# Escaped Tegu (and a bump to the nose)



## tresh (Feb 20, 2012)

So my Ammy decided to go adventuring apparently. She's been doing this thing lately where she sleeps all of one day, wakes up the next, wants food, stays away a few days, then goes back to sleep, just seems to be her routine. Two days ago, she burrowed in, and we left her alone, as we do, to wait for her to come back up and be affectionate again. 

We assumed until this morning that she was still burrowed. 

Until we saw her stretched out by the front door. 

Thankfully for all parties involved, our living room was just recently cleaned, so there was nothing bad for her to get into anywhere around. Apparently she just decided she wanted to go chill on the linoleum for a bit. 

I had wondered why my cat kept staring at a corner of the kitchen cabinets yesturday. Now I know. 

Anyways, Ammy appears to have suffered no major harm (though now we have to find where she pooped!) from her adventure, and she's taught us a lesson. She's big enough now to be allowed to explore more often, but we're gonna have to have figure out how to keep her and the cat from crossing claws. 

She's currently sunning under her lamp again, after a good long hot bath to warm her back up, and the only thing that she appears to have hurt is her nose. She's got a small (tiny tiny, probably barely a cm across) spot where she...I guess tore a scale? It's not bleeding or anything, it's just a raw spot. So we're wanting to find out what we can do to help that heal better. 

We figured out how she got out though. She climbed on top of her sunning log, latched claws into the tube that attaches to her humidifier, and just pushed the lid up enough to scramble out. Smart girl. 

Smart smart lizard. I am still just astonished at how smart she is. I'm glad she's okay. It's quite a drop from the top of her tank to the floor, so I"m just so glad that she isn't further injured.


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## Aardbark (Feb 20, 2012)

Good to hear she is ok. They are deffinitly smart lizards, and the way you described yours escapeing is exactly the same as how mine got out of her cage too. I found her later in my dirty laundry.


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## txrepgirl (Feb 20, 2012)

I'm so glad to hear that she is OK. Yes, they are very smart. You can get some panalog liquid ointment from your vet. It doesn't cost that much and it last for a long time ( doesn't have a experation date ). The vets call it liquid gold  . My vet gave me some ( well I bought it ) for our Leonidas nose rub a while back and it works miracles. 

When he had the nose rub:

http://www.youtube.com/user/txrepgirl#p/u/61/jqdlOYJG7P0 

15 days later after using the panalog.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFKoiaL5Osc&feature=relmfu


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## tresh (Feb 22, 2012)

Well, it's looking like she might have done something bad regardless. She hasn't passed anything since her adventure, and with that being saturday evening and today being wednesday...it's concerning. We gave her a dose of mineral oil, and we've been giving her warm baths, but nothing...just a tiny bit of the white/yellow stuff. Feeling her belly, she's definitely got a firmness around her lower-belly that shouldn't be there...so we're betting impaction. We're waiting until tommorrow evening (if i have to keep her in a warm bath all day, I will), and if nothing happens then yeah...she's gonna have to go to the vet. 

Any other suggestions, other than giving her baths, massaging her belly and giving her mineral oil?


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## Rhetoric (Feb 23, 2012)

I'm glad shes alright. Rango has gotten out a couple times. Since the enclosures are stacked that means hes dropped ~3.5 ft to the garage floor. Guru had a pretty gnarly nose rub last year, I never put anything on it and his nose looks fine now. I don't really have any suggestions other than baths, I've never used mineral oil. Keep us posted!


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## tresh (Feb 25, 2012)

Apparently there are no exotic reptile vets in the area over hte weekend, not even at hte two emergency clinics we called. So, our vet will see her on monday (she's not in any distress at the moment, so the vet says to just keep giving her warm baths every few hours). We suspect she's got a piece of her bedding in there, we can feel it, it's about 2 inches long and about as round as a crayon/pencil (which we dn't have around, so that's not what it is). When she's in the bath, she lets us touch the area, and yeah, it's not where we can help her get it out, so vet visit it is going to have ot be. 

We haven't fed her...just been giving her as much water as she wants, so with any luck, on monday the vet will get it out of there and she'll be fine.


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## tresh (Feb 27, 2012)

Well, after a visit to the vet, we find out she's fine. She just...got off her feed a bit from her adventure, and it upset her a bit. So, at the cost of $250, we find out our tegu is just fine. and I got to see her insides. The vet tells us that she's a beauty of a lizard, currently sitting at about 5 lbs, she's about 8 months old. The vet told us she has lovely fat layers and that she's wonderful to work with, she just hated the exam. 

The vet told us to give her a live mouse. I feel bad for the mouse, but Ammy loved it. We nicked the mouse's tail to get Ammy to smell the blood, and Ammy went after that mouse straight away. So it looks like Ammy might be getting some live prey after this. We're still waiting on the vet to call us back and let us know if that's what we need to be doing.


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## dragonmetalhead (Feb 28, 2012)

Where do you live where it costs $250 to take your tegu to the vet? My vet clinic has a doctor who specializes in exotics and it only costs me about $54 for a basic check-up.


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## tresh (Feb 28, 2012)

The visit was cheap. the xrays were not. The visit is usually only about $50-$75. Since she needed xrays to find out what, if anything was wrong, the xrays cost a fair bit. 

She's still acting weird though. Today I found her curled up on top of her mulch in the cold part of her cage, not even close to her heat lamp or any of her rocks or anything. It's very unusual for her to not be burrowed.


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