[******** you, I’m sleepy”
Selenie is my 8 year old Bearded Dragon. I got her from my sister’s exboyfriend – boyfriend at the time. He had gotten her from a breeder, and realized that having a lizard was actual work and not just something cool to show off to your friends. Knowing that I had an interest in reptiles, he made me an offer (Trying to at least remake some of what he spent) $50 for her and everything he had for her. I was 17 – and felt like I could make major choices for my household without backlash, so I told him HECK YES! My parents found out after she got to the house – my mother was LIVID, and my father was not overjoyed either. What the hell did their daughter bring into the house now?
She was little, and at roughly a year old she should have been larger, and much more social. Her first reaction upon seeing her mother-to-be? She puffed up and gave me the most soul withering hiss she could manage. You could not even so much as touch her, not unless you had a suit of armor because by gods in her mind she was Smaug’s ill-legitimate daughter.
”Alright, Let’s do this!”
When that happened, I had sinking feeling that maybe I had made a bad choice. I had been reading up on their care and trying to do what was right by her. Even going so far as to turn around and go to the store to buy the proper equipment and food right when she got to the house. I did later find out that he had not handled her at all, and that her diet had been nothing but meal worms since he got her. They were easy and cheap to feed her – so that’s what he did. No love, no handling, no social skills had been worked on her. But it was an “Oh crap, can I touch her to make her a nice not-angry ball of hate?” It was… slow to say the least and I often had to simple hang around the tank with food in my hands. Shockingly, she went for salad options almost right away. It was as if she had never seen something green before, and of course she ate all of what I offered. After I got her on the right food/feeding times, she got more social with me, and even would come out of her house if she saw me coming with her breakfast. Maybe that’s why Smaug is so pissed all the time – he needs a damn samich. After sleeping on gold for a few hundred years, I would be hungry to.
”Where the hell is my SANDWHICH!?
Her insane appetite is also why she is now a fat old lizard. I can remember many times that eating my own breakfast was a mistake if she was on my shoulder. One of her first food stealing episodes was when I was eating yogurt with fruit it. She is insane about her fruit, it’s why she gets it so rarely (That and its bad in large amounts for her) and it is usually a treat. She went after my spoon and succeeded in getting a good mouth full of the stuff before I managed to pull her away. She seemed very pleased. She is also very lazy, and tends to lay around her tank or where ever I tend to put her. It’s how she got her nickname “Retarded Turtle” because of how she would sit in her turtle shell when she was still young.
Now that she is older she is much slower, and less likely to run around my desk while I am playing games. The only time she gets really moving is when she is put outside in her outdoor pen. She loves it out there, and when you put her on the ground she is CONVINCED she is suddenly a wild animal. She will puff up at me, turn her beard black, and give me a piece of her mind. But when I reach down to grab her, she gives up right away, it’s almost a “Ah damn… You did not fall for it, too old for this… Take me inside… Where’s my food?”
It’s sad, she was my second ‘kid’ and I can already tell she is in her senior years. A year ago I noticed a small bump on her back – figured it was a scale that had not shed. It has since grown into a good sized tumor. She is not bothered by it, does not seem to affect her eating/getting around/quality of life. I figure she will tell me when its time. For now, I will be happy to keep my angry retarded turtle around.
Picture is a bit old, but it still counts! Selenie at 4 years old!
