crickest
Juvie Member
I want to relate the story of Ash. It starts with a fish tank. My almost nine year old son decided he wanted a fish, or a fish tank. He had saved almost a hundred dollars of allowance money and wanted to buy himself a tank and some fish. I've had fish tanks before and really didn't want to have them again. So, when we ended up at the pet store looking at a fish tank and he showed some interest in getting a lizard I encouraged him. We looked at the Chinese Water Dragon, the leopard gecko, the bearded dragon, but it became pretty apparent that the person at the pet store didn't know as much as we would have liked. We decided to go to a local reptile store, which specializes in reptiles, thinking they would have more information.
The reptile store had a ton of beardies. We got to talking to a guy named Fred who encouraged us to get a beardie, saying they were easy keepers, but that we didn't want a baby. This store does trading/buying of older reptiles from people who can no longer keep/want them, holds them for 24 hours and then resells them. (Found this out later). Ash was one of these beardies. He wasn't fancy, just brown and beige with a little yellow along the sides of his face and over his eyes. He was easy to hold and seemed to like us. $400 later we had everything we were told we needed. (They sold us a tank that was too small, a UVB bulb that wasn't any good, calci-sand, and stick on temperture gauges). I was feeling like we had gotten hit with a mac truck (why in the world did I think having a beardie would be cheaper or easier than a fish tank?) but the boy put in all of his allowance he had saved, and agreed the balance would be his birthday present and his Godmother chipped in on the cost, otherwise I'm not sure we would have been willing to spend the money. So, Ash came home.
I don't know what I expected, but I didn't expect to fall in love with the little guy. My son was swept away. If it was possible for him to find his soul mate in an animal, he found it in Ash. I was primarily in charge of feeding, dusting crickets, adjusting the lights. It was during that time that I found this website and began reading in an attempt to educate myself. Based on what I had read, we removed the calci-sand, got better thermometers and a bigger viv. However, we didn't realize the UVB bulb was bad.
Ash was patient with my learning about him, and after two weeks of struggle, where he only pooped twice, we got him regulated. He was eating lots of crickets, was off and on the salad, pooping most mornings and completely affectionate to all of us. He loved to get out of his viv and explore my son's room, but would come running when my son called his name. He would climb out to the end of his wood and watch through the glass as my son played guitar hero. You could almost see him bobbing in time to the music. He also loved to watch iCarly while sitting on my son's leg, or from the end of the wood in the viv.
As time went on, I continued to worry about him, losing sleep or waking often at night to go check on him. It just didn't feel right, although I was doing everything I knew to do. Some days he would sleep a lot (although he always perked up when he was outside the viv, at least for a little while, and then he would find someplace to sleep), he wouldn't want to stand up on his hind legs, he seemed lethargic and placid. We didn't realize how lethargic, since we had nothing to compare him too, and he was still pretty active for short periods of time. Then he began to go off his feed. He didn't want to eat as much and it was harder to get food into him. I hadn't came across the threads detailing feeding him squash in an eye dropper/syringe or I would have tried that on him. We were bathing him, dripping water on his nose, and trying everything on the nutrition list to try and tempt his appetite. We even tried dragon bites from Nature Zone, which he actually liked quite a bit. (Another recommendation from the pet store) I was even beginning to wonder if we were dealing with brumation, since the weather here has been a bit upside down and we were finally getting snow for the first time all winter.
One morning, April 3rd, he had only eaten a couple of crickets. He had pooped like a good boy and I had cleaned it out of his viv. When I came back into the room with his fresh veggies he was on his log, his beard, chest and front legs were completely black and he was ridgid. I freaked. I called my partner in to the room while lifting Ash from the viv. I couldn't get him to respond. I put him in a warm bath and began stroking his belly. After five minutes or so he opened his mouth and took a gasping breath. While I was rubbing him, my partner was trying to find any information on this site that she could, plus find a vet we could take him to. The only thing we could find was a blockage in the stomach. After two hours of rubbing his belly his black beard had gotten lighter, he was breathing better, although not normal, and we felt like we could get him to the vet. By this time, my son was awake, we were all crying and praying Ash would get better.
Not being able to find a vet who was in, who had experience with beardies, we chose to drive an hour north to the Colorado State University Veterinary Hospital to have Dr. Matt Johnston look at Ash. We rigged the heat lamp in the car and my partner held him under the heat all the way to the hospital. By the time we got there, Ash's beard was no longer pitch black and he had moved away from the heat lamp onto her shoulder. We took him in to be examined. The first thing the Dr noticed was that there were no fat deposits on Ash's stomach. They quizzed us about our husbandry and I told them everything. The Dr said it sounded as though we had done everything correct and that whatever the issue was, it wasn't our care. Over the course of the day, they took blood, took an xray and finally did an endoscopy to remove what was in his belly. It was a dragon bite (soft gelatin dragon food from Nature Zone) but it didn't make any sense that the dragon bite was blocking him, since it was soft and pliable and certainly much smaller than his mouth. The Drs couldn't find anything else wrong, either in the blood work or in the xrays. They felt they had reversed the issue that was causing him distress. Ash came out from under with no problems and they were expecting a full recovery. I think that was the first time I had seen a smile on my boy's face all day. They wanted to keep him overnight, to give fluids and some food in the morning before sending him home with us. So, with happy hearts we went in to say goodbye and to tell Ash we would see him the next day.
The drive home was much better than the drive there. About fifteen minutes after we got home I got a phone call that Ash had stopped breathing and they had to put him back on the ventilator. When my son heard there was an issue with Ash, he lost his mind. The Dr told me he wasn't breathing on his own, that his heart was failing, and that they had done everything they knew to do. Ash died while we were on the phone. My son wanted to go and say goodbye, but we didn't think it was a good idea and we wanted a necropsy done, since no one knew why Ash had died. Losing Ash was awful and I think one of the worst parts was the fact that we hadn't even made it to my son's birthday with the lizard alive. We all cried for days and did the best we could to comfort the boy. He kept saying that he was going to die and asking Ash to wait for him. It darned near killed me to hear him, not to mention, I missed Ash almost as much as my son did.
The reason I'm sharing this story now, is because I received the results of the necropsy today. Ash had ""chronic suppurative pneumonia with hyperplasia and squamous metaplasia of airway epithelium". The vet said he had a chronic, bacterial pneumonia probably caused by a suppressed immune system, which in turn was caused by vitamin A deficiency. It was chronic to the point where the cellular structure of the lungs had been altered. Ash was already dying when we took him home. There were xrays taken of Ash's chest, which showed no signs of pneumonia, so we're not sure it could have been diagnosed. Or even treated.
I don't think there is a moral to this story, unless it's "buyer beware". . . or "don't trust the pet stores". . . or even "listen to your gut when its telling you there is something wrong." I just don't want Ash to be forgotten. . . or his short life with us to be unknown. We still miss him every day and although we have a new dragon to love and care for, its not the same. We try really hard not to call Spark by Ash's name and not a day goes by that I don't thank Ash for the things I learned taking care of him, for his patience, for the way he cocked his head when he saw me, and for the trust and love I know he bore my son. I think, somewhere over the Rainbow Bridge, he's rocking to guitar hero and waiting for my son.
Thank you to the Drs and staff at CSU for their help, support and empathy in dealing with my family, and for doing their best for Ash.
And thank you to the readers of this post, for carrying Ash's story with you. Love to your beardies from our beloved friend.
The reptile store had a ton of beardies. We got to talking to a guy named Fred who encouraged us to get a beardie, saying they were easy keepers, but that we didn't want a baby. This store does trading/buying of older reptiles from people who can no longer keep/want them, holds them for 24 hours and then resells them. (Found this out later). Ash was one of these beardies. He wasn't fancy, just brown and beige with a little yellow along the sides of his face and over his eyes. He was easy to hold and seemed to like us. $400 later we had everything we were told we needed. (They sold us a tank that was too small, a UVB bulb that wasn't any good, calci-sand, and stick on temperture gauges). I was feeling like we had gotten hit with a mac truck (why in the world did I think having a beardie would be cheaper or easier than a fish tank?) but the boy put in all of his allowance he had saved, and agreed the balance would be his birthday present and his Godmother chipped in on the cost, otherwise I'm not sure we would have been willing to spend the money. So, Ash came home.
I don't know what I expected, but I didn't expect to fall in love with the little guy. My son was swept away. If it was possible for him to find his soul mate in an animal, he found it in Ash. I was primarily in charge of feeding, dusting crickets, adjusting the lights. It was during that time that I found this website and began reading in an attempt to educate myself. Based on what I had read, we removed the calci-sand, got better thermometers and a bigger viv. However, we didn't realize the UVB bulb was bad.
Ash was patient with my learning about him, and after two weeks of struggle, where he only pooped twice, we got him regulated. He was eating lots of crickets, was off and on the salad, pooping most mornings and completely affectionate to all of us. He loved to get out of his viv and explore my son's room, but would come running when my son called his name. He would climb out to the end of his wood and watch through the glass as my son played guitar hero. You could almost see him bobbing in time to the music. He also loved to watch iCarly while sitting on my son's leg, or from the end of the wood in the viv.
As time went on, I continued to worry about him, losing sleep or waking often at night to go check on him. It just didn't feel right, although I was doing everything I knew to do. Some days he would sleep a lot (although he always perked up when he was outside the viv, at least for a little while, and then he would find someplace to sleep), he wouldn't want to stand up on his hind legs, he seemed lethargic and placid. We didn't realize how lethargic, since we had nothing to compare him too, and he was still pretty active for short periods of time. Then he began to go off his feed. He didn't want to eat as much and it was harder to get food into him. I hadn't came across the threads detailing feeding him squash in an eye dropper/syringe or I would have tried that on him. We were bathing him, dripping water on his nose, and trying everything on the nutrition list to try and tempt his appetite. We even tried dragon bites from Nature Zone, which he actually liked quite a bit. (Another recommendation from the pet store) I was even beginning to wonder if we were dealing with brumation, since the weather here has been a bit upside down and we were finally getting snow for the first time all winter.
One morning, April 3rd, he had only eaten a couple of crickets. He had pooped like a good boy and I had cleaned it out of his viv. When I came back into the room with his fresh veggies he was on his log, his beard, chest and front legs were completely black and he was ridgid. I freaked. I called my partner in to the room while lifting Ash from the viv. I couldn't get him to respond. I put him in a warm bath and began stroking his belly. After five minutes or so he opened his mouth and took a gasping breath. While I was rubbing him, my partner was trying to find any information on this site that she could, plus find a vet we could take him to. The only thing we could find was a blockage in the stomach. After two hours of rubbing his belly his black beard had gotten lighter, he was breathing better, although not normal, and we felt like we could get him to the vet. By this time, my son was awake, we were all crying and praying Ash would get better.
Not being able to find a vet who was in, who had experience with beardies, we chose to drive an hour north to the Colorado State University Veterinary Hospital to have Dr. Matt Johnston look at Ash. We rigged the heat lamp in the car and my partner held him under the heat all the way to the hospital. By the time we got there, Ash's beard was no longer pitch black and he had moved away from the heat lamp onto her shoulder. We took him in to be examined. The first thing the Dr noticed was that there were no fat deposits on Ash's stomach. They quizzed us about our husbandry and I told them everything. The Dr said it sounded as though we had done everything correct and that whatever the issue was, it wasn't our care. Over the course of the day, they took blood, took an xray and finally did an endoscopy to remove what was in his belly. It was a dragon bite (soft gelatin dragon food from Nature Zone) but it didn't make any sense that the dragon bite was blocking him, since it was soft and pliable and certainly much smaller than his mouth. The Drs couldn't find anything else wrong, either in the blood work or in the xrays. They felt they had reversed the issue that was causing him distress. Ash came out from under with no problems and they were expecting a full recovery. I think that was the first time I had seen a smile on my boy's face all day. They wanted to keep him overnight, to give fluids and some food in the morning before sending him home with us. So, with happy hearts we went in to say goodbye and to tell Ash we would see him the next day.
The drive home was much better than the drive there. About fifteen minutes after we got home I got a phone call that Ash had stopped breathing and they had to put him back on the ventilator. When my son heard there was an issue with Ash, he lost his mind. The Dr told me he wasn't breathing on his own, that his heart was failing, and that they had done everything they knew to do. Ash died while we were on the phone. My son wanted to go and say goodbye, but we didn't think it was a good idea and we wanted a necropsy done, since no one knew why Ash had died. Losing Ash was awful and I think one of the worst parts was the fact that we hadn't even made it to my son's birthday with the lizard alive. We all cried for days and did the best we could to comfort the boy. He kept saying that he was going to die and asking Ash to wait for him. It darned near killed me to hear him, not to mention, I missed Ash almost as much as my son did.
The reason I'm sharing this story now, is because I received the results of the necropsy today. Ash had ""chronic suppurative pneumonia with hyperplasia and squamous metaplasia of airway epithelium". The vet said he had a chronic, bacterial pneumonia probably caused by a suppressed immune system, which in turn was caused by vitamin A deficiency. It was chronic to the point where the cellular structure of the lungs had been altered. Ash was already dying when we took him home. There were xrays taken of Ash's chest, which showed no signs of pneumonia, so we're not sure it could have been diagnosed. Or even treated.
I don't think there is a moral to this story, unless it's "buyer beware". . . or "don't trust the pet stores". . . or even "listen to your gut when its telling you there is something wrong." I just don't want Ash to be forgotten. . . or his short life with us to be unknown. We still miss him every day and although we have a new dragon to love and care for, its not the same. We try really hard not to call Spark by Ash's name and not a day goes by that I don't thank Ash for the things I learned taking care of him, for his patience, for the way he cocked his head when he saw me, and for the trust and love I know he bore my son. I think, somewhere over the Rainbow Bridge, he's rocking to guitar hero and waiting for my son.
Thank you to the Drs and staff at CSU for their help, support and empathy in dealing with my family, and for doing their best for Ash.
And thank you to the readers of this post, for carrying Ash's story with you. Love to your beardies from our beloved friend.
