Nathaniel, Cierra, Castiel, Freya, Grrl; RIP GABRIEL

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We never expected to get another dragon, but our neighbours next door wanted to give away Cleo, as he was called. We'd babysat him before, he's such a sweetheart. We nicknamed him Velcro because when he snuggles he never wants to go back to his viv, he hangs on as if he's made out of velcro.

So here he is. Today was his first day with us. He ate 13 supers and ate some squash, not bad for the first day he was here. He's only in a 30 gallon tank, which will be ok for now. He's 18" long but weighs only 200g. We figure he's probably 2 yrs old. Our neighbours rescued him last fall, they found him and a female (which they named Puff) on Craig's list. They were in a 30 gallon dirty tank, with sand and a huge log that took up 1/2 the space in the tank. Leo was at the bottom, he was sooooo skinny. He's gained weight, but never got the attention he deserved. I took some pics today, but will take more tomorrow. I think he remembers our place as didn't get stressed as I expected. No stress marks at all. When we let him run around the living room, he noticed our girls and immediate black beard, so his hormones are working!

He had a bath this morning, had a big poop, no smell, so not worried about parasites.

So here are a few pics, he's a yellow & dark gray, light gray colour.

Under the communal power sun in the living room:
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Discovering there are girls in those tanks up above, he has a great black beard for such a skinny boy:
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On the couch, he's got a pretty diamond pattern on his back:
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Hope you enjoy
Deb and my six dragons :D :shock: :shock: :shock: :cry: :cry: :( :love5:
 

HippieLizards

Gray-bearded Member
Beardie name(s)
Daisy, Loki, Rocket, Phoenix, Mulder & Scully. Non beardie pets: Stan (Leo) Cayde (Hognose) Tillery (cat)
Oh no! ? I'm so very sorry for your loss. :cry: I knew Gabriel was very important to you, May he Rest In Peace. ? He was a beautiful boy and you took great care of him.

I Recently lost a beardie as well so I know how it feels. I hope Your other dragons will be ok in the meantime.

-HippieLizards.
 

sweetiepie9

BD.org Sicko
Retired Moderator
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Awww, thanks so much. The rest are fine. My Cierra is still brumating. I woke Castiel up and he'll stay up, he's been sleeping for 5 mo. Freya and Nathaniel are up, too. And I'm bringing home a beardie who needed a good home on Sunday when I go to my friend's to bury Gabriel. We have a beardie cemetery in her side yard at her townhouse. So it's been a sad time, I sure miss him, but I knew how sick he was and that he gave me 2 years more of life than my vet and I expected. He's across the Rainbow Bridge.
 

HippieLizards

Gray-bearded Member
Beardie name(s)
Daisy, Loki, Rocket, Phoenix, Mulder & Scully. Non beardie pets: Stan (Leo) Cayde (Hognose) Tillery (cat)
You're welcome. :) I hope that Cierra will Brumate safely without any problems, and oh cool You're picking up another dragon? Cool I hope he does well for you.

Thankfully Gabriel is in a better place now, Chowing down on all the bugs he wants. :)
 

Betty53218

Hatchling Member
Wow, that’s quite the story! Rubio sure was a gigantic and handsome beardie! Great pic of him and your son. Smaug is just shy of 600 grams presently. I started reading your posts way back from page one a while back. Got to page 14. All your posts would make the most interesting book Deb. You’ve been through so much. I glean a lot of info from your posts. Being in my late fifties, I can relate to you. Smaug requires hand feeding just like some of yours. My son bought him on a whim in February of 2015 from a pet store. The setup info they gave him was completely wrong. Smaug was on his way to a certain death when I decided to take over his care. I found this website and slowly corrected everything from substrate to lighting and heating. Now he’s mine and I can’t imagine life without him. He used to lick up small rocks when we took him outside his first summer. I took him in to the vet because he started to look really sad and stopped eating. They X-rayed him and saw a small calcium like piece of substance in his stomach, so they flushed it. They didn’t get it out though. A couple of days later he passed a very small piece of mortar from the block our basement is made from. He was digging next to the house one day and I guess that’s where it came from. He passed small stones that where much bigger then what he passed, so I really don’t think that what was bothering him. Since then he hasn’t eaten on his own. When I look back, I now believe he was going into a semi-brumation. He was 18 inches long and weighed over 500 grams by then. He also just had a couple of inches of tail rot removed in August. We had to give him shots for a month just like you were giving Gabriel. That was the hardest thing to do. My husband gave him the shot while I held him with my eyes closed. He recovered well though. Each of those incidents cost over $500. That’s why my husband won’t let me get another dragon. I even copied your “ramp” for out of the tank time! You are very fortunate to have all your other dragons to cuddle with. I am still amazed at how these babies work themselves into our hearts.
 

SHBailey

Gray-bearded Member
So sorry to find out that you lost Gabriel, Deb. I know that he was very special and sweet (even for a beardie), and that you'll miss him, but I hope you can take comfort in the fact that you gave him a wonderful life, and your good nursing probably got him at least another 2 years (maybe more) than he would have had otherwise. It also sounds to me like you made the best decision for him by arranging it so that he could go to sleep peacefully in your arms and his suffering was minimized at the end.

It was also good to hear more of your story about your family and your beardies. I've never found the time to go back and read this whole thread -- it could probably be a book, as Betty says.

I can relate to your experience with your husband, Betty, although my situation with my husband is a little different. Puff is our first and only beardie, but I am unable to consistently and reliably care for him because of my unpredictable, debilitating, and incurable episodes of depression and fatigue. So my husband has gotten stuck with the majority of the hard work while I get to enjoy most of the beardie cuddles. Fortunately, he loves Puff as much as I do and is willing and still able to help with him, but we are afraid the time will come when that will no longer be possible, so he may be our last beardie. I don't want more than one, but I'm not sure about none, so if I outlive him (you never know), I'll probably end up with a humongous bearded dragon shaped hole in my heart. I could probably talk my husband into getting another one, but it wouldn't be fair to him.

I guess the moral to this story is we all need to cherish our beardies while they are here and make the best of the time we have with them. Best wishes for the new one that is joining your family, Deb. She couldn't have found a better home.
 

sweetiepie9

BD.org Sicko
Retired Moderator
Original Poster
I wanted to thank all three of you with your very kind comments. I knew on the weekend that Gabriel was failing. the aneurysm was just too much for him to handle. I already had an appointment to changed it. My vet agreed when she saw his belly. I just couldn't be selfish and kept him just so I could see him every day. It was to the point where he just slept all the time, so I knew. He'd never brumated in all the years I had him, so it wasn't that. I couldn't keep up with his hydration, either, as he couldn't swallow very well. I will always miss him, as I will always miss the ones I've lost.

I didn't realize you'd started reading my journal, but at this point I think it really could be a good book. I have had alot of beardies in the 12 years I've been rescuing. Only Castiel and Lonzo weren't rescues. Lonzo we adopted when he was 5 yrs old and Castiel was a gift from a good friend, she gave him to me when Puff died. So he's in her tank, still has her furniture and he loves his tank. I just woke him up today, he's been sleeping since mid May, so thought it was time. Cierra is still asleep until end Feb, but the other 4 are up or sort of off. This is Freya letting me know she's to be left alone in her hide.
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This is where that bench normally is:
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She fell asleep in the same position but with her head on the bench and I covered her for the night because my grandkids were here from 3p to 7p. So that gave my son a break. I read to the two of them and put them to bed, too.
 

beardie parents

BD.org Sicko
I posted on your facebook page regarding Gabriel. It doesn't matter how long we have them it's still hard to loose them. Bill and I have had a total of 7 beardies, but just two at a time. Rosie is going on 11.5 years old. We figure her hatch date was in the middle of June 11 years ago so we figure she will be 11.5 sometime in December. She has been sleeping more than she did years ago. This last summer she was sleeping all week for several weeks. It makes me wonder if some time she will brumate and never wake up. The last couple of years she's brumated without waking up for a day or two ever couple of weeks. This last summer has seen her sleep for week or two with out waking up. Sometimes we check on her and she will open her eyes and allow us to wake her up. Most of the time when we check on her she is so sound asleep we don't bother to wake her up.
 

sweetiepie9

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Retired Moderator
Original Poster
:blob5: So Grr has been with me since Sunday. She was named that because she's grumpy...well not with me. She tries but I just pick her up and put her on her shoulder & she cuddles into my neck. She has her own stuffy, a brown square monster with red eyes and white teeth and she fits perfectly onto it. I brought her hide back with me. She's had water every day and a bath yesterday, supplements and she's eating roaches, no greens yet. And she's had a few little poops and laid 3 eggs. The shell on the egg was very thin, so I think she's low on calcium. I'm giving her more tomorrow. And we go to the vet on the 14th for blood test and check up. She's only 15" but has a tail nip but is very small and thin. Otherwise she doesn't seem to have anything wrong with her. I did get some pics of her:

Sunday: she sure loves those roaches!
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Monday:
New Stuffie: Mr Monster, what better than for Grr?
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Tuesday:
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She's still skittish but likes to be on my hand or on my shoulder. I even cut her very long nails today and I think she appreciated it because she never moved the whole time.

11887-8438650830.jpg
 

beardie parents

BD.org Sicko
She could be like our Lil Squirt - her favorite spot is the shoulder. We were told that by Barbara (Zak n Wheezie's mom) when she sent her to us. Lil Squirt's favorite spot is still the shoulder. She would stay there all day and all night if we'd let her. I have a question for you. Our Rosie is 11 (as of the middle of June) She is sleeping more than normal. Should I wake her up? I checked on her late last week and she seemed to be totally asleep. Usually when we check on her she notices the lights and opens her eyes a bit but the last time she didn't even notice the lights. Should I wake her up? I've heard most beardies last 11 years (one lady said they last 20 years but one of her's only lasted 10) She's the only one who said they last longer than 11 or 14 years - which is all I've heard. We are concerned that she will go to sleep and just not wake up and we won't know of she's still alive or not. We've never had a beardie as old as Rosie is before.
 

sweetiepie9

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Hi Lori, as long as Rosie isn't sick, she can live as long as 20 years. She's the age Lonzo was when he passed, but he'd been sick for 2 years and had a tumour that burst. He was 11 1/2. A friend of mine had a beardie that was 16 yrs old. And there was a post on here about a woman who'd had her beardie from a baby & her dragon was 20 yrs old and she was wondering why she was slowing down! So they can live a long time. If Rosie was to pass, you would know. Going in their sleep if they're sick and can't get better is a good way to go. But hopefully she has a few years left to be with you all.
 

beardie parents

BD.org Sicko
Thanks Deb. She has been sleeping a lot longer this last year than she has the year before. She slept for weeks during June and July which she hasn't done before this year. Also until last year and, maybe, the year before she would sleep starting about mid August until March for a couple of weeks, then wake up for a day or two then repeat until about the Middle of March. But now she sleeps for months at a time, and she seems to be sleeping a lot more than she has before.
 

sweetiepie9

BD.org Sicko
Retired Moderator
Original Poster
Hopefully it just means she needs the sleep. She is a senior, after all. My Cierra has always slept from Aug to Feb, for the last 4 years, since she was 1 1/2. And she's my healthiest dragon. My youngest, Freya, is still sleeping, even though she was up for awhile, so she'll be up on Sunday to see if she stay s up or goes back to sleep. My boys went down early summer, Castiel in May and Nathaniel in July. I just woke Castiel up because 5 mo is enough when he never sleeps more than 4 mo and he's only 4yrs old. Nathaniel woke up, I think by accident, then started hiding again, now he's up for good, but both my boys think it's Spring Fever time, they're a bit early, I think.

So they do sleep long, you can wake her up if you're concerned.
 

beardie parents

BD.org Sicko
We did wake Rosie up and she was awake for 2 days but is back asleep. I noticed on the first day she was awake that she needed calcium as she was walking strangely. The next day, after I gave her calcium we got from Tracie that she was walking better.
 

sweetiepie9

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Retired Moderator
Original Poster
Lori, you might want to keep her awake. Any of my dragons that are acting strange with their brumation, I keep up and won't let them sleep anymore. If she walking funny, then she needs her regular calcium now, as lack of calcium can make them very sick.
 

SHBailey

Gray-bearded Member
Grr looks a lot like Puff -- about the same color and size. (Maybe one of these days my tech-savvy husband will get around to helping me post some photos, in his non-existent spare time :roll: ). She has beautiful markings on her face, and she looks like she belongs on your shoulder. :)

Does anyone know for sure of a beardie that has actually lived to the age of 20? I've heard rumors of such things, but none from what I considered really reliable sources. My reptile vet says that, in her experience, most of them are getting pretty geriatric by the time they get into the "double digits." She also says that in our beardie's case, the adenovirus is probably going to shorten his life. :(

Either way, I hope (Beardie Parents) that you can keep Rosie as healthy and comfortable as possible for whatever time she has left. 11 is a pretty respectable age -- you've been taking good care of her.

Meanwhile, Puff has just crawled out of his "burrito" and he's staring at me like he's ready for his "Good Morning" cuddle. :love5: (reasonably alive and well, for today at least)
 
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