DO NOT BOARD YOUR PETS HERE EVER
THIS IS NOT AN EXOTIC VET
THIS IS A DEATH TRAP
DO NOT TRUST THEM
I had a beautiful male panther chameleon, 4 and-a-half years old, in perfect health, and no prior hea... Read More
DO NOT BOARD YOUR PETS HERE EVER
THIS IS NOT AN EXOTIC VET
THIS IS A DEATH TRAP
DO NOT TRUST THEM
I had a beautiful male panther chameleon, 4 and-a-half years old, in perfect health, and no prior health conditions. He is in critical condition due to injuries sustained here at this “clinic”. This is my story.
Two weeks before my trip, I called Quail Ridge Animal Hospital, and a receptionist told me they are able to board chameleons. I told her the date of my flight and she said that would be fine, and she’ll be happy to take him for as long as I need him to be boarded. I called the morning of my flight and a different receptionist told me that they don’t know who spoke to me, that because they haven’t taken new clients due to renovations. She then said that because I had talked to someone who said it would in fact be ok, I can go ahead and bring him down. I asked if I needed to bring his set up or if a cage was ready for him. She said they had everything they needed to keep a chameleon, I did not need to bring his set up, just bring him. So I did. I drove him down and dropped him off. I had no idea I had signed him to a month of torture.
I CALLED THEM, they did not call me. I called them at the end of December in the middle of my trip to check in and see how he was doing. They said he isn’t opening his right eye and they don’t know why, but the doctor was keeping an eye on it.
When I received my pet, he was dehydrated, the end of his tail was rotten black, he was missing toes on one of his hands, he was bright red all over, and his eye was sunken in. As if to flaunt their incompetence to me, they kept congratulating each other on how well they took care of him (despite him being in obvious pain and sustained injuries) kept talking about how pretty he is (despite him being bright red THE COLOR OF PAIN) and kept proudly showing off their inhumane set up for him. THEY KEPT HIM IN A GLASS AQUARIUM. No wonder his tail rotted, ANYONE who knows chameleons would know that you NEVER keep them in glass aquariums. IF YOU DID NOT HAVE THE EQUIPMENT TO PROPERLY KEEP HIM THEN WHY DID YOU TELL ME TO LEAVE MY SETUP AT HOME.
The worst injury was to his eye. Someone dropped him. They were playing with him like a toy and the dropped him. His eye showed all the signs of trauma due to a drop from a high height, much higher than what his small glass death trap would allow. His eye was bruised and cloudy, and recessed due to pain. Hewitt was unconcerned, and he should be fine in a few days. He has been fighting for his life ever since. This chameleon has a bruised eye due to mishandling and trauma inflicted to him by the staff.
I took him back to Quail Ridge because they needed to fix the damage they had done to him. If she really wants to call herself an exotic vet, then she needs to do her job and save this animal whose life she destroyed. The receptionist said I should drop him off and throughout the day the vet would observe him. I did not want to put him back in the hands of his abusers, but I thought maybe she would undo the damage she and her staff caused him. She did not check on him throughout the day, she waited until after hours to look at him. At the end of the day googled photos of chameleon eye problems, and based off that ALONE decided there was a piece of shed in his tear duct. She based that off 1) he shed while there and 2) the way his eye was closed, bulging at the bottom, and sunken in at the top. There are MANY conditions that cause a chameleon to withdraw their eye in this way, that is a reflex they have control over when they are in PAIN, and a clogged tear duct WOULD NOT CAUSE THE CLOUDINESS ON THE CORNEA THE WAY A CORNEA ABRASION WOULD, I.E. SOMEONE ON HER STAFF DROPPED HIM WHILE PLAYING WITH HIM. She has no idea what she is doing, this is not an exotic vet with any experience, this is someone who googled some images and guessed. She does not care about anyone, she knows she screwed up and is trying to blame anyone but the people responsible for his obvious traumatic eye injury. Read Less