Meet Bobby

My apologies in advance for the lack of spacing - I can't work out why it wont space my paragraphs.

I came home at lunchtime on Monday to hear Bundy barking like crazy out the back (nothing unusual). But then he just kept going on and on so I went outside to see what he was barking at. The dogs had found a blue tongue lizard out by the pool and Bundy was trying to catch the poor thing. Everytime Bundy went to bite it it would raise it's head up and hiss at him. Jessie, the blonde, just watched behind Bundy and would bark encouragement every now and then.

So I picked up the dogs and put them in the carport and called the neighbour to come around and catch the lizard - I am such a wuss. Jane came around with her cat cage and as Daniel and Carson watched on we managed to corner poor Bobby and get him into the cat cage. PS, when Daniel first saw him he shat himself and ran screaming like a girl all the way back to the back door!

We kept Bobby (the bob-tail, did you work it out??) in the cage in our carport and I rang up a reptile specialist to get some info and was told to let him out in the bush early on in the day so he would have time to find a hiding spot by nightfall. I remembered Ethan had his news day the next morning so we decided to keep him for that, then let him go the next morning.

We fed him strawberries & dried dog food (the reptile man said to) and a dish of water. I cut off a couple of branches from the neighbours bottle brush - it was hanging over my fence anyway - and put those in his cage along with some large rocks (actually, more like cement pieces), and draped a blanket over the cage. Every now and then the kids would go out to check on him and tell me what he was up to at the time (sleeping...hiding...I found this beetle for him...now he wants this bit of fluff I found on the floor...). Ethan wanted to know what would happen if he stuck his finger in. I told him to try it and find out but he wouldn't be in that.

Yesterday morning I took him into Ethan's class around news time. Ethan got to tell the kids about Bobby and they wanted me to take him out for a look but there was no way I was sticking my hand in there! Besides, he was hissing at me everytime I opened the door so I think he was a bit stressed.

I wanted to get all the kids to come with me to set him free but Ethan had to be at school early this morning for their school carnival. But when I checked on Bobby this morning he barely moved when I poked him to check if he was still alive. He still hadn't eaten any of the food we'd left him either so I thought I had better do it after I dropped Ethan off at school otherwise he may not last much longer.

So the above photos are from when we set him free this morning. Daniel and Angus were with me and they weren't scared at all. Daniel kept trying to shoo him away with a branch he found, and Angus kept leaning over him and yelling "Jessie!" at him. Eventually he moved on away from us and towards the bushes. I hope he finds his way home.