A Tribute to Wakka, Part Four

 

The following is Part Four of a tribute to my bearded dragon, Wakka, who passed away December 4, 2021. This series will include favorite memories and stories of my life with my companion for five years.

Last time, I talked about activities Wakka loved to do. Now I’m going to talk about how I physically handled him.

I was originally afraid to handle Wakka when he was so tiny. I’d originally called it “male postpartum lizard depression.” In all honesty, I’d never heard of a bearded dragon until about four months before I adopted him. When my mom brought it up, I pictured something that anyone who has never heard the phrase “bearded dragon” would imagine. If you’re reading this and this is the first time you’ve ever heard of a bearded dragon, Google it (or you could use any browser to look it up, any one of them works). It was not what I expected; it was cuter. If you watched “Game of Thrones,” the dragons DO NOT look like a beardie, by the way, but the names of Dany’s dragons are actually popular names for beardies (I’m actually reading the books and never seen the show, but I’ve seen the still images, so I know what they look like). While we’re on that, there are several other popular beardie names. For example, Toothless (from “How to Train Your Dragon”), Spyro (the video game dragon), Charmander, Charmeleon, and Charizard (from Pokémon), and Puff (the magic dragon), are popular names. These are all popular dragons and lizards, so the names are often thought of when adopting a beardie. I’ve said “Wakka” came from “Final Fantasy X” and “Kingdom Hearts.” Wakka was my favorite character, and I wanted my beardie to have a unique name, an uncommon name, a special name, something original that people wouldn’t think of. And for some strange reason, it worked. I told people his name and showed them his pictures (which, I took, like, ninety-nine trillion pictures of and would show them off to anyone who would stand near me for any length of time, bragging “this is my son,” and my dad said “I always wanted a grandchild, I just didn’t think he’d have scales”, and though he never met Wakka, he loved the photos) and people would say, “Yeah, he looks like a Wakka.” And yes, he learned his name, and if I talked about him on the phone, he’d turn his head and give a look that said “I know you’re talking about me.” He was always a friendly little guy. He only ever bit me once, and that was only because I had bugs in my hand and was hand-feeding him (beardies have eyes on either side of their heads and cannot see directly in front of them, so he was aiming for the bugs but missed), it was not malicious and he immediately gave a look that said “Oops, sorry Dada. And you don’t taste very good.” Bearded dragons also have no vocal chords, so the only sound that can ever escape from their mouths is a horrible hiss, but Wakka never hissed, even when I knocked his hand log over on him (but he was grumpy about that for three days after that), so he was a quiet-mouthed little beardie. And oddly enough, beardies are actually mildly venomous. But don’t be turned off, it’s only fatal for small animals like rodents, but it will sting for several hours after a bite, and beardies don’t usually go around just biting hoomans like snakes do for no reason, so they’re a lot safer than snakes and don’t require live mice as part of their diet. But I’ve totally gone all off-topic, so I’ll move on. Beardies tend to start off very small (fully grown they’re about eighteen to twenty-four inches). I have a firm grip. When I was in school, I constantly broke pencils by holding too tight and writing. So a little baby beardie was scary for me as I was afraid I’d smush it. When I first held Wakka, I got a little scared and only held him for a minute when the breeder handed him to me. Fortunately he was very docile and didn’t squirm, or I’d probably have dropped him. So it took a few months before I every actually truly held him. When he was about a foot was when I started handling him (he grew to eighteen inches as a full-grown adult), but when I did, I didn’t want to stop. Wakka’s earliest human contact was with my mom, who was able to hold him in one hand and pet him with her thumb, and she has small hands. Wakka grew to love hugs and cuddles and snuggles. His favorite thing was to be held over my heart. When Wakka wanted a hug, a true hug, he would place one paw on my chest, then the other, then put his head on my chest (yes, there were times he didn’t want hugs and would not hug back, he’d just look at me with a look that said “put me down, hooman, no snuggles!”). On December 3, 2021, right before he passed, he gave me what turned out to be our final hug, and he didn’t want to let go. I think he knew it would be our last hug and held it as long as he could. I think the sound of the beating of my heart was comforting to him. Contact he didn’t like, however, was baths. If you put him in water, he would climb out of the tub as quick as possible, and look at me with a look that said “I don’t want to be wet, Dada, I want to be dry!” When I dried him up, he was so happy. He would sway back and forth (like a wet dog shaking itself. He also scratched his head with a back leg at times, like a dog. Sometimes I don’t think he realized he was a lizard). He also did some… unpleasant activities in the bathtub, but let’s not talk about that. I also had the boops game, where I’d circle my hands, tap his snoot with my index finger and say “boop!” Honestly, I don’t know if he liked it, but he never bit my finger, so I guess he didn’t hate it. He gave two looks during the boops game. The first was “No, hooman, no boops. NO BOOPS! (Boop!) Why you do that hooman? I said no boops!” The other was “I am NOT amused!” Also, as you probably know, like every reptile, Wakka would shed. He just wasn’t very good at it. He would only shed a few body parts at a time. For example, he did the “toga.” For those who don’t know what I mean, his back would partially shed, but it would leave one shoulder not shedding, so it looked like a toga. I said he would scratch himself like a dog, that was during a shed. And only part of his head would shed at a time. One time, he had the COVID mask shed. All around his snoot there was a shed, but the rest of his head wasn’t shedding. If you’re reading this in the twenty-second century (which is altogether possible) and COVID is relatively non-existent (and I honestly hope it does, 2021 is a disaster), and don’t know about masks, we have a pandemic where we had a highly transmittable disease and have to wear masks to try to prevent spreads. So Wakka was shedding and looked like he had a mask on his face. Sometimes one leg would shed, then after that shed was complete, parts of the other three legs would shed. One time, his belly completely shed at once in his water dish. But as you can imagine, Wakka didn’t like EVERY form of contact. I know if you have a pet like a dog or a cat, you often give them kisses. Well, I think beardies deserve it too. So I gave him many smooches over the five years I had him. But he made a face that said “My dignity! Hooman lips have touched me! Get me disinfectant!” One time I kissed him and a shed came off on my face (that was rather gross). So he did NOT like being kissed, but he was my baby and I did it anyway as a gesture of love.

We’re going to stop here for now as there are a LOT more Wakka memories to share, so please, keep coming back for more stories of my five years with Wakka! And if you are looking for a pet, totally consider a bearded dragon! They are great, loving companions, relatively easy to raise, and lots of fun to share time with! Until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!