When All Else Fails, Think Like an Iguana

As a stay at home mom a large percentage of the family's pet care responsibilities ended up on my to-do list.  It didn’t help that we had a menagerie that at one time or another included dogs, parrots, turtles, gerbils, rabbits and well, you get the picture. 

There was one, however, that I just had to draw the line at – the iguana.  Oh, he was cute when we bought him for our son.  Just a few inches long and easy to care for, in fact everyone got a kick out of feeding him and he grew accordingly.  He was gentle with his owner but for some reason when I tried to remove him from the cage to clean it I found myself engaged in a wrestling match.  A 2 1/2 foot Iguana is surprisingly strong.  I knew he was just waiting for his chance to wriggle free and make a run for it, leaving me to blame for his untimely death in the jaws of one of the family dogs.  So I resigned as his part time caretaker and announced to my husband and son that he was their responsibility.

One day as I passed my son’s room I saw the cage door open and no sign of my former wrestling opponent.  I cautiously looked around the room thinking that he was too large to easily conceal himself.  He was nowhere to be found and I was beginning to panic.

I don’t know what always made me think that our bird dog could track any living thing, (blind faith or too many episodes of Lassie), but desperate times call for desperate measures.  I put a leash on him and took him into the room.  He went straight to the empty cage and started sniffing at it; I was excited until he immediately showed the same interest in the garbage can and some dirty socks.  I sent the dog packing and tried to think logically. Where would I go if I was an iguana?  It would have to be somewhere warm; he was a lizard after all. Under the heat lamp in his cage was the warmest spot I could think of and he wasn’t there, so clearly this iguana was illogical. 

Just then my son came home and I frantically tried to explain how I had tried everything to find him.  He just laughed and pulled the bedroom curtain aside.  There he was sunning himself on the windowsill.  I guess there is such a thing as lizard logic.