Squirt

In April of 2006, I decided I wanted a Leopard Gecko. Had never had a reptile before, but he was SO cute, I couldn't resist.  4 weeks old, yellow/brown and spotted with a little bright green patch on his head, right in between his eyes. I learned everything about maintaining a reptile. About a month after I bought him, he stopped eating. No one really knew why, so I took him to the vet to have him checked out. He was tiny. About the length of my index finger - nose to tip of tail. I came home with antibiotics and syringe fed him baby food for a month. He rebounded very well.

In the beginning of last week I noticed he was SKINNY. Very, very skinny. He's nocturnal - up at night, sleeping during the day. Leopard Geckos store all the nutrients they digest in their tail. Squirt had a beautiful FAT tail. A week and a half ago I noticed it was mostly the size of a #2 pencil. That was 100% not right. I began to feed him baby food on a regular basis to help bulk him up. He's not a fan, but made it through. Yesterday I took him to the vet. 

Everyone that looked at him went - "oh wow, look how skinny he's gotten!" The vet came in - who happens to be a very well known vet for reptiles (I drive 45 minutes for heavens sake...). She told me it could very well be liver or kidney failure except he had lost so much weight, she couldn't draw blood. However, it could also be an infection or parasite from a worm he ate. She sent me home with two antibiotics, directions to syringe feed him 2-3x's a day and soak him in warm water 2x's a day. In 3 weeks I head back. If he's shown absolutely no improvement, I will most likely make the decision to put him down. How incredibly sad. This is the main reason people don't get pets. It's so hard. I will have to post a photo of him so you can see how incredibly beautiful he was - until lately. I'm going to try my hardest to get him back into good shape!