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| Name: |
Leo
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Age: |
Unknown
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| Gender: |
Female
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Kind: |
Leopard Gecko
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| Home: |
Wisconsin, USA
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Leo's
one of my rescues. She was nearly starved to death when she came
to me; the vet who saw her was amazed she was alive at all. You could
see every bone in her body, her skin hung on her like a crinkly sheet
over bones. She is a high yellow, but was ashen gray and brown when I
found her. I won't go into the details of the neglect she suffered, save
to say that she was not fed for at least three months, her cage was not
cleaned once in nine months, and she was in terrible shape when she came to
me. Her previous owner still maintains he "took excellent care of her"
and that I was overreacting in my taking of her. When the herp vet saw
her, he told me not to expect her to live, even if I did feed her and
care for her as she was so extremely malnourished she could barely
manage to lift her head.
The only good sign he saw was that her eyes were still bright, clear and
alert. She followed every movement with her eyes, even though she
couldn't move her head, and never took her eyes off of anyone. She was
also very friendly despite being starved nearly to death The offer to
euthanize her was given, but all she'd ever known at human hands was
misery and I felt she deserved at least a chance at life... especially
since leopard geckos can live for up to twenty years and she was likely
barely over one year!
So, I took her home and fed her a combination of gut-loaded crickets,
wax worms, superworms, silk worms, and any other safe item for her to
eat that she would eat... and boy did she eat! For the first month she
was too weak to chase down prey (but refused to eat pre-killed anything)
so I had to feed her from either tweezers or my fingers. She was always
careful not to bite my fingers when they were used instead of the
tweezers. One of the best days of her recovery was the day she flat out
refused to take food from the tweezers and wanted to stalk and hunt it
down on her own again. She had problems shedding for about four months
after I got her, and even with a moist hidebox & mistings, had to be
soaked in shallow warm water and have skin peeled off. She didn't like
it, and she would squeak in protest when she went into the water, but
she never once tried to bite me for doing it.
I've had her for almost a year now, and other than her coloring not
being fully back to where it should be, she's a completely different
gecko. When she went in for her last checkup the vet couldn't believe
she'd survived and had become so healthy again. She's got a nice fat
tail, has her muscle mass back again, and is still as sweet as ever. If
I put my finger out in front of her nose, she'll lick it. She doesn't do
that to anyone else but me. She enjoys and even seeks out handling; if
the cage door is open she'll sit at the edge and watch for me to come
over and try to get onto my hand to sit on my arm any chance she gets;
her cagemate Momo could take some manners lessons from her. ;)
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