Adrian Theroux’s panther chameleon Ludo won’t drool on your carpet. He won’t hack up hairballs, poop everywhere or howl at the moon.
But he’s always glad to see you, and will go from bright green to bright red when you pick him up. He’ll also zap bugs out of your hand from several inches away with his sticky tongue. “You can’t play fetch with them,” Theroux says, “but you can handle them.”
And you won’t sneeze your head off around him either. “I’m allergic to a lot of the pets that are in my store,” laughs Theroux, the general manager of Paradise Pets in St. Albert, but not reptiles, as they’re hypoallergenic.
Theroux says his home currently contains about 20 geckos, three snakes and a tarantula, in addition to fish, chinchillas and 150 rats (snake food). “So we have pets!” he laughs.
Theroux will be bringing many of these reptiles to Edmonton this weekend as part of the 2013 Edmonton Reptile and Amphibian Society’s Reptile Expo. The twice-annual show is a place to meet and greet local endotherms and regularly draws about 2,000 guests – most of whom are human.
It’s the biggest captive-bred-only reptile show in Western Canada, says event spokesperson Leah Stables, and features lizards, snakes, frogs, geckos and more. Tarantulas and scorpions are also known to make an appearance. “They make fantastic pets, especially for someone who lives in a smaller place.”
While you can buy and sell pets at the show, Stables says its main goal is education. Snakes have a bad reputation for being venomous, slimy people eaters, for example, but a mere 10 per cent of them have venom glands, and an even smaller number of those are deadly. They’re also more interested in eating rats than people.
“Come touch a snake, come pet it. You can see for yourself that it’s not slimy.”
Reptiles are generally cold-blooded animals with scales, Theroux says, and live on land. Amphibians are also cold-blooded, but they spend part of their lives in the water (e.g. as tadpoles). While adults tend to think of reptiles as creepy, Theroux says kids will touch and pet them without hesitation.
Both are pets of convenience, he continues: they’re easy to handle and care for, won’t die if you forget to feed them for a few days, and (unlike cats and dogs) won’t trigger allergies. Leopard geckos will even pile their poop in a single place for easy cleaning.
Many are quite beautiful, Stables says. “Brazilian rainbow boas almost look like they have that gasoline-on-water shimmer on them,” for example, while others have eye-catching colours and patterns.
Others have bizarre behaviours. Alberta’s western painted turtle hibernates in the mud over winter, Stable notes, and can hold its breath for so long that its bones dissolve from lactic acid build-up. Skinks (which are sort of snake-lizard combos) have tiny limbs that they can tuck in to become as slippery as soap, letting them swim through sand and slip out of a snake’s grasp.
Reptiles are more passive than other pets when it comes to play, Theroux says, but still fun. He enjoys letting Ludo crawl on him using strong fingers and a prehensile tail, keeping one eye on him and one on everything else. “I have one customer who brings her bearded dragon everywhere she goes.”
The show runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and from 11 to 4 Sunday at the Sands Hotel. Tickets are $4 to $6. Visit edmontonreptiles.com for details.
