EchoPet
Gecko Obsessed
- Messages
- 408
- Location
- Little Rock, AR
For those that don't know yet, I work in a small local pet store. We're not a chain, and we try to have a better standard of animal care than the big name stores. My boss is very knowledgeable on dogs, birds, and fish, but not as much when it comes to herps. Luckily he respects my opinion, and has been giving me more responsibility in with our reptiles and in the store in general.
So, something that's been bothering me is that our leopard geckos (babies I might add), were kept on some sort of bark-type substrate. I talked to my manager about this in the past, but my boss is usually very stubborn about changing things and progress takes time.
Well, after one of our bearded dragons started looking pretty bad off, I just sort of took over and stopped waiting to get permission to do things. My manager and I separated the small one from the larger one who was probably doing some bullying, but there was still some resistance from my boss about additional treatment. So finally, instead of asking my boss if I could give the baby some Jump Start, I just told him I was going to, and did. I also hand fed him a few times and gave him water from a dropper. The little beardie has made a complete turn around and is now eating and drinking on his own, and my boss acknowledged that I was right.
So I used that as leverage to convince him to let me change the leopard gecko enclosure. I talked to him about it on Saturday, and felt like he was sort of dismissing me, so I wasn't hopeful. But yesterday morning when I came in, my boss greeted me and said he had some carpet he wanted me to look at to see if it'd be ok! The carpet was fine, so I dumped all the bark and rearranged the gecko enclosure. I also put a moist hide in which had been lacking before, and arranged the fake plants we had in there to make another hide. The geckos seemed to really appreciate it, and checked out their new home when I put them back. I've also started giving them some Jump Start, because I'm worried about how skinny they are. I found a lot of mealworms buried in the old substrate, so I'm worried that they haven't eaten for a bit.
Anyway, I'm just really happy that my boss let me take control of the situation and fix things. Just wanted to share.
So, something that's been bothering me is that our leopard geckos (babies I might add), were kept on some sort of bark-type substrate. I talked to my manager about this in the past, but my boss is usually very stubborn about changing things and progress takes time.
Well, after one of our bearded dragons started looking pretty bad off, I just sort of took over and stopped waiting to get permission to do things. My manager and I separated the small one from the larger one who was probably doing some bullying, but there was still some resistance from my boss about additional treatment. So finally, instead of asking my boss if I could give the baby some Jump Start, I just told him I was going to, and did. I also hand fed him a few times and gave him water from a dropper. The little beardie has made a complete turn around and is now eating and drinking on his own, and my boss acknowledged that I was right.
So I used that as leverage to convince him to let me change the leopard gecko enclosure. I talked to him about it on Saturday, and felt like he was sort of dismissing me, so I wasn't hopeful. But yesterday morning when I came in, my boss greeted me and said he had some carpet he wanted me to look at to see if it'd be ok! The carpet was fine, so I dumped all the bark and rearranged the gecko enclosure. I also put a moist hide in which had been lacking before, and arranged the fake plants we had in there to make another hide. The geckos seemed to really appreciate it, and checked out their new home when I put them back. I've also started giving them some Jump Start, because I'm worried about how skinny they are. I found a lot of mealworms buried in the old substrate, so I'm worried that they haven't eaten for a bit.
Anyway, I'm just really happy that my boss let me take control of the situation and fix things. Just wanted to share.
