Can't Touch This

Our rabbit Kenji is very fluffy and cute.  Almost like a stuffed animal, but very Alive.

Looking at him, you just want to reach out and hold him and hug him.  Yet Kenji has other ideas than being hugged.  He'll move away.  "nope,  Can't Touch this."

He does like to play and hop around a lot. Lots of energy.

When our bearded dragon, Hagrid, has energy she doesn't want to be held either.  Go, go, go.  

Yet because she's a reptile her body will cool down and she will slow down.     It is then that she likes to be very close to warmth.  She  is very happy when we share our warmth with her.  She'll lay on us for warmth and comfort for a time.  

It's sort of interesting: 

The fluffy cute rabbit wants private space to himself  

The scaly reptile wants to enjoy close time with us for warmth. 

All Kinds in this world.

Here's a pic of Hagrid resting on me. She relaxes and closes her eyes as she feels my warmth.

And here's our sassy sweet Kenji on his tunnel boxes.

Nail Clipping

 

Clipping our pets nails is an important part of pet care.

It can take practice to get it done.

When I first attempted to clip Kenji's nails, he zipped away.  My daughters would try to hold him. Yet it was still challenging.  Kenji seemed to find a way out.   

I asked the vet about how to hold and cut his nails.  She demonstrated that he tends to need to be held like a football.  

OK 

Yesterday I bought a new pair of nail clippers, because I couldn't find the one we had. 

Supplied with new nail clippers, a banana (his favorite treat) and towel, my daughter and I went to it. Kenji was held in a football hold, while I clipped each paws nails carefully.

He was happy with his reward treat.

Hagrid gets her nails clipped too.  

She, being the Queen of chill, wasn't initially hard to work with.  

Yet she would shake her hand after having her nails cut. Her way of letting us know she didn't care for it.  

Hagrid gets exercise

 

Hagrid warms up on her rock hill in her enclosure.  

When she's warmed she gets taken out for a time.  

When she's light colored her body is warmed up.  She now has a lot of energy to move.

She gets excited as we carry her out to the living room.  She sometimes gets impatient and wants to go down.  

She is placed on the floor.  And zoom...she's off running around.  "Beardie on the Loose"

She runs through the living room.  Then runs into the kitchen.  

She turns and heads to the bathroom.  Then out across the living room again.  

She also loves climbing.  She discovered she can climb up the heater cover near the front windows.  From there she can look outside the windows, which she enjoys doing.  Her skill of climbing has improved and she climbs up with ease.

She seems proud.  She stands in a proud stance and gazes out the window.  She's guarding her territory.  

                                                Here's a pic of him looking out the window.

Here's a video of Hagrid running in the living room.

Hagrid: Full Body Portrait

 

Hagrid

Hagrid: Scratch Board In Process 2

 

I scratched out more of the light areas and defined certain areas.  

I added some color.  

She has orange markings on his face.  

Here is a detail on her face.

Hagrid: Scratch Board in progress

 

Hagrid Beardie is quite beautiful. She has the well known feature of spikes scales on her beard area and around the back sides of her head.  The spiky scales are on her sides too.

Her face has orange, and then there are black areas and light orangey brown area down her back.

I thought it would be good to do a scratch board portrait of her.  

I started the other night, to scratch out the light areas.  

I plan to add color.  

Here is what I did the other night.

In progress.

Hagrid Growing and Shedding

Hagrid is happily in her new larger enclosure.  

Hagrid is showing signs of growing.

Like snakes, a new layer of growth and skin pushes the older skin away.  The old scales dry out and fall away. 

At different points, the scales can come off as little pieces that remind one of dandruff. At other times, the scales can come of as fuller pieces of skin.  

One day we notices a piece of skin that had pulled away from her arm.  The piece of scale skin matched her upper arm, elbow and part of her lower arm.  

Another time, we noticed her eye was looking bulgy.  The scales had pulled away.  The old scales looked like the area around his eye.

Hagrid's old scaly skin.  

Hagrid: Pencil drawing

Hagrid Beardie is about 6-7 months old now.  

I've noticed as she grows that her coloring and patterns on her body are becoming more distinct.  Her features are more prominent.  

When most people think about bearded dragons, they picture a sandy-colored reptile. But many people may be surprised to discover that bearded dragons can come in a variety of different colors, patterns, and something referred to as morphs or mutations.

Hagrid is a Standard morph.  Her face has orange markings.  Her beard area has black lines. And her body has a  a sysmetrical pattern along her back and down her tail.  There are browns, blacks and light color areas on her back.  

Shee has the familiar spikes feature on her beard area and along her sides.  

She is pretty cool to look at.  

I did a pencil drawing of her yesterday while she basked.  

Good Morning, Hagrid

 

We would enter our youngest daughter's bedroom to peak in on Hagrid Beardie. 

Hagrid chose to sleep in her cave.  Shee would curl up inside and got to sleep.

In the morning she would come out when she awoke.

One morning, I peaked in the cave to see her just peaking out of his cave.

"Good Morning, Hagrid".  

She would go to the hotter side of her enclosure to warm up.  Once she was warmed up, she was ready for breakfast... of crickets.  

Beardie: research and reward

 

Our youngest daughter decided she wanted a bearded dragon for a pet.  

There was much research to do about bearded dragon lizards.  

Bearded Dragons are found in Australia.  Yet they are bred in places as the USA.  

Why a breaded dragon? 

Well my daughter has always been fascinated with Mythical creatures.  And likes to draw them.

Dragons are reptilian mythical creatures.  

There are many cultures that have dragons in their lore, or as a symbolic icon, like for example in China.  

My daughter didn't like the stories where dragons were portrayed as evil and sought after to kill.

We found a place in Cumberland, RI that specializes in reptiles, named Sabrina's Reptile Kingdom. The owner of the place talked to us about bearded dragons.  Amanda was to read five reference sheets with information on bearded dragons before purchasing one.  

We needed to know what we were entering into for caring for this reptile.

We read about a bearded dragons needs, care, feeding, etc.

Reptiles are cold blooded and need an external source for heat.  We would need heat lamps to regulate the temperature in the enclosure.  They need a spot to bask and then a place to go when it doesn't need the extreme heat.  

They eat live crickets and certain vegetables.

We had to look for a 20 gallon tank to start with a young bearded dragon.

We also needed a place to put the live crickets.

We slowly started to find the items we needed: the 20 gallon tank, lamps, accessories for the tank to create an environment for the bearded dragon. 

And a cricket keeper to have a place for the crickets to live.  

One day I took Amanda to the Reptile Kingdom and we bought a young beardie.  

("beardie" is the shortened name for them)

We settled her into her new home. 

A Bunny and A Beardie

Our daughters wanted a pet.  

When they were younger we got a Beta fish (Japanese Fighting fish) for our oldest daughter.  It was a dark reddish fish.  She named it Sophie.  It was nice.  We saw to it she fed it every night.  I cleaned the bowl each week.  Sophie lived for about 2 yrs.  They don't live very long.  

Next we got our youngest a Beta fish.  This one was blue.  She named it Bluey.  The fish lived for about a year.  We enjoyed it for the time.

But now they wanted a different pet.  

Cats were out.  I'm allergic to cats.

Dog.  We weren't sure...lots of "hmmm, we'll think about it."

It would be a new member of the family, care, expenses, food.

Guinea pig. no  

The subject kept coming up here and there.  

My oldest daughter started working PT and earning some money.

Then one day she told us she's getting a bunny.  

I was like "hmm, OK."  

I didn't know about rabbits.  Yet we could do our research. 

A friend's sister had two rabbits, male and female.  They had had a litter.  

So we jumped into researching about Rabbits.  Breeds, Cage size, food, needs, etc.  

One day in January, her and a friend went to pick up her new pet, a 6 to7 week old baby rabbit with a cage.

They came home and brought in the cage with this little fluff ball of a baby bunny. He was so cute. 

We sat with him in the living room for a short, before she brought him up to her room, where the cage would be.

Of course the rabbit was a little nervous being in a new place.  We let him just see and hear us.

Over time we got to know him and he got to know us.

They came up with a name, Kenji.  It was a start to us embracing our new member of our family.

To be continued...:)