I'm new here... but unfortunately suffered a sad loss today

[Russell84]

Hello I'm Russell,

I've just joined this forum. Earlier today I suffered a very sad loss

I had a male hypo-red bearded dragon who I named Drake. I had Drake from the age of 1-2 months old and brought him up into a beautiful adult dragon. He had nice markings, a massive long tail, a nice sandy/orange/brown colour and a very cute face. He was perfect! Not to mention the fact he was a great little character. Since adult hood he has had a continous battle with coccidia! I would treat it, sterilise his viv, but a month or two later it would crop up again. It was annoying but worth the battle!

Anyway, coming up to autumn/winter and he started to lose his appetite a little. I thought it was maybe seasonal, but sent a stool sample away to be tested just to be sure. It turns out it was riddled with 3 different parasites, even though he's had zero contact with other dragons. I started to treat him for the parasites but his appetite didn't return and he became sick very suddenly. Naturally I rushed him to the vet asap! The vet found a number of problems after an examination and running a blood test: he was anemic, he had a liver infection and he'd become very dehydrated. It's shocking that he could appear normal for so long, then just suddenly become so ill! The vet told me that he's very sick, but he should recover given time and medication. Meanwhile they were going to send away the blood for further analysis.

At this point I was upset but remained positive that with the right care and treatment he'll pull through. I had to inject him every day with an antibiotic. After a week of doing this and force feeding with a syringe, I saw no sign of improvement and a bit of weight loss. I was worried. Then the begining of the next week I had the most awful news from the vet! They said that a more detailed blood test shows that he has leukemia. I was so devastated that day. I've even had a few days off work because of stress! There is no treatment for leukemia in reptiles, all they can do is give him a steroid treatment to help improve his condition, which I went ahead with. Unfortunately he didnt respond to the steroids and continued to deteriorate. Its so upsetting to see such a beautiful creature become so ill so rapidly!

It was monday night (yesterday) that I decided it was time to consider euphanasia. I could see that he was struggling to sleep properly, he had become harder to force feed and was bringing food back up. He had lost considerable weight in the last few days. By this morning he'd been sick again and became very unresponsive! He just wanted to keep his eyes shut all the time. He barely had the energy to move when I picked him up and I had to make the very tough decision to have him euphanized.
my dad kindly took him to the vet for me as I couldn't bare to go! The vet agreed that euphanasia was the best option and believed that cancer had spread to his liver and potentially could have spread throughout his body. I'm happy that I've made the right decision, but its a very sad loss for me. He will be missed so much

I would like to have another dragon some time soon, they are so adorable! But it will be damn hard to find one nearly as nice as cute little Drake...

 

[Kthomp]

Drake was very fortunate to have you to care for him when he was sick and make the difficult but humane decision to end his suffering. I hope you find comfort in all the good times you had with him.

 

[Russell84]

Thanks. I would like to post a couple of pics of him on here, but not sure how to. If anyone could tell me I would be grateful!

 

[Kthomp]

There's a site called Photobucket.com. There's also a free app if you're using an IPad. You can upload your pics to Photobucket, then put them on your post from there.

 

[Russell84]

Thanks I'll try it now. Here's some pics of Drake. RIP little one...

 

[Kthomp]

What a beautiful guy!

 

[beardie parents]

He was gorgeous! You are right, you will never, ever fine another Drake as all beardies have different personalities. I believe all animals were given unique personalities, just like humans. I am really sorry you lost him. I know how much it hurts as we've lost 5 beardies since August of 2006. You will find another beardie to love just as much as you love Drake but, as I said, you will not find another Drake.

 

[jacody]

Sorry to hear about Drake- I lost Omni on Monday afternoon due to kidney failure and is not easy, she was my first beardie and only lived to 1.5 yrs. Looking through pics of her wasn't easy, but I made a photo collage of her to frame above her viv..

 

[Russell84]

So sorry to hear you lost Omni at such a young age. Drake was only 20 months old, and he was my first beardie too! Its horrible for them to pass away so young, it makes you realise just how fragile their lives can be! I'm still really gutted, I can't believe he's gone! What a fantastic pet he was though . I switched the light on in the viv this morning just because I couldn't bare staring at a cold empty viv.

Your right that I will never find another little Drake and neither would I want to replace him! I'm thinking with the christmas holidays coming up I might start looking at bearded dragons after christmas. To be honest I think my next choice will be just a plain grey beardie. These special breeds are generally weaker as they are more prone to genetic disorders from selective breeding. I don't want the same thing to happen again!

 

[beardie parents]

There is a lady that breeds beardies, she has some left from the clutch that hatched June 18. We have one of them and she's a doll she's doing good, also. Diane in NY has one of the males from that clutch. Another male is in his forever home in a suburb of the greater Phoenix area and he's doing really good. Her screen name is fresnowitte and her name is Barbara. She's having computer problems so if you are interested in checking them out you can pm Deb (sweetiepie9 is her screen name) one of our moderators and she can get ahold of Barbara for you and get you the information you want for your new beardies. Barbara breeds good, healthy beardies.

 

[Russell84]

Sounds great, but unfortunately its a very long way to travel for me to get a beardie. I'm in England! There is a couple of very good reptile shops where I live, and some very dodgy ones which I wouldn't go near! I think its just very unlucky to have one that developes cancers as its fairly uncommon in reptiles.

 

[jacody]

Russell- I did not know that the selective breeding could have weaker beardies as a result because Omni was a hypo red supposedly a german giant which I never saw any evidence of, but she was bred as a cross between cawley red and red crimson/flame. Interesting thing to think of.......

 

[Russell84]

Jacody - OMG! Drake was a hypo red german giant too! He wasn't very 'giant', but apparently german giant can just mean that they have a very long tail, which Drake did!

The problem is that breeders sometimes have to mate dragons that are too closely related in order to get the desirable mutations they want, like the high red colours etc. Although they look desirable to buyers, they can possibly have unseen genetic disorders as well! My vet was also saying that special breeds are generally weaker and may not have such long life spans! Its something worth considering when you want to buy another dragon, and I'm not saying that a special breed will definately develop problems, just that they could be more prone to problems. I now think Its better to have one the way that nature intended them to be. I'm going to look for a plain grey one, with maybe a bit of yellow colour

Another thing is Drake never really liked eating veg/fruit, despite all my attempts to get him to eat them. He just wanted to prey on insects lol. This diet couldn't have been good for him and may have even contributed to his problems. I read in a book that wild bearded dragons will eat up to 90% vegetation and only 10% live food! I think it must be important to check when your buying that they like their greens.

 

[jacody]

Russell- Omni had a long tail and she did not eat her salad despite changing the greens and adding different things, she ate crickets all the time and sometimes worms for treats. I'm not posting yet, but I did p/u a baby, but am waiting until it comes back negative on its fecal to know if I'm keeping him. He's not a morph or a high red/orange like Omni was- he's sand colors, gold, dk. brown and some orangey lines w/ the tan colors.. we'll see what happens w/ the fecal..

 

[Russell84]

Sounds like your new beardie has more natural colours so hopefully you'll have better luck (fingers crossed). Let me know how you get on. Even if the fecal analysis isn't clean at least parasites aren't really life threatening as long as you catch it early on, and they can be treated.