If you’ve been following this blog for the past two years, you’ll know that I have three lizards, the most recent of which is my baby Pienna. She is notorious for being highly aggressive and wanting me dead.
When I got her, she was completely unable to be handled and malnutritioned. She was also already two years old, so the prime time for hand training was long gone. She had been kept poorly during those two years. As an adult, she would actively try to bite my hand and scream. My gods, she screamed. There’s a video of me trying to put her in her carrier last year to move her and she’s screaming the entire time and I’m crying because I’m both afraid and feel awful that she thinks she’s in danger. Honestly, I had completely written her off as a dangerous lizard that would only ever be handled when she absolutely had to.
I’m currently moving into a new apartment and the movers are coming tomorrow for the furniture, so I had to pack the babies up and empty the terrariums. Which meant putting Pienna in her carrier. I have very big, thick red gloves for such occasions because she will draw blood.
Shockingly, all she did was puff up when I picked her up. No lunging. No screaming. No snapping. Not even very much wriggling. She wasn’t happy, of course, but she was tolerant, which is more than I ever thought that I could have with her.
I know that lizards aren’t animals that get special videos or praises for moving past trauma. They’re not emotional creatures and you can’t cuddle them. They don’t really do all that much. But I am so incredibly happy and proud that she’s come this far. Since I got her, I’ve been legitimately afraid of this animal. I love her, but I understand that she poses a risk if I’m not careful. Her letting me pick her up and put her in the carrier without any issue for the first time since she came home is all of the reward I could ever hope for in giving her this life. Our eyes met two years ago and I thought, “I just want to give her a good home and she’s going to die in this place.”
I don’t know if she knows that she’s in a better place or that she’s loved. I don’t know if she’s moving past her issues with people and being afraid all of the time. I don’t know if she likes the purple flowers I got her or the shape of the water dish she has. What I do know is that I can put my hand in to feed her and she won’t run away or try to bite. Sometimes she lets me watch her eat. And, now, I can pick her up without the usual fanfare. At the very least, she’s decided at some point in the past half year that I’m alright. I’m not great, but I’m not a threat to her. That’s probably as close to love as this one is going to get and I’m proud of that.
By no means is she able to be handled out of her terrarium—she will probably always be “display only.” Posy and Pallas are friendly enough for all three and they had a better start than she did. But she’s good.