Why You Should Buy From A Breeder (and not a chain store!)
I’m going to tell you about a little geck named Dragonfruit. He was my first ever reptile—I researched all I could, joined Facebook groups and was determined to make a perfect home for my new friend. I got it all set up, then for a Christmas present, my mom took me to PetSmart to pick out my new baby.
I found the perfect one! He was healthy, social, and had a real personality. I named him Dragonfruit because of the pattern on his chin.
He was clumsy and dumb, but I loved him.
Then he stopped eating. After a week, I figured it was stress, because I had recently redone his tank. After two weeks, I took him for fecals and received no results. The vet couldn’t see anything wrong and my enclosure was perfect, so I just didn’t get what was going on! I tried every bug in the book, and started force feeding him Carnivore Care. After three weeks, he wouldn’t even leave his hide anymore. After four weeks, I took him to his last vet visit and had to say goodbye.
I sobbed as they told me he was severely emaciated, and they gave me an option: surrender him to them or pay for $7,000 in treatments that may not work. I was a teen working at a clothing store for minimum wage at the time (which, I’ll admit, it was my own mistake to invest in a reptile at that time) and so I had to make the better decision for him and handed him over. After the vet asked me why I let him get so skinny and why I didn’t surrender him sooner, I was convinced it was my fault. I failed him. After I sat sobbing for awhile, they let me have some alone time with him. He let me hold him for the first time.
I was still crying hysterically when I left, so I called my mom and she drove me home. I stayed in bed for the rest of the day. What had I done wrong? How could I have failed him like that? I thought I did everything right. I convinced myself that I was incapable of caring for a life, and the guilt weighed me down into a severe depressive episode. I threw sheets over his tank because I couldn’t look at it. I cried myself to sleep for nights and I angrily threw all of my feeder bugs outside (also dumb of me, please don’t do that). I never did know if he survived, but he was gone from my life nonetheless and I still grieve him.
But one day, an older friend of mine who had more experience in reptiles, said to me: “You know it’s not your fault, right?”
I asked her what she meant, and she told me the story of her Petco-bought leo that passed a month after she got him. Her vet did an autopsy and found that his organs were so disfigured, he couldn’t even digest food. She then taught me about how pet stores mass breed their animals, how leopard geckos can be born disfigured and with neurological problems if they’re not bred properly, and how most of these animals from these stores are born sick simply from the inbreeding and poor conditions of the “manufacturers.” She explained that the reason he got sick likely wasn’t parasites like I thought, and that’s why the fecals came back fine, but rather just from poor breeding. She and a few other great individuals taught me all about proper breeders and good vets. They referred me to their vet in the city (I was visiting a small one in my town) and showed me how to spot a good breeder and healthy animals. They told me about Repticon and their favorite small, online breeders. I continued to educate myself, remake the enclosure, introduce myself to the vet, and I started fresh.
I now have Tsukki, from Top Hat Geckos, who has been going strong for 2 years now.
And soon, I will have my big boy Taiyō, from Luminous Leopard Geckos.
I think the point of my story here, is to please take care in selecting your animals and support small scale breeders. I don’t hate chain pet stores, and still shop for supplies there. And the animals won’t all be sick, either. But every purchase (including “rescue” purchases) of an animal from those places will raise the demand and leave a space to be filled by another. These animals take individual care to breed—they can’t just be mass created in a factory. Please do your research on your local breeders and online options, and find one that really knows what their doing and produces quality animals. You will be paying more, but understand that this will be an animal that will thrive for their full 15-20 year lifespan rather than a couple of months. Please don’t make the same mistake I did and pay the emotional toll for it. I never will know what became of Dragonfruit, but I owe it to him to spread some awareness and try to prevent my story from becoming someone else’s as well.
Thank you for reading!
