How we got our vet

Dr. Sue Felter of Westview Animal Hospital called me one day when we first were getting started. She said she didn’t have much experience with herps and wanted to help with the rescues to get experience.

Well, I must say, she’s now got a boatload of experience! I don’t know how we could survive without her. Way back when, Dr. Felter talked me through trying to put back a prolapse over the phone. At that point I didn’t even have latex gloves and I had to use dish-washing gloves.

Dr. Felter surgically removing a gigantic tumor from a bull snake.
I took the photo with my cell phone so it's not too good.

Giving the bull snake room air to help him breathe while waking up.

She taught me how to sub-Q fluids (give them under the skin with a needle). She removed a gigantic bladder stone from my iguana Jub-jub (he’s kind of our mascot and the background photo of this blog). She taught me how to give a lizard an emema, how to tube feed a snake, how to give IM (in the muscle) injections and so many more things that I thought I could never do! I used to be pretty squeamish, no more. I still can’t bear to watch my dog get an injection, but I can give them to one of the rescues.

Jub-jub had to have massive sub-Q fluids before his bladder surgery and I never thought I’d be able to do it. He’s so strong and fights me that I had to have help until I got the hang of it. Jubs has been through a lot, but I’ll talk more about him later.

Although she doesn’t do it for anyone else, Dr. Felter comes to my house regularly to see the rescues. That is a huge help. Sometimes I have several animals that need to see her and it is so much easier for me if she comes here. It’s a big sacrifice on her part, and it is appreciated.

Sometimes we’ll try things, like the first time Dr. Felter spayed an iguana. I would much rather have her “practice” on a rescue than someone’s beloved pet. Knock on wood, we’ve had very few problems. We’ve done tons of biopsies on things. Dr. Felter has even convinced the place that does the bloodwork for us to give us a break. She hoped they would do it for free, but I’m happy for any help we can get. On several occasions, Dr. Felter has paid for tests herself just for professional curiosity. A couple times the animal had already died, but she wanted to find out why. It goes back to the whole “greater good” thing. If that test can help someone else in the future, why not do it?

I can't say enough about Dr. Felter. We would have really struggled as a rescue without her help and generosity. Vet bills can add up quickly, especially with a rescue, where animals often arrive with serious medical issues. After over a dozen years of working with her, I have seen her save countless animals that would have died without medical treatment. I completely trust her judgment when it comes to deciding whether or not to spend money on expensive tests, choosing a treatment or even whether or not to euthanize animals. Those decisions are not made lightly and an expert opinion is always welcome.

Lots of rescues, or people who claim to be rescues, don't even have a vet!

Dr. Fred Cohen, who owns the hospital, doesn’t work with reptiles. I have to give him a shout out too, because he’s very cool about the reptiles. He doesn’t want to touch them, but he’s understanding.

I get to go back in the treatment area of the hospital because a lot of times I either hold the animal or help in some other way. Once I saw Dr. Cohen lose a dog that went into cardiac arrest. I saw him give the dog CPR, even though the dog was very ill. He tried his best to save the dog for quite a while. After the dog died he went back into the treatment room and just put his hand on the dog’s chest and looked at him. That was really touching and it made me realize how difficult that job is. My dog had recently died of heart failure and that dog had a lot of the same problems as mine so it was upsetting for me too.

After several years of knowing Dr. Cohen at the hospital, we realized that we graduated high school in the same class. We never knew each other back in high school, but he lived in the neighborhood where I live now (only a couple miles from where I lived in high school). Small world.

Reptile Rescue Pet Peeves

Over the past 12 years I have heard some horrible things, some funny stories, some ridiculous anecdotes and because of this I have developed a list of things that just drive me crazy about people!

One of the most irritating things is when people bring an animal to us and tell us about how they did everything right and took great care of their animal and we take a look at the animal, and it’s a wreck.

People don’t like to buy things at a pet store because it is too expensive, so they go to Home Depot or Lowe’s and buy cheaper fixtures. Sometimes they buy fixtures with a plastic cover of the light bulb. UV light is filtered out when it passes through plastic or glass. So putting an animal in front of a window does not give it UV. And using those light fixtures from Home Depot with plastic over them also does not give your animal UV light. It’s so simple to alter them. There are two small screws that hold on the plastic and it takes about a minute to take that off and then, when using an actual UV light, it works just fine.

Here is one of those lights with the plastic cover removed.
Also note: when light bulbs get black like that on the ends, they are not working!

Another great thing is when people think they are doing us a favor by “donating” their exotic ball python to us. Meanwhile, we have about 20 of them at any given time. Then the people get mad when I ask for a donation. “You want me to PAY you to take my animal?”

No pal -- it’s called a donation. These animals don’t have jobs to help pay the bills. They cost us money to feed, light, etc. I used to tell people that I would appreciate a donation and the amount is up to them, but one asshole has to ruin it for everyone. A guy told me, “I’d like to donate nothing.” Now we require a donation. And I tell people that most people give $40-50, which is true because that’s how much I ask for! Of course, we get the occasional person who “forgets” their checkbook, cash and credit cards, but most people do give about $40-50.

A lot of people think we’re subsidized by the government or that money falls from the sky into my awaiting hands. If only!

We get a lot of calls for native wildlife, which we don’t take. We have enough problems with the exotics.

People threaten to let the animal go if I don’t take it. I try to explain to them that it is illegal to release their pets. Obviously, they don’t care because a lot of animals are found outside. If they are tropical animals, like iguanas, one freezing night and they are dead. And they also don’t seem to care that releasing a tropical animal in Maryland is not only horribly cruel, but can reek havoc on native species.

And why do people think they should keep any animal they manage to catch in the wild? Don’t do that! They usually die of starvation or from stress shortly after being captured anyway, especially when they are being kept by novices who know nothing about the husbandry of the animal.

Box turtles (or any tortoises) don’t eat iceberg lettuce. It’s not good for them (or us for that matter). Iceberg lettuce has no real nutritional value. Please do not send the Iceberg lettuce people after me. It’s just not that great nutritionally. I have not purchased a head of iceberg lettuce since I started keeping retpiles.

My absolute favorite is people who either conveniently forget or outright lie about the health of their animal. As I’m taking the snake out of the bag, “Oh, I forgot to tell you it’s missing an eye.”

“I think I forgot to tell you the lizard is missing half its toes.”

Over 50% of the lizards we get have something missing or regenerated.

The best one was the guy who told me on the phone that his three bearded dragons were missing a couple toes. When they got here, two had half a tail and one was actually missing an entire leg. The ones with half a tail were missing lots of toes. The one with the missing leg also had toes missing on the other feet.

This makes Rescue workers dislike and distrust humans.

How the rescue got started...

I’ve been bringing home unwanted animals since I was a small child. I grew up in Cumberland, a small town in western Maryland. My friend and I once found an old basset hound wandering around our neighborhood. I was disappointed when we were not offered a reward. My mother told me that the reward was the great feeling of doing something good for someone else with no regard for myself. Though not an animal lover by any stretch, my mother taught me a valuable lesson that day. I learned that there are things that are more important than money, more valuable than financial rewards.

A few years later, still living in Cumberland, an animal control facility opened in our neighborhood. By crossing through back yards, my friends and I could make it there in a matter of a few minutes. We loved looking at the animals, having no idea what would happen if they were not adopted. One day I asked my parents about it. When I found out the animals were killed if they didn’t find homes, I was mortified. I came up with a plan. Since the statute of limitations for this crime ran out many years ago, I can confess it now. Earlier, we had seen some puppies with their mother in an indoor/outdoor run at the shelter. The puppies were all loose because they had squeezed themselves under the chain link fencing of the kennel. The neighborhood kids and I decided we would steal some puppies the next day. My friend’s brother would distract the guard. Yeah, we called him a guard because he wore a uniform. I was really young at the time – give me a break! While the guard was being distracted, the rest of us would each grab a puppy and take off. Our parents would let us keep them! (Boy, were we not thinking this through. I was very passionate about the idea and talked everyone into it.) By the time the distraction was over, we’d be long gone with the puppy. Of course, it didn’t really work. The puppies were all inside the kennel and I had to stick my hand under the fence and pull my puppy out. When I did, he squealed! Didn’t he know I was trying to save his life?! I guess not.

My friend’s brother took off running and so did the rest of us. We never looked back and never stopped running until we were safely in our own little neighborhood. It was probably about a half a mile running through back yards. When we got back to the neighborhood I showed my puppy to everyone. It turned out I was the only one who had the guts to take a puppy. Everyone else was afraid. We named him Cookleburger, Cookie for short. My parents were about ready to kill me. Cookleburger had to stay outside and he howled all night. Poor thing. He was big enough to be away from his mother, but emotionally, maybe not.

One of our neighbors found someone to take the puppy after a few nights. I was happy he found a home, unhappy it wasn’t with me.

Many years later, actually about a year ago, I was talking with my friend’s mother who was here in Baltimore after having heart surgery. We were talking about my puppy theft. She couldn’t remember his name. I said, “How can you forget Cookleburger?” She said, “No, not that time. The next time.” I had never known all of these years, that after we moved away the puppy thefts continued. I had started a trend and never even knew it.

I dragged home cats and dogs throughout my childhood. We had a few box turtles too.

As an adult I started rescuing cats after I looked at a house and found a stray with worms coming out of its butt! The real estate agent wouldn’t let me put the cat in her car because of the worms – me and my big mouth – so I had to go back the following day and find the cat again. It wasn’t a big deal, but it was about an hour drive that I had to do over. I knew the cat didn’t have a home because no one was living at the house and it was a large piece of property. Too bad I didn’t buy that place, it would have come in handy for all of the rescues!

Eventually, I got involved with reptiles and the Mid-Atlantic Reptile Show. It really bothered me that so many animals were sold at the show and that there were no reptile rescues. After more than a year of begging, pleading and whining, the rescue was started. Lots of people said they wanted to help, but not one of them ever did. I had a list of about 30 people who wanted to volunteer. They would gladly foster animals, AKA take free animals and keep them. But no one wanted to do the transporting, cleaning and other stuff involved. We are now called Charm City Reptile Rescue.

After a few years, volunteers starting coming and going. After 12 years, we (the animals and I) have not had a volunteer who lasted more than about four years. I could be wrong about that, but volunteer work seems to fill a void in people. Once their lives change, i.e. they get married, go off to college, move, get divorced, etc. they usually abruptly stop volunteering. We’ve had some volunteers who only wanted to clean certain animals, or were afraid of certain animals. I guess I can understand that, but I don’t really pick and choose what I take. We take what we get. I will say we rarely take iguanas and red eared sliders because too many of them need homes. And, homes are for those animals are hard to find.

After a couple years of doing rescue I decided to start asking for a surrender fee or donation to take the animal. Sometimes people get mad at me and say, “Do I have to pay you to take the animal?” I try to explain that we are not funded by anyone. No one buys food, there is no government money to pay the outrageous winter gas and electric bill. I certainly can’t afford to do it without help. We also make people donate the cage along with the animal in addition to the donation. An empty cage is begging to be filled. When there is no cage, the urge is not as strong to get another animal.

Many times people don’t want to give the cage because they’ve spent a lot of money on it. I just tell the people good luck and go on about my business. I stopped begging for people to give me their animals a long time ago. There are plenty of them out there and lots of people are happy to give the cage and a donation.

I used to tell people that the amount of the donation was up to them. One day a man gave me a very sick bearded dragon along with a $5 donation. That made me really mad. Another time a person told me that he would like to donate ZERO. Now I word things a little differently and I try to remember to ask about the health of the animal before I commit to taking it.

As you read about the various rescues, you will see that a lot of people don’t tell me when they have a sick animal. They conveniently forget to mention it. I’ve also had people conveniently forget their checkbook and/or cash. It’s frustrating. Once I see the animal, it’s hard to turn them down. I’m not completely heartless as some people seem to think.

Recently a man called me about adopting an iguana. I usually get right back to potential iguana adopters because they are hard to find. Sometimes they are a little too eager though. And it seems like they are almost always iguana people. Take what you will from that statement.

The man said that he had left a message earlier and that no one had called back. I apologized and explained that I work a few different jobs and sometimes when I’m on a deadline for a graphics job, I don’t have a lot of time to return calls. He asked to speak to my supervisor and told me that I acted like I didn’t want to find homes for the animals. I tried to assure him that I definitely want to find homes for them – that’s the whole idea! He again asked to speak to my supervisor. I said, it’s just me. There is no supervisor. He asked when my supervisor would be back. I tried again. I said it’s just me, I AM the supervisor! Well, that just seemed to anger him even more.

I swear I’ve had the same exact conversation with a woman, possibly his spouse? So after he wasted about five minutes arguing with me about the fact that I don’t have a supervisor he said he’d like to come see the iguanas. I told him he had to fill out an adoption application first. He didn’t want to fill out the application until he saw the animals. I tried to explain that I’ve been doing this almost 12 years and that’s how we do it. Application first, visit later. I think he ended up hanging up on me.

People hang up on me a lot too. Maybe I’m just abrasive, but I’m in this for the animals. Since I started doing rescue, I’ve become friends with a lot of other people who do rescue. I get hung up on more than anyone else. Oh well… I don’t know what to say about that except that I get calls from some really annoying people! Enough about my bad temper.

I get along great with the shelters, other legitimate rescues (there are a lot of people out there calling themselves a rescue and not really being one), the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, the Maryland Zoo and National Aquarium in Baltimore. They give us referrals, so of course, they appreciate what we do.

Speaking of people who call themselves rescues, but really are not. If you talk to a rescue and they don’t have a vet, I wouldn’t trust them much. So many rescued reptiles need medical care. There is no way you can do everything yourself without having access to prescription drugs. If they don’t have an adoption application, that’s another sign they are probably not legitimate. A real rescue has a screening process. A lot of people who surrender animals will ask me about that. Our adoption application is on line, so everyone can see it.

If you deal with a rescue, ask about a vet, adoption application and how the process works. We’re basically about the same as any cat or dog rescue. No on site adoptions at events, no adoptions without an application with references. If they application is not complete, I don’t get back to the people. One guy complained on Craig’s List that I didn’t get back to him. He filled out half of the application and didn’t even put his name on the application. No, I’m not getting back in touch with people who can’t even give me their name!