June 3, 2010

White Dog rushed into the office after hearing the commotion and seeing Quinn race past her. After making sure I was alright, she followed my eyes to the center of the room where Milo, the three-legged iguana was struggling to roll off her back.

The Other White Dog had been sleeping quietly in the doorway when his green paramour decided to take a shortcut to get closer to him. Milo leaped from her perch (6' up) attempting, I think, to land on the extra office chair. Instead she lost her footing as she hit the chair and rolled 360-degrees twice (like a car crashing over a cliff sidewards) before slamming onto her back on the floor. I was certain she had hurt herself but she was too rattled to let me pick her up to examine her. None of her limbs were contorted and she was not cut. Every time I neared her, Milo got upset so I left her alert but unmoving from where she fell and continued to watch her from the corner of my eye. Eventually, she did move to Quinn's blanket and when Steve stopped home we were able to determine that nothing was broken. He returned her to her perch.

"Enough is enough," demanded White Dog. "You must call Dr. Julia before that crazy lizard hurts herself or worse." Since that is exactly what I had already been thinking I called our vet and explained the situation of the past few days. She agreed with our readers, Milo was smitten for some reason and guessed that it might be TOWD's patient soft warmth. She suggested that we try to keep Quinn out of the room as much as possible and continue to use the bathtub for Milo "Time Outs." She wondered if we might not want to consider lowering her perch.

Dr. Julia's conclusion was that Milo needed the counsel of an animal behaviorist (Animal Shrink, White Dog sneered) and gave me a referral to our zoo's expert. She said he would be able to offer the best advice on how to modify Milo's infatuation before she hurt herself or before Quinn had enough hounding and reacted aggressively.

After reminding me to bring Milo in if she exhibited any signs of trauma from her fall; Dr. Julia thanked me for "making her day." "This is by far the most interesting issue that I faced today."

So tomorrow Milo enters the world of "Behavioral Medicine!" I found White Dog in scaring the green one with stories of electroshock therapy and brain transplants; "stop filling Milo with such tales," I said, "they are not going to do any of those things!" White Dog sashayed out of the office but couldn't resist looking over her shoulder at Milo and making an electrical whine.