Herea another good one for you! It's slightly dramitized for your entertainment
(but all the facts are true!) and it will begoing up on my web-site as a warning against "sale-pets!"
Personally I have never had a Leo escape *knock on wood*, BUT I have a rather interesting story about my ex-pet (gave him away), a very EVIL little house gecko named Pablo. It all started one day at Petsmart...*fade to flashback sequence* my friend was looking for a companion for her anolie, it has already killed two other anolies, but they lady at the pet store was positive it wouldn’t kill the tiny little house gecko! And Wohoo they were on sale!(If you havent figured it out yet, I am a very sarcastic person...) So we get Pablo home and she plops him in with the anolie, so far so good, they ignore each other. But later that night I get a call saying the anolie tryed to eat Pablo, and she didn’t have an extra tank, and I was the only "reptile" person she knew.....So guess who came home with me the next day after spending the night in a jar, yes, Pablo. I set him up in my emergency 10g, with a light, a little ceramic house and some pothos. And what a lovely pet he was....NOT, all I ever saw was his tail disappearing into hiding, he was sooo incredibly speedy, and obviously he didn’t like me! after a while the only way I knew he was alive was the crickets I put in there disappeared. after a few months, crickets stop disappearing, I get worried and assumed the worst. so I take everything **carefully** out of the tank, and go as far as to sift the dirt, without any sign of Pablo
but I also found no body.....so I search through my room, under and behind everything...no Pablo, We even had a moment of silence for him! we just assumed his body decomposed, or was eaten by the pothos (A very devious plant if you ask me!) or something?? SIX...thats right, six months pass, the summer ends, Christmas passes, and its early February. I walked in to my room, it was completely dark except for the desk lamp i left on....and then I see him, just out of the corner of my eye. I freeze totally in shock, it had been so long, it took a second to remember that I even had a house gecko!! so naturally I leap towards the evil little brat, but he’s too quick he makes a giant flying leap onto the wall, then runs up the wall, across and on to the back of my 50 gallon tree frog vivarium. I run over to the viv. and reach my hand around to the back, and out of sheer luck I grabbed him, only one problem...I got his tail. in what must have been the most disgusting half a second of my life, his tail drops off and he escapes....I scream. after I regain my composure, I felt sooooo incredibly bad, I buried the tail
and assumed he would not last very long. TWO more months pass by, and I have accepted the fact that he is long dead and it is my fault, how could he possibly recover from a tail "amputation" and no food for EIGHT whole months? well, some how he did! our final confrontation came one day in April 2003, I was feeding my whites tree frogs, and I opened up the varvium and guess who I see plastered to the back wall nearest to the light! that’s right...Pablo, now I’m in total shock, but this time I’m ready! I grab the fish net that was laying on the floor (good thing I have a bad habit of leaving things lying around!) and dive in for the kill **I mean capture** he goes left, then right, then makes the wrong move of leaping for the top, in swoop the net upwards and finally after 8 months he is back in captivity. of course I had already made use of his tank so I stuffed Pablo (who will now be known as Mr. convict) in 1/2 of a gallon cricket keeper. and the biggest suprise was that he had managed to re-grow a stump of a tail, and looked rather plump! first thing I do it call my friend, and tell her "Mr. convict" had been captured. seeing as I did not want to re-live this experience, we decided it was best for him to go live with someone who...well...just someone who wasn’t us. and so ends my story of Pablo the, the sneakiest house gecko ever! in case you were wondering he’s still alive, he's living with a young girl, who is under strict instructions to never, ever try to hold him, never open the lid for more than 3 seconds (only enough time to drop a cricket or two in), and to keep no less that ten pounds of rocks holding the lid down!
