It's Raining Dragons!

It's not every day that reptiles drop in for care at St. Bernard's Animal Medical Center. In fact, up until now we have typically been called upon to treat scaly critters once, maybe twice, a year. But the word is out that associate veterinarian Dr. Robin Gibson has a special interest in reptiles, especially lizards, and is now offering wellness and sick exams for these scaly friends.  Within one short week, our reptile caseload drought turned in to a baby bearded dragon monsoon!  

Reptile Guests
by Dr. Robin Gibson, DVM

Reptiles have their own unique needs, especially when it comes to housing and food requirements. Sometimes if things aren’t “just right” they can come down with illnesses.  They can also be curious and
get themselves into trouble, or get hurt.  We are here to help you figure out the right lighting, heat, food, and moisture requirements for your reptile, and to get them back on the right track if something goes wrong.

Dr. Robin Gibson soaks the baby bearded
dragon in warm water to help with shedding.

One baby bearded dragon that we saw this week was having trouble shedding.  Little lizards are especially prone to retained shed.  Feet and tails are the most likely places, as was the case for this little guy.  If the skin on fingers and toes does not come off, it will constrict the digit and cut off blood circulation.  This is a serious problem for the toe!  If the blood supply is not corrected, the toe may turn black and fall off.  This little lizard started chewing at his foot as it turned painful or numb, in an attempt to remove the shed.  We saw him right away because some lizards bite their toes all the way off!   We soaked him in warm (not hot!) water to help moisten the old skin, and then gently rubbed and worked the shed off his feet and tail.  We put some antibiotic powder on each of his feet to help prevent infection.  If your lizards are having trouble shedding, you can also give them a warm bath for 10-15 minutes and gently work the skin off.  This will minimize their discomfort and prevent missing toes!



Another baby dragon we saw had a very serious condition.

This bearded dragon suffers from
calcium deficiency. With the exception
of her skull and jawbones (which
show up as appropriately bright white
on the x-ray image), nearly her entire
skeleton is lacking calcium needed
for strong bones and shows up
almost the same color as her
muscles and organs on the x-ray image.

This little one had deformed bones, including a crooked spine and tail, and a swollen toe.  Her hind leg had become paralyzed, and on x-rays her bones were severely decalcified.  She was also stunted in her growth.  These are all signs of metabolic bone disease, a calcium deficiency.  Calcium is important for bones, nerves, the immune system, and other functions.  This deficiency can happen from a lack of calcium in the diet, too much phosphorus, or not enough UVB light. Our little friend was receiving great care including a calcium supplement three times a week and UVB light at her current home, but must not have had these benefits in her previous home.  It is important to check out your little lizards when you first get them and monitor their bone growth in the early weeks and months, since they are more susceptible to metabolic bone disease during rapid growth. Unfortunately it was too late for this baby girl.  If metabolic bone disease is caught early and aggressive calcium supplementation is performed, your lizard has a better chance of recovery.  Look for these signs of metabolic bone disease so you can bring your little one in early:  stunted growth, swollen bones or joints, a rubbery jaw, crooked/bowed bones or spine, weakness or paralysis.

This little bearded dragon came in for a health
check up just like kittens and puppies do!

The other little bearded dragon we saw was happy and healthy.  He came in for a wellness exam, just like a puppy or kitten would.  We discussed his housing and food, and made sure that everything was set up for him to live a good long life.  Thankfully, many casualties can be avoided with proper care and keen eyes.

We hope you found this info helpful, and we look forward to meeting your scaly friend!

Eleazar (Zar for short) is a 6-year-old, 4-foot-long
iguana who shares Dr. Robin Gibson's home.
Dr. Gibson previously worked at a wildlife
rehabilitation center in the reptile department
caring for lizards, turtles, tortoises, and snakes.

Boo! Scary Eye Emergency

Proptosis - a veterinary eye emergency

No, it's not a Halloween mask.

And it certainly isn't a trick.

What's happened to this little dog is an eye emergency called "proptosis."

Essentially Ollie's* eyeball popped out of his head and became trapped in front of his eyelids. This is an emergency for Ollie because 1) it's very painful (hence the muzzle), and 2) may cause him to go blind in that eye.

How does this sort of thing happen? And what is to be done for poor Ollie?

 Proptosis happens most frequently in what we veterinarians call brachycephalic breeds ("brachy" meaning short and "cephalic" meaning head) like pugs and shih tzus because their large, protuberant eyeballs don't sit deeply enough inside their shallow eye sockets. Chihuahuas like Ollie are also highly susceptible to proptosis for this reason. Ironically, what makes Ollie's sweet baby face so irresistible also predisposes his eyes to serious injury.

Despite his skull's predisposing anatomic features, Ollie's eyeball did not just pop out of his head for no reason. Like other proptosis cases, Ollie experienced a sudden trauma which caused his eyeball to be forwardly displaced. Sometimes this trauma is caused by a fall or blow to the head, but oftentimes it results from a dog fight. Indeed, the morning of his injury Ollie instigated one too many altercations with his much larger husky housemate, Turbo. A quick snap from Turbo caught Ollie just right, causing his eyeball to proptose but remarkably causing no damage to his skull or skin. As the owner pointed out, if Turbo had meant to kill Ollie he would have. It was an accident pure and simple.

Fortunately, Ollie's owner was on the telephone with us immediately, it being pretty clear that Ollie needed emergency care for his bizarre looking injury. Intuitively, she recognized Ollie's vision was at stake, and he was clearly in pain.

An incision is made to create a larger opening in the eyelids so
the eyeball can be pushed back into the socket where it belongs.



After a rapid assessment, Ollie was placed under anesthesia for proptosis repair. His eyeball was rinsed with sterile saline to remove dust and hair, and a special stain called fluorescein was dripped onto his cornea (the clear, domed covering over the colored iris and black pupil) to assess for abrasions. Amazingly, his cornea was in great shape. Ollie hadn't even scratched at his protruding eyeball!

Next, because it was impossible to coax his eyeball behind his eyelids even after lubricating the globe, an incision was very carefully made at the outer edge of his eyelids to make the hole larger. This allowed us to push the eyeball back into place behind the eyelids.

Now to keep the eyeball in place! Once an eyeball has proptosed it has a tendency to pop out again. This is because the globe is swollen and the eyelids are a little weak. In order to keep the eyeball in place until swelling recedes, a procedure called "temporary tarsorrhaphy" is done. This involves suturing the eyelids shut over the eyeball for a period of time. Stents (little bits of medical rubber tubing) are used to prevent the suture from pulling through the skin. The sutures must be placed very precisely so they don't rub on the cornea underneath the eyelids.

Ollie needs to wear an e-collar constantly until the sutures
holding his eyeball in place are removed.

Ollie was started on medications to prevent infection as well as to reduce swelling and pain. A rigid e-collar (i.e., cone of shame) was placed immediately to prevent Ollie from rubbing at his eye. Ollie has to wear the e-collar continuously until the sutures are finally removed.

Possible complications from proptosis include blindness (especially if the time between injury and correction is prolonged) and increased risk for development of glaucoma, dry eye and corneal changes. Because Ollie still had vision in the injured eye at the time of correction and there was no visible damage to his cornea, prognosis for a full recovery is good.

Since his ocular emergency, Ollie has been doing very well at home; although he's madder than ever at Turbo! We have already removed one of the sutures -- the sutures are removed in stages to help keep the eyeball in place -- and Ollie appears to have vision through the slit created. Very soon, once the incision in the outer eyelid has had time to heal, we will remove the second suture and hope Ollie's eyeball stays put permanently.


Drs. Kim Everson and Robin Gibson celebrate a successful
proptosis repair while Ollie recovers.
(Assistant Ashley Norton gives him a complimentary
pedicure while he's still sedated!)

Proptosis is only one of many ocular emergencies affecting veterinary patients. While proptosis is a visibly obvious reason to seek veterinary care, other eye emergencies may be more subtle. As a rule of thumb, call your veterinarian right away if your pet has a very red eye or eyes; severe squinting; persisting elevated third eyelid (the fleshy membrane in the inside corner of the eye); noticeably different sized eyeballs; excessive yellow-green discharge; or any other signs of obvious pain or loss of vision.








* Names changed to protect the guilty!

Snake in the Chair

It's not every day a snake gets lost in your living room chair. But then with unusual pets come unusual problems.

Friday night. It had been a long "short" week following Labor Day. All the urgent care cases we manage to squeeze into our already stacked appointment and surgery caseload always seem more numerous after a long holiday weekend, and this week was no different. The long weekend gives dogs an extra day to get sick from stealing fatty BBQ leftovers and to tear toenails while ripping around the countryside with their recreating owners!

After a late meal with my family, I was finally starting to decompress from this last hectic day. The kids were off playing video games together, the dishes were done, and I was seriously considering falling into bed with my latest book, Dakota Dawn. Then it occurred to me that I could watch the kids play their games and handle my 4-year-old corn snake. My creamsicle-colored corn snake Peaches is a very nice snake, about three feet long, mellow and easy to handle unlike my son's much younger albino corn snake (Phantom) who acts like a cobra any time you try to handle it! Peaches never strikes and, if she did, her tiny teeth wouldn't do much damage because corn snakes are constrictor-type snakes who squeeze their prey before eating.

As companionable as Peaches is, she doesn't demand attention--nudging a hand like my dog Guppy or loudly purring in my face like my kitty Cheeks. Safely contained in her giant terrarium, Peaches mostly curls up under her large hollow basking rock. On rare occasions, we marvel as she stretches herself along her tree limb or has staring contests with Cheeks who finds Snake TV pretty entertaining. (This spring we added a new "channel" for Cheeks' viewing pleasure -- Rat TV -- which is a lot more high action.) Pretty much the only time I handle Peaches is prior to feeding. We don't let her eat inside her terrarium to avoid accidental ingestion of her bedding as well as to keep her habitat cleaner. Because I worry that Peaches will begin to associate handling with eating and become more aggressive, a few quiet moments of contact for the sake of contact is a good idea.

Dr. Kim lures Peaches forward with a nummy mouse meal.

After extricating Peaches from under her rock, I settled into my blue recliner to relax. This, I thought to myself, is exactly what I needed: a full belly, laughing kids and some much-needed bonding with my unassuming reptile. Peaches slithered slowly around my forearms. She slithered so slowly, in fact, she seemed not to be moving at all. In reality, though, when I tried to arise a while later to put the kids to bed, I discovered Peaches had wiggled her way into the back cushion of the chair and I was holding just the hind third of her body! If you've never held a snake, you might not realize that holding the hind third is not holding much at all. You've got no leverage and the snake has the momentum. Accelerating from lassitude to full panic in record time, I called my son over to try to wrest Peaches' front end from the cushion while I applied traction to her back end, but it was too late. Peaches' muscular little body slid from my grasp in the "wild blue yonder" of the chair.

For some people, just imagining a snake hiding in the living room furniture is a wake-up-sweating nightmare. My biggest fear, however, was having Peaches sneak out of the chair and disappear into our old farmhouse where she might meet her demise by dehydration or predation from her biggest "fan" Cheeks. My snake book suggests tricks for catching a rogue snake. All involve laying traps around the baseboards because snakes tend to travel along the walls. Not only is my house such a colossal mess that reaching the baseboards is nearly impossible for me, but my old farmhouse also has snake-sized hidey holes in the floors and baseboards that a corn snake might happily disappear down before reaching a carefully laid snake trap. The fear of outright losing Peaches dissolved into dismay that I'd have to disassemble the blue chair to retrieve the snake as well as concern that if someone accidently lowered the footrest, she'd be a mashed mess inside the chair. With one hand grasping the part of Peaches I could still see, my son and I carefully set the chair on its side so we could assess the inner workings. Although we couldn't see Peaches any better this way, it made it easier to coax her slightly forward by "tickling" her back end.



Dr. Kim coaxes
Peaches out of the chair

With her head just visible where the back of the chair meets the armrest, Peaches put on the brakes. This is when I remembered a trick that had, in the past, coaxed her as well as Phantom out from a fake hollow log in their terraria. Food. Since it was close to feeding time, I quickly warmed up a frozen fuzzy mouse in a cup of very hot water until it was "mouse body temperature" (the non-specific but very descriptive thermal requirement set forth in my snake books). Grasping the fuzzy's tiny hind feet with a long hemostat, I waved the meal in front of Peaches' flickering tongue. Luckily she took the bait and emerged about half-way. Teasing her with the mouse only went so far, however. She refused to exit the safety of the seat and grew weary of my "dangling mouse" trick, so I eventually relented and allowed her to eat dinner. By now, though, I was able to grasp the front third of her body and this is a much better position to be in. Although I likewise wearied of this drama and wished I'd gone to bed when the thought first crossed my mind over an hour ago, I was now fully committed to getting Peaches out of the chair. A snake who has eaten is a snake who will soon poop, and I did not want snake poop in my easy chair!

We carefully set the chair back upright and poked our fingers along the non-removable (grrr!) seat cushion to urge Peaches forward. After many dicey minutes waiting for Peaches to commit to slithering toward our second blue chair, she emerged sufficiently from the seat-back to be safely tugged free. As I dropped Peaches back into her terrarium and latched the lid tight, I breathed a deep sigh of relief that all ended well.  It just goes to figure that a crazy catch-up work week would end in a bizarre fashion, I thought to myself. As I hurried off to bed before any more weirdness could happen in the dregs of the day, it occurred to me that it had been a true "snake-in-a-chair" kind of day.

What I Did on My Winter Vacation

Whenever I manage to sneak my family and myself away from our regular life for a week during the winter, I feel I owe it to my clients, my children's teachers and myself to broaden my horizons in an educational way while soaking up some sun. I recently returned to frigid Wisconsin after visiting family near Cocoa Beach, Florida, enriched with vitamin D and the following unusual animal encounters.

We kicked off our trip by driving through the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge for a nominal park fee of $5.00. If you are a bird watcher, this is a must-do while on the Space Coast of Florida. Upon entering you receive a check list of migratory and resident birds that you might observe in the sanctuary. Although I'm no birder, I enjoyed identifying coots, pelicans, ibis, herons, egrets, osprey and grebes and simply appreciated the sheer number and beauty of scores of unidentified birds. We also drove past several Florida soft-shelled turtles, a few non-venomous water snakes and some alligators.

The most memorable alligator experience of our trip occurred on this outing when we drove past a

Dr. Kim Everson investigates a road-killed alligator

particularly large alligator lying strangely close to the highway on our way into the Refuge. When we observed the gator unmoved from this location on our exit, we paused to investigate. Having now witnessed numerous cold, sluggish alligators in Florida winter, I assure you a sleepy alligator basking in the sun and a dead road-kill alligator look remarkably similar. Neither may blink or appear to be breathing. Even blood on the roadway is no guarantee you've encountered a dead reptile rather than a recently feeding one! With an abundance of caution I approached the alligator, saddened but also relieved to find its skull had been crushed by an automobile and it was utterly dead.

Florida alligators are a huge tourist attraction in Florida inspiring both awe and fear. After being added to the Endangered Species list in the 1960s, the American alligator has been successfully restored to healthy numbers. And as fearsome as these giant "lizards" are (by the way, alligator is derived from the Spanish word for lizard "el lagarto"), it really is possible to co-exist peacefully with them. Since 1948, when records started being kept, only twenty people have been killed by alligators in Florida. What's more, alligators are being studied for clues into their remarkable capability to heal and fight off infections -- they may even help unlock a cure for AIDs.

Rhiannon shares The Dinosaur Store's gentle tegu,
a South American omnivorous lizard with Dr. Kim Everson

It was a close-up view of alligators that lured us into Cocoa Beach's The Dinosaur Store on a particularly chilly day, but what kept us there were reptiles of a different stripe and a friendly herpetologist, Rhiannon Bonine. I peppered her with questions about reptile genetics, husbandry and how to treat common ailments. Rhiannon and I chatted about the difference between albino and leucistic (aka color dilute) animals, the causes and treatment for stomatitis in snakes (sometimes these mouth infections occur after the snake is bitten by its rodent prey), and the difference in porosity between crocodiles and alligator skeletons (the small holes lighten their skeletal weight and aid their keen ability to sense swimming prey). The tail end of our energetic conversation turned to conservation issues ranging from efforts to protect endangered Florida panthers and Chinese alligators to efforts to eradicate invasive pythons and toads. The Dinosaur Store keeps a gigantic fat Bufo toad, which they've decided is female due to her remarkable girth (she looks to be about the size of a canned ham) and notable silence.

Dr. Kim Everson poses with a Bufo marinus toad, a
Florida invasive species and a poisonous pest to pets

Seeing live Bufo toads up close and personal at The Dinosaur Store and the Brevard Zoo was a real surprise and a treat. In veterinary school, our toxicology professor harped on the importance of understanding Bufo toad poisonings in pet dogs. Fortunately venomous Bufo toads are not found in Wisconsin -- our local toads just taste very yucky! The Bufo toad (Bufo marinus) is an invasive species in Florida, having been accidentally released near Miami in the 1950s after being used elsewhere to control grubs damaging sugar cane fields. Unfortunately, a Bufo toad loves to eat everything including native Floridian frogs and toads. Additionally, the milky toxin it secretes from the parotoid glands at the back of its head can kill dogs and cats that accidentally ingest the secretion!

Approaching an armadillo

Another topic in veterinary school that seems very exotic and unhelpful until you watch your son chasing it across a ditch is a leprosy-infested armadillo. Until this recent vacation, the only armadillos I'd ever seen were as are dead as raccoon on the Florida roadside. On this trip I watched my fearless eldest child stalk an armadillo, peacefully nibbling grass, near Kennedy Space Center. Besides being shocked to learn that armadillos hop like armored bunnies when slowly approached (in fact, the Aztecs called them "turtle-rabbits"), my family learned that armadillos can carry the dreaded bacteria which causes leprosy. Although now relatively rare and readily treatable, leprosy is a disease of biblical proportions that makes me loathe to get too close to a potential carrier.

At Clearwater Marine Aquarium, Dr. Kim Everson observes
physical therapy --tail  stretching exercises--performed
on Winter

One thing I've learned on my visits to Florida is that wildlife abounds, many times where you don't want it to. An entire industry exists to serve as ambassador between unwanted or injured animals and the public. For example, herpetologist Rhiannon Bonine described the work of Roaming Reptiles, an educational company which responds to emergency calls from concerned citizens with snakes in their homes that need to be carefully captured and relocated. Some of these snakes are venomous, but many are not. The beauty of such a service is that innocent but wayward reptiles are valued and preserved in the ecosystem. Another now-famous animal rescue and rehabilitation organization is Clearwater Marine Aquarium. During a 2012 visit, I was given an incredible behind-the-scenes tour of the facility that continues to rehabilitate "Winter," dolphin star of the two "Dolphin Tale" movies. While the goal of Clearwater Marine Aquarium (CMA) is to rescue stranded or injured marine animals, rehabilitate them through nutritional, medical and surgical care, and release them to their natural habitat, the CMA has on occasion taken in animals who will not survive back in the wild. Winter, the tail-less dolphin, is the most famous example, but my kids and I enjoyed meeting other permanent residents of CMA which include an otter named Cooper who was discovered in a Florida garage with partial hind limb paralysis (he can swim like nobody's business) and Harold, one of two blind sea turtles whose visual impairment is being aggressively studied for clues that may help understand vision-loss in wild turtles.

Dr. Kim Everson admires a sponge
washed up on a Clearwater beach

The last and least likely animal I learned about on my winter vacation is the sponge. Yup. Sponge. Like the sponge with which you wash your car. Sponges are multicellular invertebrate marine animals which do not have digestive, circulatory or nervous systems. Anyone who has seen a sponge will agree they consist of pores and channels through which water is channeled to exchange nutrients and waste products. As I walked along Clearwater Beach I examined a variety of washed-up sponges--finger sponge, stovepipe sponge, giant yellow sponge... Meeting one of the most primitive animals ever is pretty cool, but after visiting the Sponge Docks in Tarpon Springs, Florida, I have an even greater appreciation. The use of sponges in daily life is documented back thousands of years but the harvesting of sponges has changed very little in all that time. Earliest sponge harvesting was accomplished by wading and swimming offshore to collect specimens. As this easy-to-reach population was depleted, sponge hunters became divers, peering at the seabed through glass bottom buckets from little boats then diving great depths to collect their harvest. Hardhat diving apparatus (those alien-looking round copper helmets right out of Creature from the Black Lagoon) revolutionized sponge collection allowing sponge divers to remain on the seabed for significantly longer periods of time. SCUBA has mostly replaced other forms of diving, but once the sponge is on the boat processing remains the same as it has been for centuries! The sponge fishermen process their catch by rinsing and pressing the sponges repeatedly to remove seawater and slimy sponge goo, then they string them by type and size on long "needles" which hang all along the ship to dry. Back at the sponge docks, the sponge are sorted, trimmed and sold in batches at auction. Different species of sponge are valued for different cosmetic, household and decorative uses. Although sponge is a renewable resource, sponge fishermen must adhere to strict rules about the size of sponge that can be harvested and how to collect sponge without destroying the animal's ability to regenerate.

Vacations are how we humans regenerate, er...re-energize? And the best vacations, in my opinion, are those during which you learn something new. On my recent winter vacation I enjoyed seeing the Florida world -- sponges and snakes, alligators and armadillos, toads and tegus --  through my inner child's wondering eyes as well as my veterinarian's analytic ones.

In loving memory of my uncle Ed Hansen, who loved his farm animals, 

but also took time to travel the world with his beloved family.