sunning by the window

It's hard to believe I know, but Henry once fell out of my apartment window (the same window as in the pic above). I lived in a 6th floor of a building in Toronto, and one hot summer day I left the window slightly ajar. So Henry, seeing his chance to escape, pried himself through the opening, and out onto the ledge, and eventually fell the full 6 stories down to the pavement below. Luckily my superintendant was outside at the time, and saw him plummet. She got her son to catch him, and so Henry was waiting for me in my neighbour friend's apartment when I got home later that day. And miraculously he was completely unharmed. We took him to the vet, but all that was wrong was one of his toes was scratched.

Henry also escaped from most of my other apartments. He once spent a full autumn evening, out in the cold, hiding on my neighbours balcony (in a different building). Luckily I spotted him the next morning. In yet another apartment, he climbed out an open window one summer afternoon, and out into the large tree out in front of the house. It took a ladder and quite a lot of coaxing to get him down. But seeing him up in that tree, in a somewhat natural habitat, made me want to let him live there all summer. It also made me wish I could just set him free, but he wouldn't last too long in the wild. In the last place we shared there was a balcony out back and Henry would actually go out in the morning, on warm days when I left the back door open, and just stay there until mid afternoon, never trying to escape (although occassionally he climbed down to the downstairs neighbour's balcony just to check things out - what a kook!). But eventually I had to give him up. I was finding him too hard to keep in my one-bedroom pad, and I was planning on leaving the country, so I knew the time had come. I often wondered if anything was going through that little mind of his as I would sometimes sit and stare at him. And even though think sometimes he looked blank as a slate, other times he really looked like he actually knew me.

I miss ya buddy!

  
   
     
 

This page is dedicated to my pet iguana Henry, who was with me for 11 years, while I lived in Toronto. I first received Henry as an orphan when he was just a wee newborn. As it happened, a fellow found him on his front lawn one chilly morning in April, and called the Humane Society. A girl I knew worked there and I had told her to keep her eyes peeled for stray iguanas, and so she called me up. I took him over and raised him ever since.

Henry used to live in a gigantic terrarium in my apartment (with some other smaller lizards), but as he got olderI let him come out and sit for hours on the ficus plant in my room. Eventually he became a pretty tame house pet, and miraculously he was house-trained (after a fashion - to much to get into here).

Henry has been with with me through 4 apartments, 3 escapes, a dozen or so girlfriends, and a few stabs at fame. The first stab at fame came when local Toronto photographer Mir Lada used Henry as a model for an editorial piece he was doing for the Globe & Mail. You could hardly recognize Henry in the picture once the piece came out, but it was a fun experience all the same, although I think the flash on the camera dazed him for a week or two afterwards. Several years later my friend Dale Burshtein asked me if I wanted to be interviewed for a segment on her TV show "Pet Project" highlighting people with odd pets. Henry wasn't as thrilled to be on camera as I was, and he scratched my arms mercilessly as I tried to hold him still during the filming.

Henry stayed with me till late 1999 when I gave him to the Toronto Nature Centre to live out his twilight years in a more pampered environment. The plan was he would tour public schools, live in a big tank in the north end of the city, and gets considered for TV and commercial roles when exotic animals were needed. How's that for retirement? Iguanas are odd pets to keep, but I loved having Henry (most of the time anyway).

Henry was all-in-all a pretty good pet, but he broke quite a few things, and he scratched the hell out of my couch and several pieces of furniture. He also knocked over houseplants, hid under the fridge, lived in the closet for a few months, and would sometimes give me a shock by being curled up under the covers of my bed nuzzled under one of the pillows. He also frightened more than a few guests (some who didn't believe he was real since he often remained motionless for ages), but most people warmed up to him right away.

As for mealtimes, Henrye ate pretty much whatever I ate, including: omlettes, macaroni & cheese, tuna fish, lettuce, mangoes, baguettes, cucumbers, swiss cheese, bananas and once in a while mashed potatoes. I loved caring for that little guy, and I was always lucky to have apartments with lots of windows so Henry could lie in the sun during the day.

I was told by Jim Lovesick, from the Toronto Nature Society, that Henry was a very healthy male specimen (up until then I had never known his gender), and that I had done a very good job of raising him. He clocked in at 4-and-a-half feet in length (from nose to tip of the tail) and he only weighed a few pounds.

I have no idea if Henry is still alive (iguanas don't live long past 13 years in captivity), but he's still very much alive in my memory. And for an animal with a brain about the size of a cashew, he had a very big personality. All my friends loved the little guy. Peace out Hank, hope you're still kickin' (even though I know that's a slim possibility). Here's hopin' you had a good life with me.

 

  
     
 
the last pic of henry and i together
 

 

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