerous, expensive, time-consuming, space-requiring, worrying, huge committments that can last 18 to 20 years. Try going away for the weekend!! Is it worth it? To us, Absolutely. But not for everyone, and certainly not for someone who is not mature and in a stable environment. Look at us on the forum - where did we get our igs? Abandonned, and usually ill-cared for, most of them. ****Please do not advocate them being in the pet trade.******* As much as I would love to have a house full of igs, and take in all the rescues I see ... I would rather there be NONE available for our self-indulgent purposes without a special permit/licence that shows you know how to care for them, and can afford to provide for them. But as creatures to respect, there is none as incredible as the iguana. And the feeling of having earned the trust of an iguana, there is none as incredible. : : Advocate for rescues! Don't leave them waiting before the path!! :o( : : Wendy.

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