I was very saddened to learn last night that my 5 year old bearded dragon was very sick, I rushed him to my reptile vet nearby and this was at 5:30 pm and when the vet examined my dragon she said oh wow he is very fat, apparently my sister had been feeding him some moist catfood from time to time and our lighting arrangement wasnt no where near what it should have been, we have a 30 gallen tank with the screen top and we had one heat lamp and one red heat lamp and that was all we had as far as lighting. and we never put our lamp directly on top of the screen our lamp was always turned on hanging on a peg above his tank. we did not have any other lighting at all. so within the last few days taquito was really not wanting to eat at all and was very blck under his chin and he was always having his mouth open. and he really wasnt wanting to move hardly. and he was not passing any stool at all. so i decided to take him to the vet and after telling the vet about my sis giving him some catfood from time to time, the vet starts the exam and says im sorry to have to say this but I really think your dragon is in renal failure. she said that your dragon is really bloated and is gasping for air, and i really need to give him a iv and do a flush to try to get him to pass some stool but i need a blood sample and I really dont want to do anything until i see the results of this blood sample. so the vet says take him home and soak him in some luke warm water and as the water gets cold replace it and keep soaking him to try and get him to use the bathroom and get a sample of his stool for me, so the vet gives me a really nice lecture about how important the lighting is and all his surroundings and she spends a hour with me telling me what to feed him and not to feed him and telling me what kind of lighting that i do need. she did seem very worried about my dragon. so i have a list of everything I need to go buy for my sick drgaon and i take him home and my sis starts soaking him while i am gone to buy the things i need(more lights, thermometer etc) and i get this devastating call from my sis that my dragon had just died, I just couldnt believe it. I never realized how close a reptile can be to you until something like this happens. so I wiped away my tears and explained my situation to a superb mgr at uncle bills pet store and he seen how upset i was and he showed me this mali dab lizard I mean this thing does look like a bearded dragon in a way but they have what some calls a turtle head . but they are very pretty and after seeing this male mali dab I just knew right away that i had to have it. me and my sister cried alot of tears over the passing of our beloved dragon but we know that we now have to move on even though we will always miss taquito, we now have a new reptile and this one will never be taquito but i really feel that this was very important to both of us to try to start over and acquire another reptile. I feel so bad because we did so many things wrong with the caring for taquito. I just want to say this to everyone who is a first time buyer or anyone who had a reptile please please always take care of your reptile the proper way. there is so much information on the web and in books and even your local pet stores that can help you if you need any advice. This forum seems like a really nice place with alot of good info.
I'm very sorry for you and your beardie. But please remove petstores from the list of places to go for information. Almost all pet stores do not know how to take care of their animals, let alone reptiles at all. They think care is, sand, light, a hide, and a tank that the lizard can't even turn around in.
