I went out of town for a little over a week and left Vegas(my Bearded Dragon) with a vet who said she has boarded several reptiles before so I thought he would be pretty safe. I went to pick him up yesterday and his color was just about black all over and the vet had moved him to a different building than he started in with lots of noisy animals from dogs to parrots. I got him in the car and with just the quiet his color came somewhat back.

He was eating A LOT of crickets before I left but he has only eaten one since being back home and no greens. What should I do for him. I feel so bad for leaving him in that chaotic environment, will he return to himself soon or could something be wrong. Is it possible that he has gotten sick or something from another animal; he was confined to his own tank.

Any help is appreciated, Thaks.

time and quiet? He sounds pretty stressed. How long ago did you pick him up?

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My name is Liz
Do what's best for the animal, not what's best for you.

He has been home for about 24 hours and I have just given him food and am not really handling him at all except right when he got home to clean his tank. I was just about in shock seeing him like that and being new to bearded dragons.

I would say its stress and he will be back to normal soon.

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MARSHA

:D I'm smiling because I have no idea whats going on!

Thanks, I hope and look forward to seeing him back to his old self.

Thanks again for you help!

good luck!

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Thank you for all of your replies. Vegas has improved greatly, and his eating habbits are back to normal. The only thing is he seems to run from me much more than he used to. i didn't handle practically at all except for cage maintenance. I hope with more time he will stop running.

He will probably be fine,, it is stressful on them. I have boarded a few of mine on ocassion and they are always stressed. This summer I boarded Oscar my giant Tortoise for a few gays and he was a monster when I picked him up.
The first thing he did was walk out and ram me, lol. He then came home, after he proceeded to make a huge mess in my van, and rammed anyone and anything for about 24 hours. With him, I actually had to syop and pet him and talk to him for a while and sometimes he would settle down. With the iguanas I would just leave them alone,, they snap back ina few days

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I have sucker tattood on my forehead

I'd say he actually recovered quite well. When I moved my WD to a new enclosure it took him almost 2 weeks to start eating again.

Vegas has been home for almost a month(will be a month on Friday) and he is eating great probably better than when I left. Now, he still runs from me and I don't want to push him into anything so if he still ran from me when I would remove him to clean his cage I just assumed that he needed more time. Yesterday I went about my usual routine: checking the temps, giving him his veggies, kind of giving his cage an in-between cleaning before I went to work and as I was spot cleaning the floor of his cage he became very aggressive(puffed up, opened his mouth really wide) so I backed off but I wanted to finish what I was doing so I went back in to finish cleaning the floor and he bit me after he puffed up and all again. This isn't exactly a desired behavior. I am afraid of being around him too much and possibly stressing him out, but on the other side of things I want him to get used to me and being handled. What should I do at this point?