Sunday, February 20, 2011

Grumpelstiltskin

My little lizard, Grumpy, died today.
Grumpy was a rescue iguana who always seemed to have a note or two in her repertoire missing, hence our appellation of Grumpy. Possibly something in her early upbringing had led to her tendency to pour cold water on anything new. Whatever, she was a healthy and active iguana who graced our house from 1993. She lived with James Jewel Osterberg (Jimmy) and they kept each other happy. She was about nine pounds and five foot long.

At 17 she was an old iguana. Many don't live past 7 in captivity. But eventually the common old-age ig-killer of kidney failure kicked in late last year - we saw the colored urates and the pale tongue - and she started to go downhill.

She's survived by James Jewel Osterberg, who is currently wondering what happened, and I hope we can explain it to him, as iguanas are not good at understanding why today is different from yesterday.

Grumpy is on the right, below, and Jimmy is on the left.

4 comments:

Mike said...

5 feet? Did Grumpy have free reign of the house, exploring rooms, gazing out the window, being chased by the Hoover, etc?

Carol said...

Sorry to hear that. RIP Grumpy. My son has two leopard geckos which are considerably smaller!

Janel said...

Aw, poor little guy. Sorry to hear it!

Lyle Hopwood said...

Yes, Grumpy was a free roamer in the front of the house (we obviously keep some doors closed for various reasons). Like most iguanas, she rarely availed herself of the freedom, choosing to spend all of her time in the hottest part, under heat lights, on her perch.

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