It’s not a lizard, it’s not a baby dinosaur. (Nor equivalent to either). It’s especially not similar to a ‘kitten with scales’.
This is a very young crocodile and that’s a stress call they often use to call in their mother in the wild. It is stressed. Cute, sure, if I knew it was at least well taken care of.
The number of crocodilians we take from homes because they get too big or ‘too mean’ is astounding and they’re often ill and mistreated. Don’t keep them as pets. And even at that age, those teeth can be little needles and rip your finger apart.
this is literally no way to treat any animal, and it’s completely avoidable.
.5ppm+ ammonia is inexcusable – this betta was literally burning alive every second he was in that water – and it’s entirely from lack of care. not to mention his fins are literally rotting off and he is completely emaciated – this fish was not being fed.
for example, here is my completely healthy male dumbo eared betta, arwen:
his back has a nice curve outward to it, meaning he is a healthy weight. his stomach has a gentle swell, meaning he was fed recently and an appropriate amount for his size. he doesn’t have fin rot, meaning his fins are not blackening and necrotic – literally rotting away.
for comparison, here is the doubletail male i got today:
both his back and stomach are sunken in – this betta is both emaciated and hasn’t eaten in several days at least. his fins are necrotic and rotting away – he is quite literally decaying while still alive. he is also VERY pale – meaning he is stressed and sick. (NOTE: the healthy betta used as an example isn’t a double tail – which means exactly what it sounds like. he only has one tail while the betta i got today has two)
this is a comparison between the two from above:
it was difficult to take a picture of arwen from above because a healthy betta is very unlikely to sit still when your hands are hovering above them – my betta would be excited and dancing around for food, because they are conditioned to associate my hands above them with eating. in general, a healthy betta isn’t going to sit still for a picture. aside from that, i think it’s very apparent the difference between the two. arwen’s body is all gentle, healthy curves. his head isn’t large in proportion to his body and it doesn’t look weirdly disjointed from the rest of his body.
i’d normally post this to my fish blog, but i think it’s extremely important for people to really SEE this cruelty for what it is and understand just how easy it would be to provide proper care.
i don’t suggest anyone “rescue” a betta from petsmart or any other store- especially walmart. that being said, i just couldn’t leave him, he was belly up and i knew if i didnt take him no one else would – not like it would have mattered because i got him at closing and i know he wouldnt have survived the night had i not taken him. i also saw an opportunity for education – because i have 10k followers on this blog.
this is his new home. a clean, warm environment dosed with aquarium salt and stressguard(a fish antiseptic). i will have to monitor him closely for a while, change out his water daily and dose him with more antiseptic and aquarium salt.
this is the difference in just 5 hours
please, properly care for your animals, and dont support companies that don’t.
On my schedule today was a pancake tortoise that was coming in because it wasn’t eating. I got all of my examination equipment ready and went into the exam room to get started. A young man was sitting in a chair with a shoebox on his lap. We chatted for a bit and then I started asking him questions about his tortoise.
I found out he had purchased the tortoise from a reptile show 8 years ago and that it lived in a ten gallon aquarium with gravel for substrate. It’s diet consisted of lettuce and carrots. Only. The only water provided was from a spray bottle that was used to mist the cage every other day. There was no heat, UV light, cage decor, hide, nothing. I wrote everything down and asked him for the box.
I opened the box and looked inside and nearly lost my composure. Inside was a stunted, gnarled creature about 4 inches long with a grossly abnormal shell. I took him out and put him on the table and pulled himself across the table bits and pieces of his carapace fell off. I don’t mean the scutes, I mean the actual pieces of bone that make up the shell. You could see his organs through gaps in his ribs.
“I will be right back” I said and grabbed the tortoise and went into the treatment room. I was so angry that my hands were shaking. Calculating some dosages I handed them to my tech and asked her to draw up pain medication and a sedative. “Did he approve this?” she asked.
“No. I don’t care. Please draw it up and give this IM.”
Slowly I walked back into the room. I asked the owner how long the tortoise had been like that. He wasn’t sure. He had just stopped eating a day ago. Up until then it was perfectly healthy.
“Your tortoise has been very poorly taken care of. If he were a dog this would be considered animal abuse. Because he is a reptile I am not very likely to get far with the authorities so I’m gonna make you a deal. You sign him over to me and pay for the examination and you can go.”
He thought about it and told me no, it was his tortoise. I asked why he didn’t take care of it. “I thought I was” was his response.
“Why doesn’t he have any source of heat?”
“I didn’t know they needed it.”
“Why didn’t you give him UV light?”
“I didn’t know they needed it.”
“You are telling me that you never opened a book, magazine, internet care sheet, nothing to find out how to care for a tortoise?”
“Yeah. I just thought I knew.”
We talked some more and I finally convinced him to sign the tortoise over. I went back to check on him and he looked even worse. More of his shell had fallen off. I could see his lungs now. I decided it would be for the best to humanely euthanize him so he wouldn’t suffer anymore.
In this day and age “I didn’t know” is not a valid excuse. You can look up anything on your phone from who invented pizza to where the closest movie theater is. There are literally hundreds of books, websites, and internet forums all about reptile care. You can call any veterinarian before purchasing an animal and ask them about their care and I promise you they will talk to you.
I am no longer going to gently nudge people in the right direction husbandry wise. I will no longer tell them “well, lots of people make that mistake, it’s ok”. I am going to call it like it is and if an animal is suffering they will know it is abuse. There is zero excuse for this.
It is sad that reptiles and other exotics don’t have the “cute” factor other animals do. No one would allow an owner to get away with feeding their dog nothing but potato peelings because they just “didn’t know” and yet it is perfectly fine to own a reptile and watch it slowly starve to death because someone “didn’t know” it needed to eat insects.
Iguanas that live in cages so small they can’t turn around. Tortoises kept without the proper heat gradient. Monitor lizards over fed until they are morbidly obese and can’t even walk. This is all abuse and it is wrong. Unfortunately reptiles are survivors and they can be dying for YEARS before anything is noticed. Owners confuse being alive with being healthy far too often.
I simply cannot stand by and watch this happen anymore. I allowed myself to be drawn into the “well, exotics are different, people just don’t know” mind set and did lots of hand holding while owners declined or refused my recommendations. From now on I promise I will flat out tell people it is animal cruelty and will have to make a phone call if things don’t change. It will not make me a popular vet nor a rich one but at least I will be able to sleep at night.
My challenge to everyone is that if they notice an animal being abused politely but firmly call the owner out. There is no need to internet shame, threaten violence or bully someone. Simply tell them what they are doing is wrong, their animal is suffering and they need to fix it. There are numerous reliable resources to find the proper information. If they won’t fix it the proper authorities need to be contacted.
I greeted him at the door on 4" heels, a high ponytail, and a satin apron.
He pushed me into my apartment with hungry kisses and desperate gropes.
I peeled back the layers of a long day at work: briefcase with a thud by the door and the friction of his belt through each belt loop. The buckle jingling as it fell to the floor.
He bent me over the table and thrust himself against my back and ass before unzipping and revealing his excitement to me. I ran the stiletto heel up his inseam while using the mental map of his body to guide my hands to revisit my treasure.
His mouth and hands raced to discover every spot that would make me gasp or moan. I cocked my head and squirmed in the shadow of his stature. The high ponytail danced against my skin.
He grasped my long brown tresses at the tip and recalled all the photos and videos in his wank bank of arched backs and bent necks.
He yanked so hard that he herniated C5-6. During the surgery for my artificial disc replacement, my surgeon found a bone shard 3mm from my spinal cord.
The man who whispered in my ear of how i was “marriage material” moved to Toronto 2 weeks after he damn near made me into a quadriplegic. He closed on a house the day of my surgery.
To this day, I jump when someone puts their hands near my head. My ears ring constantly. And every time I see one of you all post a photo of someone having their hair pulled, I think about all the pain one dumb, badly-executed move caused me.
1. Get consent.
2. Give warning.
3. Grab slowly and smoothly at the roots
4. Movement comes from the wrist (minimizes chance of injury to directional force)
5. If need be, let the person with the hair being pulled hold on to your wrist to either limit your movement or as a failsafe.
6. Over time develop trust with your partner to dial up neck extension, force, or speed.
All that and the fucker never even gave me a single orgasm.
Too important not to reblog
😳
I am so sorry for what you experienced @ifitpleasuresme. Thank you for sharing this wake-up call.
Signal boost. If you go charging into a scene thinking you can act like they act in those gonzo BDSM porn loops, you’re a fool. Always keep the Safe in Safe, Sane, and Consensual. If you are not absolutely sure of what you’re doing in a scene, don’t fucking do it.
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