Cricket Contest
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This is Princess Puffarotti. She’s seriously chill and loves to literally hangout. She also likes to bask on a pillow in front our big front-room window or sit on the back of the recliner and look out.
But in the afternoon she’ll go to the back door and scratch to be let out. After doing her princess “business” she’ll mosey over to a big clover plant at the edge of the garden and have an afternoon feast and chase (and many times snag) flying insects along the way. Then it’s back to her glass palace to relax. Such is the life of a princess.
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To be honest I think we got lucky that this beardie has such a good personality. Just like any animal, and people, some can be smart and easy going and others not so much. After pooping in the grass she just decided that was where she preferred to go and she knows the grass is outside the door. Or outside her glass palace at least. But her first winter is coming so we’re not sure how that’s going to go. We’ll have to see if we can put something in her palace she’ll go on or something on the hardwood floor that she’s comfortable with.
Puff did have her teenage years and ran off once when I turned my head for two seconds. Was working in the backyard while she was in the middle of the lawn sunning but as most know when they decide to run they can be really fast. Looked for hours. She was gone for over a week. Then while I was working in the yard again one day there she was sitting on a piece of sod near me. It was like she looked up at me and said, “I don’t like the wild. Take me back.”
But as anyone with a beardie likely also knows, when they want to hide they can do it very well. My wife was watching her from the deck when Puff walked over to the edge of the deck out of sight. My wife got up to go get her and Puff had magically disappeared. We looked for an hour and didn’t find her. The next day she was sitting out there like, “Why didn’t you come get me?” But yesterday I sat her in front of her clover plant and she just sat there for probably 20 minutes enjoying the outdoors while I was weeding.
So the bottom line to letting them outside is the diligence of the owner to watch them constantly and knowing that some dragons will just want to run away because they are still wild animals. There’s just no getting around that. We have a leash for Puff but honestly I’ve never used it because it looks really uncomfortable for her. After I get one or make one that’s better designed I might try it. But even at that they’re still just for walking them. They should never be used to keep them tied in one spot or anything like that.
I joked with my wife that what we need to do is put a harness on her with about 20 feet of bright pink or orange string. Then if she wonders off into the bushes or something at least we would have a trail to follow to find her.
Here’s a pic of her chowing her clover, spit and all. She gets crickets for breakfast and man does she love those. She has the most fun when we let her chase them around on the floor. It’s fun to watch her slide and hear her little claws go, “Tikitikitikitikitiki…” on the laminate.
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We got a couple different sizes of leather harnesses and they’re just a little too wide at the legs so they rub on her neck. They could be trimmed to be a little better fitting but honestly I just decided she didn’t need a harness. My wife bought one of those ones with the wings because she thought it was cute. But it has a metal triangle on top that holds the wings on and it could slip and push on dragon’s back so I wouldn’t put that one on her anyway unless the wings were removed. But it does have big, soft rope that goes around the legs and and clasp on the back. That would seem to be less uncomfortable. A coworker at my wife’s office walks her dragon with a harness and leash on the sidewalk to help rub down those needle talons. So whatever works and is best for the dragon.
My 92-year-old mother loved hearing about Puff so we took her to our farm where my mom still lives so she could meet her. We had a 10g transport and sleeping terrarium with us but Puff wanted to see what was going on while we were driving. She hung out sunning on the dash and checking out the scenery.
For some reason she likes to hold my hand. We bonded early on but it’s just funny how she does that. And when we got to grandmas she just climbed up the arm of the chair and said, “Hello.” My mom thought it was the neatest thing ever.
I have a bunch of great pictures but apparently only one at a time can be posted so I’ll just post a few.
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Meeting grandma.
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Checking out the countryside.
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Being a dash ornament.
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My wife, Puff and Lily hanging out.
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Checking out the neighbors.
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When she was younger I had to move a bunch of stuff around in her palace to find some crickets that had managed to escape her and were hiding. When finished I set her back in but she didn’t want to let go. So I held her hands for a minute or two until she was comfortable and climbed down.
I find it very interesting how some pets or animals, regardless what they are, can bond to humans. We had Puff in the backyard showing her to our grandchildren one afternoon. I was sitting in the grass and Puff was a few feet away. One of my grandchildren got a little too rambunctious near her and Puff turned, ran back to me and climbed onto my leg for safety. She is a sweetie. She’s waiting patiently for her breakfast crickets now so on to the duties of the day.
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Ok just one more picture. Lily and my wife hanging out with Puff on her pillow in front of the window. What you can’t see is I hung a heat lamp from the blinds to keep her warm. Hey, she is a Princess.
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That type of harness is the same one I would also recommend. Isn’t difficult to put on, the ropes are soft and it isn’t restrictive at all.
Still can’t post more than one pic. When I click “Browse” and try to select more than one file using Ctlr or Shift, only the single file clicked is selected regardless of the file size. If I do select a file then go back and select another file, the previous file is replaced. Something else odd about this forum format is the “Reply” button always stays under the first post. Most forums have the Reply button and a Preview button under the last post a person wants to reply to. I don’t see a preview button at all.
Also, the link to the thread in the alert email that arrives is not clickable. If the entire URL is copied and pasted then it gives an error. The URL minus the post number has to be copied and pasted to get to the thread.
I’m using Mozilla and maybe it works differently under Edge or Explorer but this forum format just seems much more difficult to use that most others I frequent.
By the way, none of these pictures are ever posed. She just goes and does what she wants, within reason of course.
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Hi XionUAV, thanks for sharing pics of your amazing animals, and for your feedback on how to improve the forum. If I understand correctly, you’re saying that the only way to reply to a person, is by replying to the main post? Because there is a “reply” button for each post. See pic below. It is difficult to see, so maybe we can try and make it more prominent.
Regarding the email, I just went through the links in our emails, and they appear to be working. Are you referring to the emails from people replying to your post? See pic below.
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Supervising…
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Here’s a picture I really like. She was on her pillow in front of the window.
Ha! I just figured out that I can edit the post and add an additional picture. I also discovered you can’t delete a picture once posted. That’s scary. The one of her standing up was just a test to see if it worked.
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The additional buttons makes sense.
I’m using Edge now and can still only attach one picture. If I edit and attach another it will add another one. But while doing that I accidently hit “Submit” before adding anything and apparently it deleted the post entirely. That’s really strange.
I’ll add a screenshot of the RCG forum editor that works well and is very user friendly. Since I’m obviously having issues on my end I don’t know what features might already be working for other people and not me. So really it’s just up to you what you think would be useful.
One thing that would be very useful though is an option to preview the post before posting.
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Took this one this morning.
The opening of the magic cricket portal from heaven can only mean ooooooone thing…
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Believe it or not it is just a cell phone. Run-of-the-mill Samsung S6. I’ve taken some other photos with it that others thought were from a much better camera as well. I’ll attach one as an example.
I do have a nice Pentax DSLR with high-quality lenses and have been taking pictures for around 40 years just for fun. Honestly though most of them over the past 8 years or so have been with a cell phone. The cameras on them have gotten pretty dang good and you just kind of develop a knack for knowing how to setup shots to get the most from whatever camera you’re using. And as most photographer’s know, you take dozens or sometimes hundreds of shots to end up with just one really good one.
Earlier today Dragon was on her pillow by the window for a while then went to the back door to be let outside, as she frequently does. While outside I took a bunch of pictures of her by the clover plant and managed to snag this one. It’s attached as well so it can be viewed larger-
I have a few like this with the bee in the picture but this is the one with the bee in focus best. Funny thing is she isn’t interested in these bees at all, which is good. I don’t like her eating bees for several reasons. One is because they can carry parasites. The other is just because we like bees. However, she loves wasps. Don’t know what it is but if a wasp flies anywhere within 10 inches of her it’s an instant snack. Very impressive to watch her snag them out of the air. But if something isn’t moving she has a hard time judging if it’s 10 inches or 10 feet away, which is why we don’t let her onto our bedroom balcony.
One day while I was outside with her she ran around the yard and snagged 14 wasps before I decided she had had enough snack food and took her inside. She knows what she’s doing though because she chomps them really fast and they don’t seem to ever sting her. Very cool little animals these Dragons.
While out there I took a picture of this guy as well just because he looked interesting-
Two things I learned about taking good shots with a cell phone are, one; always clean the lens before shooting and, two; don’t exceed 2x zoom. Before shooting I always take a second to wipe the lens with my shirt tail. Always. A greasy or cloudy lens or protective cover will make the images cloudy as well. With no zoom I can’t get closer than about a foot to anything or the camera can’t focus. Now truthfully it may have a macro feature. Haven’t even looked into that. But at about 1.5 to 2x zoom it gets nice and close with very good focus. Not DSLR with macro lens good but good enough for a computer screen.
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Yep. Cell phone only. The thing is cameras on cell phones have improved substantially over the years. The rear facing camera on the S6 for example, has a 16-megapixel imager, which is the same as my Pentax DSLR I purchased about 12 years ago. Now for serious photos a DSLR with the higher quality lenses and much larger apertures (the amount of light that enters the camera and imager) are always preferred for professional use obviously. But the quality of pictures that can be taken with cell phones these days can be pretty impressive.
Here are a couple more I’ve taken with the S6 over the past couple of years. I have zillions but these weren’t buried in archives-
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