- Hey, good morning, everybody and welcome to the vlog.
I hope the start of your day is amazing.
I'm not going to lie to you,
my day has started pretty rough
and something that I hate sharing with you guys,
and you guys know that my animals mean so much to me.
I mean every one of these animals
whether it's Ben and Jerry, it's Bella,
whatever it is, I mean, these are more
than just animals on exhibit,
I mean, these are my pets, these are my love.
I have so much feeling for each of them,
and then, of course, some animals even more so than others.
You know, that emotional attachment,
whether it's with training with Elvis
or the emotional attachment I have with Bella.
Well, you guys remember the other day,
that Taz was not doing very well
and we had to tube feed him.
Well, this morning, I've got be honest with you guys,
I came in, and...
And Taz hadn't made it.
I mean, he passed away and,
and I didn't want to show you that part guys,
I've done it in the past,
and I get emotional when I see my animals, and...
It's really difficult.
I mean, it's really, really hard,
and it's part of keeping animals,
we've all been through it, but
but Taz was so special to me.
(solemn music)
- So guys, this is what happened.
You know, every year I've had Taz,
he's four years old,
and these guys typically live 30 years, you know?
Well, every year, he's went into brumation during
you know, November, December, January.
It's not uncommon for that to happen,
most of them do that.
And he just went off of food,
just like he did every other year.
And, we basically didn't even mess with him that much.
We rarely took him out.
We left him from alone, because again
they need to be in brumation, and kind of calm down.
And, um... We noticed, about two weeks ago,
that he started to look really thin.
I mean, you know, like every other year he looked great,
and he started eating again.
This year, he looked great, and about two weeks ago
he just started to shrivel up really quick.
And it really concerned me.
So, obviously, that's when we, you know, talked to our vet,
we talked to other people that we know
that work with tegus, and we decided to tube feed him.
And the tube feeding went fine.
And the next day, he even perked up a little bit,
and we thought, all right, we're on the right path.
We figured we'd tube feed him
every four, or five days,
and really get that body energy up.
And, then yesterday he was pretty lethargic,
and it definitely had me concerned.
So, the first thing I did this morning,
when I came in, was check on him, and...
And yeah, he... You know, he didn't make it.
And, and, it's... I can't express
the devastation I have right now,
because you guys know how much time I spent
with Taz, and how much...
He not only meant to me, but what...
How many lives he's changed, being around kids.
I mean, he was always one of the kids' favorites, and...
You know, I've always talked
about the fact that I'm going to take you guys
on the good, the bad, and the ugly,
and this is the ugly part, you know,
and anyone that's kept animals has lost animals.
I mean, why? I don't know, you know, we'll send Taz
out for a post-mortem, see what's going on
just to make sure that I know, the next time,
I know what I did wrong, you know?
And, I don't know if I did anything wrong,
nothing changed. Same thing that he's been doing
for the last four years. And, so...
but I want to make sure I understand what happened,
and if there's any chance that
I could prevent it in the future.
But I think anyone that keeps, in particular,
a lot of animals, whether a zoo,
a breeding company, have a lot of pets,
you're going to have losses, it's going to happen.
And I, I wanted you to know
that if you've gone through this, you're not alone.
You know, and if I were to hide this
that wouldn't help anybody.
And yeah, I'm hurting, I am, because I love that lizard.
And, and, like I said, I wanted to keep it together today
for you, rather than breaking down.
(sighs)
And...
It sucks.
It sucks more than I can even express to you, but
but if I want to keep animals
and do what I have to do, this is part of it.
And I have to take this part
and accept this part as much as it hurts.
- You know, the Reptarium has been around
for two and a half plus years now.
And, and even I've been surprised
that our animal ambassadors have just thrived
in this environment.
Not that I thought there was going to be an issue
but I've been around animals a lot.
And I wouldn't have, I
wouldn't have been that surprised if one
or two animals didn't thrive in the environment,
or whatever. And we basically haven't lost anything.
I mean, every animal has just done so well for us here.
It's, it's been really amazing.
And in my wildest dreams
I didn't think something would happen
to Taz, because tegus are hardy.
And, like I said, it's very typical for them
to go through brumation.
The only thing I can maybe say is, maybe I should
have actually put him into brumation in a cooler area.
And that way, he wouldn't have lost calories.
Instead of going into that brumative state,
but still being 80 something degrees.
And, that was probably something I should have done.
But every winter prior to this,
I did the same thing and he was fine.
He didn't lose a lot of weight,
and he ended up coming out of it,
and he was perfectly fine, so.
It's definitely a, you know, I'm going to
second guess myself, I'm going to beat myself up.
What happened? How did it happen?
I mean, but I don't want it to happen to anything else.
And like I've said, you know, we've been so fortunate
that every animal here has thrived so well.
- And of course, you guys that have been
with me for a long time, remember I had
an albino Burmese, called Sunshine,
who was just an absolute darling of a snake and,
and she passed away, and, and it was really difficult.
And, and, you know, in that case
I got emotional because I found her and I filmed it.
And, like I said, I just decided
I didn't want to do that today. I want to...
As crappy as this is,
I don't want to make this a crying video.
I don't want to make this, you know...
I didn't want to bring that emotion into it.
I wanted to take a few minutes and,
and get myself kind of centered again
so that I could talk to you guys about this.
And, and, you know, will I get another tegu?
Probably yes, to be totally honest.
Will it be another Taz?
Probably not.
You know, I mean, Taz was a one in a million
and, and who knows though.
Just like Sunshine was such an amazing animal,
when I got Sunrise, I was like
that can never be the same animal
as Sunshine was, because she was such a great snake.
And here we are, two and a half years later,
And Sunrise is so amazing.
Did she replace Sunshine?
Of course not.
But she is still an amazing animal ambassador.
And, you know, now I think the same thing.
I don't know when I'll be ready for a tegu.
Going to give it a few days before I really think
about what I'm going to do, but, um...
But, you know, tegus are amazing.
And I think that there's something
I want kids to be able to interact with.
Now I need to find one that's super tame,
and super amazing, just like Taz was.
And, it won't bring Taz back, or make it better.
But, you know, hopefully the same thing
that will happen with Sunshine and Sunrise,
hopefully we'll get a new tegu and,
and it'll replace, at least,
that part of the educational thing,
the outreach thing. For me, emotionally,
it's going to be a while, you know?
Whenever I lose an animal, it... it's hard.
It takes some time for me to get over.
But again, I want you guys to know
that I'm sure almost every one
of you that have kept animals, has lost something.
And sometimes you feel really alone in that, you know,
you feel so responsible, just like I feel responsible now.
Like what did I do wrong?
Why, why did this happen?
What could I have prevented it?
Should I have tube fed it earlier?
Should I have put it in brumation?
You know, all of these questions go through my head.
But the fact is, is that, you know
we all go through this, and you're not alone
if you've lost things.
And I know I'm not alone because I've lost it.
And I wanted to share it with you.
I don't want to Taz to just disappear.
And then you guys never heard of him.
Remember, I always tell you, if something happens
I'm going to tell you, right.
I'm not going to hide it from you.
And, and this is a bad day, but you know what?
I don't want to have the whole day terrible.
I want to... We've got a lot to do here.
We've got a lot of things to do today.
And we've got a lot of things to do every day.
We have to keep pushing forward, and yes
I'm going to grieve, and yes, I'm going to feel bad.
And yes, I'm going to probably cry a bit,
but you know what?
Let's try to keep things positive today,
as best we can, you know?
And, and, let's just try to somehow get busy
so that I can take my mind off of
a situation that I wish would have never happened.
- And I'll tell you one thing that I know
will take my mind off of everything,
is talking about 3.0 and the expansion.
And I actually have an inspector from the city
coming today, and we're going to have a conversation
about the fact that, is it even possible?
Will the city allow me to do it?
Before we start to figure out the rest of it.
(upbeat music)
- But is that something I can do?
I mean, is that, like, within ordinance, to do that?
- Well, yeah, no... You can...
It is feasible, you know, you would, obviously,
there's got to be the right size, the right height,
all that stuff.
(upbeat music)
- And the good news is, is he said
he has no problem with this.
Now, let me just tell you guys,
before I'm selling off animals, or downsizing.
A lot of boxes have to get ticked, guys.
I mean, I'm just starting to set myself
into a position where I'm starting to try to
find the answers to those questions.
You know, you know, all right.
City says, yes, that's a great thing.
Now we've got to get engineers out here.
Is it possible?
What's the cost of it? On, and on, and on.
So I'm not doing anything yet.
You know, I mean, this is going to take me a few months,
probably, to get to a point
where I even have the answers I need,
to know if I'm moving forward with the project.
I sure hope so.
I think it's going to happen.
I think it's doable. Today was a big day, knowing
that the city is behind the expansion.
So that's absolutely incredible.
But again, we have a lot more to learn.
So this is a long, long process.
And we are just on, literally, the first steps.
- Whenever I need comic relief,
I can always rely on this guy here, Jay, the edu-tainer.
So what do you have going on now? Seriously?
- So I'm trying to harness train Dwayne.
[Brian] - Harness train an alligator.
- Yes. [Brian] - Okay.
[Jay] - Yes, so... [Brian] - Right, so,
[Jay] - He's going to walk around when he's big.
Now this might be a little too big right now,
but we've just got to start, you know?
(laughs) - Okay, so Jay is, Jay is obsessed
with Dwayne the crock Johnson, here.
He, he constantly is working with this animal.
Of course he's teaching it all kinds of things.
And he's got Laurie convinced
that we're going to keep this alligator its whole life.
So we'll see how that goes.
So, okay. So, yeah.
That's way too big.
Maybe not.
Yeah, yeah, it's going to be too big.
- Let's just try it though.
[Brian]- Oh my gosh.
Do you think he's going to like it?
- Yeah. He loves everything.
- He loves everything? - Yeah.
[Brian] - Oh my gosh, that is adorable, though. Isn't it?
Oh my gosh.
If you could pull this off, man.
- Oh, I'm going to, I'm going to.
He's going to go home with me when it's, when it's warm out.
[Brian] - Oh my gosh. - We're going to have
sleepovers.
(laughing) - Going to have sleepovers.
[Jay] - Okay, so it's... - I used to sleep with RJ
in the hotel room all the time.
Yeah. That's definitely too big.
[Jay] - No, no, it's not.
[Brian] - You don't think it is?
[Jay] - No, he's got, like, a Jersey on.
[Brian] - Okay. [Jay] - Look at him.
[Brian] - So, do you think that...
And you're going to put a leash on here?
- Yeah, but not yet.
So, we're just going to ease him into it.
The first... [Brian] - Okay, so
harness first. [Jay] - He'll just
be wearing it. Now walk around like this,
and then next week we'll start
to get him walking on it.
[Brian] - Okay. [Jay] - Look at him.
[Brian] - We'll keep you... [Jay] - He loves it.
- We'll keep you posted on the progress.
Like I said, he always can cheer me up.
- We only have one pair of African fat-tailed geckos,
but I put them together a couple of months ago.
So, we're going to go through,
and check their cage for eggs today.
I don't have a lay box in here,
so it could be pretty much anywhere.
So this is dad here, hopefully.
Hopefully we've got a couple eggs in here.
Oh, look what we've got.
Now this one, it kind of feels like a little bit soft,
so it may actually be a slug,
but that's still a great sign,
because I've never gotten eggs
from this female before, slug or otherwise.
So, hopefully the next set will be really good.
I'm going to set this up anyway though, just in case.
And then these guys are actually super similar
to leopard geckos, as far as breeding
and incubating their eggs.
So, I'm just going to set these up
with my leopard gecko eggs and it should be
about the same incubation period, about two months.
And, hopefully, we have a little baby
African fat-tailed gecko.
- I don't know if you guys know,
but, actually, in shed skins,
oftentimes you can see patterns,
and even sometimes color.
Interestingly enough, like Hypo Ball Pythons,
the melanin, the lack of melanin,
that black pigment, actually means
that the shed is almost clear,
and you can't see patterns.
So Jay has a shed that he wants me to try to see
if I can see what kind of a snake it is.
So what is this?
[Jay] - All right, I found it this morning.
What do you think it is?
[Jay] - And it's at the Reptarium.
[Brain] - At the Reptarium. Let's see.
Oh, I know what this is.
This is... Gerald the tumorous ball.
- Oh man. You're right.
- I know. - You're right.
- I've been doing this awhile.
- I thought I was going to throw you off,
because it's so big.
- I know. See, I got it.
Try again later.
- All right, next time.
- So again guys, I mean, I realize
that today's a bummer,
but we're doing the best we can do to get through it.
You know?
And this is part of the journey.
I mean, you can't have it always good, right?
And so, listen, I appreciate you guys joining me,
and I hope that you appreciate that
I tried to take a little bit of a different spin
on this one, rather than being really emotional about it.
I wanted to be more practical and, and again
I'm going to be okay,
and we're going to be okay, but it does suck.
So, I appreciate your support. I really do.
If you don't mind,
just go ahead and hit
that subscription button. If you don't mind.
I really do appreciate you guys.
Have a wonderful day.
Remember to be kind to somebody,
and I promise I'll see you tomorrow.