Yoda a was our 4 + foot long iguana. He came with my husband.
Initially, unsure of how I felt about reptiles, I asked innocently… how long do iguanas live?
When I met Ian, he lived with Yoda loose in his apartment. Yoda had free reign. When they moved in with us,the girls, and 6 kitties, Yoda had to have a habitat. Ian built him a LARGE cage from Plexiglas, wood panels, he had a large log in there to climb, his big tray of water for his potty, some green stuff.
He still came out and ran loose in the house sometimes. I remember him climbing a pile of laundry at the end of the hall and when it toppled over he went racing to the other end of the hall.
He would swim in our pool once in a while. He would often get to be turned loose in the grass in the back yard. Once, he escaped his cage, we couldn’t find him, we looked all over, asked neighbors, no Yoda… turned out he’d climbed a Pine tree in our backyard and was watching us franticly searching for him the whole time.
Even my grandma had a soft spot for Yoda, she came to take care of our house, kitties and Yoda for a few days while we went to Disneyland and it turned out to be a nasty rain storm that week. She was out back trying desperately to cover Yoda and make sure he was warm enough. She worried so about him. Not that she’d take him out and bring him in the house.
When we got back from that trip, Ian took him to the shower so he could be in some nice hot water and steam; he whacked Ian, just once, with his tail leaving a welt. I think that was for leaving him in a rain storm. He would come to the foot of the bed and nibble toes. Yoda would never hurt or bite, but he sure could if he’d wanted to.
In later years Yoda had begun to launch himself off of his log in his habitat and WHAM in to the Plexiglas at me when I was near. I thought he must hate me…
Apparently, as it turns out, that’s a move they make to claim their mate. He loved me after all. Who knew?
Iguanas have quite individual personalities. He was a good guy, he was always good with the kitties even though he could, with one swift tail swipe, kill one if he were so inclined.
The kitties were always curious but rarely got too close. Even Sir was not sure what to do with Yoda and kept a healthy distance as a rule.
Yoda was king of his roost. I loved to see him swim, but… to an Iguana, water is a toilet, so we didn’t often let him loose in the pool.
We lost our dear Yoda, sadly it was totally our fault. It was late October and we thought the hot part of the year was over. He’d been in his smaller cage for the day and wasn’t sufficiently covered from the sun and didn’t have water in his pan to cool himself.
We were all broken hearted and so devastated for none of us realized how hot it would get so late in the year. He is missed and remembered.
1 comment:
Wowzers! I didn't know you kids had an iguana! Was he big? Sounds like it. A gal in my writing group has a gecko and it's kinda cute!
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