phoebe gargulinski

Contrary to what Tucson parents might tell their kids, unwanted goldfish flushed down the toilet don’t end up merrily swimming round Reid Park’s duck pond and small animals let loose in a midtown neighborhood do not live happily ever after.

They are lucky to live at all.

The most recent case of an abandoned pet left to fend for itself was a plump, handsome lizard that somehow ended up in my yard. While he tried his best to blend in with all the wild lizards leaping around the scene, something about him was different.

For starters, he became up trapped in a piece of plastic grass netting that all wild lizards innately avoid. While I was gingerly cutting the rotund reptile out of his trap with a pair of snips, I got a closer look at the beast and realized he was trapped because of the spikes encircling his neck.

The thing was a bearded dragon, promptly nicknamed Trappy, and not the usual sleek, slinky lizard skittering from the sprinkler or doing push-ups on the cinderblock fence. Once Trappy was set free, he didn’t scamper behind the mesquite like all the wild lizards do but rather sat and stared at me for some time before lumbering off into the distance.

Then my dog Phoebe killed him.

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