Animals have taught me so much over the years, but sometimes one of them teaches you something you never wanted to learn. Ivar was one of those animals.
Animals come into our lives for all sorts of reasons. Some are with us for decades. Others only pass through for a few months before moving on. We celebrate the successes, remember the failures and, if we're paying attention, each one leaves us with a lesson.
Ivar stayed with me for just over two years.
When he arrived, he was exactly what you would expect from an Indonesian blue-tongued skink that had been failed by the people responsible for him. Thin. Dehydrated. Lacking muscle. Living, but certainly not thriving.
Over the following two years, things slowly changed.
Not because there was a miracle cure.
Not because of expensive equipment.
Just because someone paid attention.
Ivar was an Indonesian blue-tongued skink (Tiliqua gigas) that had been "rescued" by a company. I use the word rescued rather cautiously. Money had exchanged hands, and the previous owner was an animal dealer rather than a breeder. Whatever label was attached to the transaction, one thing was obvious.
Ivar needed help.
Several months later, the company contacted me. Ivar wasn't eating. He had become increasingly defensive and was, by all accounts, impossible to handle. Biting. Scratching. Bluffing. Hissing. Every behaviour a blue-tongued skink has in its armoury was on full display.
My assessment was straightforward.
He was angry.
He was underweight.
He was dehydrated.
He was suffering from a level of malnutrition I had rarely encountered in a skink.
...and yes, he was still angry.
As is so often the case, the animal wasn't really the problem.
I began asking about his husbandry.
What enclosure was he living in?
A plastic tub.
What substrate?
Bark flakes.
How was he being heated?
A heat mat.
What UV lighting was he receiving?
None.
Suddenly, Ivar made perfect sense.
I sent the company away with recommendations for a suitable enclosure, appropriate substrate, overhead heating, UVB lighting and dietary improvements. My estimate was simple.
"Give me a month or two."
"I'll have him eating."
Feeding remained the biggest challenge.
Not because Ivar wasn't hungry.
Because he absolutely hated me. Insofar as reptiles can hate anything.
I'd moved him into a 4 x 2 x 2-foot enclosure with a deep naturalistic substrate, plenty of hides, low climbing opportunities, suitable basking areas, room to dig and appropriate heat and UVB. In short, everything an Indonesian blue-tongued skink should have.
Then I did something incredibly brave.
I left him alone.
For an entire week.
No handling. No chasing him around the enclosure. No "just checking he's alright" every five minutes. I simply changed his water, spot-cleaned where necessary and occasionally dropped in an insect as I walked past. Nothing particularly exciting. Just enough to let him know food existed without making him associate it with me.
Sometimes, the best husbandry decision you can make is to stop trying to help.
About a week later, the day I'd been quietly putting off finally arrived.
The skinny potato needed examining, and more importantly, he needed food.
Something high in protein. Easy to digest. Something that wouldn't require him to expend what little energy he had chasing it around the enclosure.
So...
I made balls.
Turkey meatballs, to be precise. Lean turkey mince mixed with fruit and powdered insect-based crested gecko diet. Soft, nutritious and perfect for an omnivorous blue-tongued skink.
There was just one slight problem.
Ivar had absolutely no interest in eating anything that I was offering.
Fortunately, he remained very interested in biting me.
A plan began to form.
If I offered him a meatball between my fingers, he'd almost certainly launch himself at my hand. At the very last second I'd simply move my fingers out of the way and leave him with a mouthful of turkey instead.
Simple.
Elegant.
Scientifically flawless.
What could possibly go wrong?
Amazingly, absolutely nothing went wrong. It worked perfectly.
I'd managed to predict Ivar's behaviour and...
...he ate my balls.
Three of them, to be precise.
Two days later we repeated the process with exactly the same result. I wasn't completely flawless, I admit. Ivar clamped onto one of my fingers a couple of times, but nothing serious. To this day, I maintain he was aiming for the food, not me.
Within a few weeks, he was taking the meatballs voluntarily and from there everything changed.
He went from strength to strength.
As his confidence grew, so did his menu. Lean meats. Rodents. Chicks. Eggs. Every insect you could reasonably offer. Prepared omnivore diets. Fruits. Even the occasional vegetable.
But there was one clear favourite.
Snails.
He absolutely adored snails.
Watching him crunch through a snail with all the enthusiasm of a child discovering chocolate for the first time was strangely satisfying. It was also one of the first moments I remember thinking...
"I think we've got him”.
...and have him I did.
Over the following months, we progressed far beyond feeding. Eventually we reached the point where I could lift Ivar without so much as a hiss. No bluff displays. No lunges. No bites.
We'd developed our own little routine.
I'd pick him up and cradle him in my arms. When he'd had enough, he'd simply bury his head into my armpit. A brave decision on his part on most days, but it worked remarkably well. That was his way of saying, "I'm done now."
For an animal that had once viewed hands as something to attack, that tiny gesture meant everything.
Eventually, the day came that I'd been working towards from the very beginning.
It was time for Ivar to go home.
Or rather, back to the company that had "rescued" him.
My job was never to keep him.
It was to give him another chance.
I contacted the company to let them know he was ready.
Eighteen months later...
Yes.
Eighteen months.
They finally arrived.
Nothing had changed.
None of the husbandry recommendations had been implemented. None of the discussions we'd had appeared to have been acted upon. The enclosure hadn't been upgraded. The lighting hadn't been improved. As far as I could tell, the rehabilitation had begun and ended with leaving Ivar with me.
They collected him.
There were no questions about his routine.
No questions about his diet.
No interest in the methods we'd used to rehabilitate him.
No discussion about how to continue the work.
They simply picked him up...
...and left.
After two years with an animal, a thank you would have been appreciated.
But that wasn't what disappointed me.
What disappointed me was watching someone collect an animal they'd waited eighteen months to retrieve, without asking the one question that mattered.
"What does he need now?"
I still receive the occasional update about Ivar.
The good news is that he continues to eat well.
The sad part is that, from what I've been told, his behaviour has returned almost full circle. The confident skink that would quietly bury his head under my arm when he'd had enough has been replaced by the defensive animal I first met all those years ago.
Whether that's because the rehabilitation wasn't continued, because the environment changed, or for reasons I simply don't know, I can't honestly say.
What I do know is that Ivar taught me one of the most important lessons of my career.
It wasn't about blue-tongued skinks.
It wasn't about nutrition.
It wasn't even about rehabilitation.
It was about responsibility.
We often celebrate the point where an animal begins eating again, starts gaining weight or allows us to handle it. We call that rehabilitation. That’s how I used to chalk up the wins and losses.
I don't anymore.
To me, rehabilitation doesn't end when the animal recovers.
It ends when the standard of care recovers.
Only then can we say we've truly changed the animal's future.
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