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.
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 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 rescues dislike and distrust humans.
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