We’ve got this Chameleon we’ve been trying to let roam the front window above the tortoises and he keeps jumping down. The tortoises are chasing him around trying to figure out if he’s food and I guess it’s stressing him out. I want to make it work and our employee wants to stick it in a cage so that it won’t get stressed out by the tortoises. The thing is… I just don’t like cages that much.
I feel like if an animal can and will live outside of cage then we should let it whenever possible. Chameleons can do great outside of a cage – I would know better than anybody because I’ve kept them out of cages for years. In the wild these guys don’t deal with the stress from maybe being eaten… they die from being eaten. Well… being eaten and diseases, viruses, parasites, infections, lack of water, lack of food… and well… you get the idea.
Puppies are really likely to get sick in their first year of life and there’s a pretty extreme risk of things that may even kill them. My vet check that and tells me the most dangerous thing one do is take them on a walk and play in the yard – that veritable minefield of dangerous communicable ailments. Problem is, just because there’s a risk of your dog getting sick from letting it outdoors would you really want to deprive your dog of the most exciting and energtic time of it’s life? Some people would. In fact, some people do. Seems like a high price to pay to me. I believe the trade-off between providing a less safe and sheltered environment and allowing the animal to live a more complete, holistic, “free” lifestyle is one worth making. I feel about as passionately about giving Chameleons room to roam as I do about letting puppies play and walk when they’re young. It’s not a flawless philosophy, but neither is caging an animal just because we think it’s the best thing for them. I’d rather find creative ways to integrate animals into our lives (for the benefit of both of us) than just stick it in a cage like people have been doing for hundreds of years without thinking twice about how we might be able to do it better. We’re progressive… we’re innovators… and we need to hang on to that need to do things better.