 Mary's Story | |
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Mary's story is, in some ways, more complicated than that of Bailey or Xander. I've actually known Mary since she left the pet store, and Bailey and I lived with Mary (that wasn't her name back then) for the first few years of her life. A roommate became so enamored of baby Bailey that he just had to get one of his own. He named her Kijou (kie-jew), the Japanese word for "monster" - which, in fact, she turned out to be. <Which just goes to show how much a name can influence personality.> |
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| At first, the roomie took good care of little Kijou and we all enjoyed having two little iggies to play with. The infatuation faded, though, as happens far to often with first-time ig owners, and he stopped paying as much attention to her as he should have. She free roamed in a house with open exits and disappeared for days at a time practically every week. At least once a month we would get a call from a nearby neighbor asking us to come get the monster out of their tree or driveway. When Kijou/Mary was about five or six years old, I got engaged to man who lived in another state and started spending less of my free time at home. Less and less of my time with the iguanas. The roomie began to neglect Mary; just about the only time she ever got attention was when she did something bad and then her "owner" would treat her quite harshly. |
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About a year later, I got married and moved to Las Vegas with my husband (and Bailey and kitty Favor). Kijou's human stopped paying any attention to her and eventually he moved out of the house and left Kijou behind! Lucky for Kijou, it was my father's house and he didn't mind having a stray iguana wandering about... eating cat food and dog food, munching weeds from the backyard, coming and going as she pleased. Being the thoughful animal lover that he is, my father knew he couldn't take proper care of Kijou. When my husband and I visited Dad a year or so later, he told us Kijou's owner hadn't been around in over three months and that he had never asked about her whenever he had called. Kijou was all but wild, only letting dad hold her after inflicting several trail whips and strike attempts. |
| I don't believe he would ever have taken Kijou to the pound or Animal Control, but I also knew he wouldn't ever be able to give her the kind of home she needed. And so did my husband... with unspoken agreement and acknowledgement of what had to be done, we boxed Kijou up and took her home with us. It had been a year since Kijou and Bailey had seen each other, but we hoped they would still get along as we really weren't prepared to house her separately. We didn't have a cage or a room where we could keep her isolated. So, into the outdoor habitat she went and we watched carefully as she and Bailey approached each other. |
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Bailey made it clear that the habitat was his territory, and the two of them got along with few problems. There were repeated incidents of minor attacks - once a week or so we would find one of them with a small injury, but nothing life threatening. With us humans, it was different. Kijou wouldn't let my husband or I get anywhere near her without trying to attack, no matter how nice we were or what kind of treats we offered. When we were able to back her into a corner to try feeding her, she ravaged the food - tearing it from our hands as if to kill. She even bit clear through a pair of leather gardening gloves once when my husband, Bill, tried to pick her up! That was when we decided to change her name. We figured that if we thought of her as a monster then she would certainly behave like a monster. If we wanted a sweet iggie then she needed a sweet name. |
| We chose the name Mary for two reasons. First, the plastic iguana that we had bought to keep Bailey company when we came to Vegas had always been called Mary. Second, Bailey was named after George Bailey from the film "It's A Wonderful Life", and since George Bailey's sweetheart and wife was named Mary it seemed the appropriate name for Bailey's new lifemate. Whatever the reason - name change or simple passage of time - eventually Mary started to settle down. She still disliked Bill and I, but she and Bailey started getting along like the old friends they were. That was fine with us. She could hate us if she wanted to, but if she couldn't get along with Bailey we would have to place her with new owners. As of this day, she is still unpredictable in her moods. We have good days when she lets me hold her and cuddle her, but there are also times when she tries to tail whip us for no apparent reason. |
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