This is Scooter whose lower body from her hip & sacral area down is twisted under, with large bony protuberances on her lower back. Her legs never really got fully developed muscles and they're hypermobile in incovenient ways so they make her move almost like she had a Spina-Bifida or as if she has a palsy. I know hypermobility and palsy seem contradictory but it best describes her way of moving. She can't very well climb up but she's learned to control her descent from wherever I place her up high so that she can get to wherever she wants below herself with surprisingly skillful use of both arms and legs. And she really seems to enjoy it. She gets as fired up during a thunderstorm as her normally agile siblings but if she's on the floor of their habitat all she can do is tiny stilted jumps that only move her about an inch or even backwards or not at all just jumping up in place. So I place her into the upper levels and she hangs out or spends a while making her surprisingly acrobatic descent. She can end up on her back pretty often when she's on flat surfaces trying to jump but she's mastered righting herself. Because of that I keep their water bowl very shallow and mist them frequently. She also gets 10 minutes of hydrotherapy under the faucet every other day and regular exercise Physical Therapy sessions outside of her habitat and has been imroving in both her confidence and her skillset. You can tell she really enjoys these sessions because she turns the calmest color they do which is a very light, almost whiteish gray which is their default "everything's right" color. If we miss a couple of days she gets noticeably stiff but she bounces back right after her sessions resume.
![]()





![United States [United States]](images/flags/United States.gif)
Reply With Quote
