Meet Mr. Al Capone. One of the girls I work with takes in rescues as well. She received Al (I don't know if he had a name prior to my naming him) from owners who housed multiple iguanas in a wire cage. I doubt the owners new the sexes or if they did, they didn't know you shoudn't house iguanas in tight quarters and obviously had constant male wars going on.

What was relayed to me via my coworker, was that Al was constantly being attacked and the owners just didn't want him there anymore. Upon inspecting him, he has obvious MBD issues (sigh), a swollen and infected jaw with three very clear teeth marks from a hellacious bite, two swollen toes on his right foot that had a slice each from no doubt the cage (given how straight the slice was on each toe and the length, it is apparent that must have happened on the cage and no doubt, some form of galvanized (albeit) sharp wire.

I'm just going off of what I see and what came to me via information (which wasn't a lot...kinda hard to give someone information when you aren't given much to begin with).

He has virtually no back spikes (what does exist are tiny fragments of what used to be spikes), NO defensive spikes on his tail whatsoever (feels like a filed down pencil) and his skin....don't get me started on his skin. Bottom line, it feels exactly like severely dried out old leather. His humidity requirement must have been zero. You can see in the picture with Sheena, her skin is soft and green, whereas his skin is a pale pee off yellow color, dried out and feels horrible.

He has been given a great diet (he loves his RepCal along with his normal diet (veggies, fruit, flowers, greens...see my iguana info page for what I feed them), loads of TLC from me and my boyfriend and survived his 6 day course of baytril injections.

This poor guy has been through hell and back and even though he looks up at me with sorrowful (and droopy) eyes, I know he's a fighter. He has already progressed with his socialization as well. Now and then he'll gape and lunge like he'll bite, but he's still learning that petting does not hurt. ;)

He's a sweetheart. Just a bit confused. He's fattening up wonderfully, and get this, he already pottytrained himself!

Last night I noticed his skin all over his shoulders is actually starting to peel (finally!) and he does in fact look a marbled green underneath. Although it still looks intensely dry, it's not nearly as bad as his "top coat" so to speak. I'll take more pictures as he progresses.

Update on Al Capone. I apologize for not updating this like I'm used to. Moving sort of put that off for us. :/
Al Capone put up one brave battle as you can see. Unfortunately, he went in his sleep with no signs that he was declining. He was eating and drinking, acting his normal somewhat flighty self and then one morning I walked in to give him his breakfast and found him asleep.
Although we only had him a few months, his time with us at least was loaded with TLC where he had none before and I'm sure he was happy right up until the end.

It's cases like these that come in so very often. They are utterly heartbreaking but that doesn't stop us from trying to help them. For every one we help, it makes it all the worthwhile. :)