My Reptilian Pets

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This weeks theme is Pets/Animals

Warning: If you really don’t like turtles or lizards go away now and come back another day.

The Box Turtles:

The box turtle on the left is Spaz. He’s an Eastern box turtle and he thinks he’s a lizard. He likes to climb. Only problem is that he doesn’t do it all that well. Hence the name Spaz. The turtle on the right is Spaz’ love interest Myrtle. She’s an Ornate box turtle. She’s not a very good climber either but she tries. Spaz is about 11 years old and Myrtle was 35 or so when we got her so I guess she’s 46 now. She’s getting up there. They were out for a garden walk when I snapped these pics.

Now for the Water Dragons!

This is a photo of two of my water dragons. Night is on the left and Rogue is on the right. Don’t they look cute, it’s almost as if they posed that way. I had a total of 7 water dragons at one time, but sadly all are long gone.

My main website started as a way to help people care for their water dragon lizards, but over the 11 years that it’s been in existence it’s grown into a monster of a site with information on the care of over 100 popular pet reptiles. The site has also had over 10 million visitors in that time. I have an article coming out in Reptiles USA magazine August 1st about the care of Water Dragons. Yep, these babies have made me famous in select circles.

Finally, my beloved Napoleon. I really care/cared about all of my pets but Napoleon was so very special. He was a rescue and we never thought we’d end up keeping him but he grew on us and we ended up having him 9 years. We think he was about 13 when he passed away in 2003.

He never liked the camera so it was hard to take a picture of him looking relaxed. He was such a sweetie. I think rescued animals know when they’ve found a good home and I think he was such a good boy because he’d had such a terrible life before we brought him home. If you like iguanas and want to know more about Napoleons story go to my main site and read about his rescue.

He was tame, very tame, but that came with a lot of work and training. He also had a TON of personality and was smart. He was trained to poop in a particular area too. Now would you think you could potty train a lizard? Well ya can.

I’d say his personality was a cross between a cat and a dog to use familiar examples. He was like a cat in that he would do the things he wanted to do when he wanted to whether that be come over for a visit and a rub or get curious and get into trouble. He was like a dog in that he really enjoyed attention and seemed to know when we were talking to him and he’d usually respond by “talking” back to us by bobbing his head.

Anyway, to end this and give you and idea of just how big he was here’s a picture of him with my husband Chris. Napoleon was 7 feet long and weighed approx 15 pounds near the time of his passing. May he rest in peace. I felt like I lost a son when he died. Actually, I think I’m still grieving.

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