The Little Quad That Could

jajeanpierre

Chameleon Enthusiast
[I'm showing my age, but one of my favorite children's books is The Little Engine That Could.]

My very first quad was ShenLong from the December 2014 import. That import was a bit of a mess. They were delayed a day in Paris, so were probably in the shipping container without food and water for over a week. Many died. Not ShenLon; he soon earned the name "He Who Would Not Die."

HeWhoWouldNotDie had problem after problem after problem. He has been on death's doorstep countless times. I'm not exaggerating about how sick he was--I'm talking so sick he was limp in the vet's hands. A dying chameleon when stressed by a vet will show a lot of vigor, and give you the impression of not being so ill. They will fool vets and owners all the time. A limp one is inevitably a dead one that just hasn't quite got around to dying.

All through his health crises, and there were many, he surprisingly gained weight, something I never understood. My vet and I believe he has an incredible immune system to be able to overcome what he has. I know it sounds counter intuitive to think an animal that kept getting sick would have a good immune system, but by all rights, any single issue he dealt with could have and some really should have killed him but they didn't. He's one tough animal.

First he developed a swelling in a hind leg. Xrays were inconclusive but three vets looking at the xrays think it might have been some sort of infection in his body that was draining into the leg. Then he developed a skin infection. Of course, he was loaded in parasites. He developed the worst gular edema I have ever seen. He was so bloated even his eyes were popping out. It lasted for months and months and nothing I did could get rid of it. The rubs along his dorsal crest predictably became infected. He handled them himself until one suddenly started increasing in size and we decided to lance it and clean it up. I'll never forget him turning to me and looking directly into my eyes with those soulful eyes of hes as the vet worked on him. (Quads have the most beautiful, expressive eyes.) Various spinous processes rotted and fell out. His once wonderfully tall sail fin and dorsal crest has been shrunk by bone death from infection. He has several big swellings in his body that are clearly visible at times. The vet suspects they are encapsulated abscesses. In a macabre sort of way, we are both looking forward to doing his necropsy sometime in the future.

At one point, he was having episodes of respiratory failure. He would suddenly collapse almost unconscious. It was as if something moved in his body and blocked his airway or took up space in his lungs to the point he became so oxygen deficient he would collapse. The vet and I suspected lungworms but we wouldn't know until necropsy. The vet was positive it was not a respiratory infection. He was running so close to not having enough oxygen to survive that any stress would put him into respiratory failure. Surprisingly his gular edema--now let's be clear, this was no ordinary gular edema, it was whole-body-right-down-to-the-toes edema--disappeared right at the start of his respiratory failure and has not returned.

I booked an appointment to euthanize and do a necropsy. Then, the morning of the day of the appointment to euthanize, @laurie with her spooky sixth sense called me out of the blue for no reason at all. We talked about ShenLong and she told me a story of one chameleon she had that the vet was positive did not have a respiratory infection but Laurie said she had a gut feeling he did and wanted to treat it as such. She treated and the animal recovered. So, I kept the appointment and instead of euthanizing, the vet prescribed antibiotics. We both agreed: euthanizing is forever, we could always euthanize later. Neither of us believed it would help but why not try?

Miraculously he improved. Slowly, slowly his lung function got better and the fainting episodes stopped. I don't know if it was the antibiotics or his own strong immune system, but he lived and forever became known as "HeWhoWouldNotDie" to my vet and me.

I tried to breed him to one of my receptive females but he probably was in too poor health to breed although she would have forced herself upon him is she could have.

"HeWhoWouldNotDie" continued to improve. I debated rehoming him to free up some cage space but I feel a strong commitment to my wild caughts for all the suffering they have gone through and just kept him in a nice big cage that he didn't use much of because, well, he's a quad and they are pretty sedentary and he really wasn't very healthy. Who knows how old he really is.

I haven't paid him much attention with all the new wild caughts but he is looking really good. Occasionally he would catch sight of another male and flare up and show me how truly beautiful he was and cause me to regret I had never bred him.

In May and June, I bought a group of newly imported miscellaneous black babies I hoped would grow up to be graciliors but most turned out to be quads. One female quad was very restless in her cage and very plump--she didn't look like she had eggs in her but you never know--she was either thinking about laying eggs or was receptive. I put her in with HeWhoWouldNotDie to see her response.

He immediately nodded at her and brightened up. So, I left her in with him. The worst that would happen is his presence would trigger her to develop an infertile clutch and I would miss breeding her. Or her presence would stress him and start a decline. Or, dare I hope, I might get ShenLong babies.

She brightened right up when I put them together and followed him around. Yesterday morning when I looked in the cage she was hissy black with emerald jewels sprinkled on her head and shoulders, the classic colors of a female quad telling a male "NO!" They sometimes turn that color immediately after breeding, too. The day before, I had noticed some scratches on her side. Could I be so lucky to have gotten a breeding?

Here are some pictures:

Chocolate with her "NO!" colors fading because I've distracted her taking the picture.

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Here's HeWhoWouldNotDie a few days ago. I wish I could get a good picture of him when he isn't leaning away. Look just below him at the back and you will see little Miss Chocolate keeping very close to her boy. She, too, was pretty battered up during the import process. She follows him around everywhere and they are always perched very close.

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And last but not least, a few pictures of HeWhoWouldNotDie around import so you can see how far he's come.

In this first picture, you can see how awful he looked--battered, skinny, a gawdawful color and with exposed bones on his magnificent sail fin. The second picture shows the face injury that cost him one of his horns. He must have been gored in the face by another quad male--those horns are really sharp. Fingers crossed I get some babies.

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