I stopped entertaining dreams of owning a real, live dragon when I was about six. But I have one now, 20 years later. It’s not like I expected.
Four months ago, I adopted a bearded dragon. He was being kept in a freezing, unfinished basement. So I offered to take him. I didn’t know anything about how to take care of him, but I’ve been picking it up as I go.
But there are some things that people don’t tell you about owning a dragon—things Petco doesn’t exactly put in their care pamphlets—things I wish I’d known.
Dragons are becoming increasingly popular pets, but before you go signing up for life with a reptile, here are a few things they don’t tell you.
Slaughter-fest
The carnage that goes into feeding Spyro has taken a serious toll on me. The crickets I can deal with—because this past Christmas, one trapped itself in my apartment and chirped incessantly for nights on end, so every one of its kinsman I see slide down my lizard’s gullet is belated vengeance.
But the other common food product, superworms, they require a little more prep. See, if swallowed alive and whole, superworms will occasionally bore straight through a dragon’s stomach. So you have to cut their heads off. Twice a week, I steel my resolve, lay down a bed of kale and fix him a grim salad garnished with decapitated grubs. Every meal is the entomological equivalent to the final moments of Louis and Marie Antoinette.
New skin
Every few months, Spyro sheds his skin, which I knew would happen eventually. What I didn’t know was that during his week-long molting episodes, he gets moody—hateful really—and he doesn’t appreciate being handled.
The first time he shed was the first time I understood why the bearded dragon bears that name: when a dragon gets upset, the thorny skin around its gaping, hissing maw flares out and darkens—like a black, scaly beard.
I immediately understood how Wayne Knight’s character in “Jurassic Park” felt when face to face with the dilophosaurus—you know, right before it killed and ate him.
The only thing that calms him down is a soak in the tub. I didn’t know lizards liked baths, but I fill up the sink with warm water every other night, and there he floats with his eyes closed like he’s in a day spa. When he takes a soak after having eaten crickets dusted with calcium powder, he looks a bit like Tony Montana in the bathtub scene from “Scarface.”
Evolutionary nonsense
The dragon behavior that alarms me most to this day makes no sense—none whatsoever. Every now and again, I’ll glance over into Spyro’s enclosure, and his eyes will be bulging out of his head like they’re ready to erupt out of their sockets and fly across the room like champagne corks.
The first time this happened, I panicked and raced for my laptop to Google what was wrong with him. I discovered that no one really knows, but the general consensus is that it’s comparable to a human yawn, totally benign but truly bizarre. He’s just stretching the muscles that keep his eyes in place—and disturbing me deeply each and every time.
But it’s not all bad. Despite the occasional psychological scarring, he’s been a good addition to the family, and as primeval beasts go, he’s a good guy. So for those considering adopting a beardie, now you know what to expect. They may be odd, volatile and even frightening at times, but, let’s be real, they still beat cats any day.
