I am not a lizard guy, but I will echo J&J reptiles. I would suggest sending Jim an email stating what you are looking for and then try to set up a time when you can call to talk.
The Alberta reptile and amphibian society albertareptilesociety.org or reptiles Canada reptilescanada.com would be other places I would post this thread.
It sounds like you may want to look into blue tongue skinks, I know a guy who breads them in Calgary or something a little bigger that has great personality would be an Argentinian black and white tegu.
Know what you are willing to provide space wise and what you are willing to commit to for diet wise.
Good luck in your search.
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I highly recommend the Uromastyx. There are various species and color morphs, and they aren't too difficult to find either (though some of the colors are quite expensive).
I kept one years ago. Why did I choose this?
1) No water necessary. Wait - forget 'not necessary' - don't you dare put a water dish in the enclosure or your lizard may get rot. They get all their water needs through their food. They can't deal with high humidity or exposure to water.
Now, why is the 'no water' thing important? First of all, it is one less thing you have to worry about. Secondly - water stinks. It can spill and soil the rest of the terrarium. Some lizards even seem to like pooping in their water dish too (at least, many types of iguanas do). No water necessary = much less smell and mess.
2) Easy to feed - veggies (please, no romaine lettuce - use collared greens, kale, bokchoy, dandelion greens/flowers (make sure from a non-herbicide/pesticide sprayed area!!), etc.). They get all their water needs from this believe it or not.
Birdseed. Yes. Buy birdseed. Always keep clean birdseed in a dish in their terrarium. They eat a lot of seeds in the wild. You can hear them crunching down one the seed throughout the day just like a bird. Birdseed is essential to their health (and hey, it is cheap!).
3) Environment - they come from a hot DRY dessert. Keep the terrarium dry. Much easier to keep up with cleaning (like, barely anything to it), and very little to no smell (your wife will appreciate it!).
3) Less chance of salmonella - (less chance, not zero chance - so take proper precautions always, especially with children and elderly people - iguanas and monitors are notorious for salmonella and other bacterium). The no water, no mice/meat diet helps keep your house cleaner and smelling better - and who wants to buy frozen mice or baby pinkies? You can buy crickets, but keep these to a treat of one or two per week. They can't tolerate a high-protein diet. They relish insects, but they just can't tolerate many. They can be perfectly healthy without crickets or other insects in their diet if memory serves - I rarely ever bought them for my uro.
They seem to fit the approximate size of what you are looking for (much smaller than bearded dragons, but they are not tiny like anoles either).
Here are some examples of what they look like (spoiler tags for size, nothing disgusting):
NSFW!
Mali Uromastyx (most common)
Rainbow Benti
Ornate
General size they get - not to small, but definitely not large lizards that need careful handling either (I handled mine often, even though for some reason he was never tame - never bit me once)
You should really do a bit of research on these lizards if you like the look of them and feel they fit what you are looking for. Also, just google image search "Uromastyx" if you want more pics of different varieties - there are loads of closely related species with vastly different colors.
Also, the short care info I provided is for the Mali Uro. I am sure that perhaps some species of them would need a water dish, or perhaps slightly different foods/environment, so make sure you research them well. If it helps, I bought my Uro from Riverfront Aquariums back then for $100. No idea if the price has been jacked up with them becoming more popular, or went down since there are a tonne more breeders working with these lizards now.
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Just out of curiousity, what do you do with your pet lizard when it dies? Do you bury it in the yard or do you have to call or vet or something? I've never owned a pet.
I buried him, gave him a spot under a tree in the yard.
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Even though he says he only wanted steak and potatoes, he was aware of all the rapes.
If you've never had a lizard before you should start with something easy and low maintenance like a Leopard Gecko. They are generally docile, hardy and easy. Or you could get a Box Tortoise but they usually live a long time.
Generally speaking lizards are fine and all but they don't really have a sense of humour.
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I definitely want something fairly easy to take care of as my job situation is in flux and I'm not sure what my schedule is going to look like. Plus seeing as I'm a newbie I don't want to be taking on some sort of super challenging critter for my first try.
Shout out to killer_carlson and Cgy4L for the Uromastyx suggestion. From everything I've read about them they are fairly low maintenance and generally quite social. Plus they tend to look cool. They are definitely my front runners so far, but I'm going to keep my options open and keep searching for the next while.
Keep them suggestions coming! I appreciate all of them.
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I know they are common, so maybe not the first choice for someone that wants something more exotic, but I know someone who owns a variety of different lizards and IMO, the bearded dragons are the most charming. She lets them roam around most of the time and they like interaction with people. Having said that, they also apparently get depressed if you don't interact with them enough, so depending on how much time you have, they may not be the best choice.
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HA!! I would love to see my wife's reaction to that behemoth as she walked through the door. She would probably die shortly after disemboweling me and feeding my still bleeding remains to the fearsome scale-beast on her kitchen floor.
Imagine the outcry of my tiny town of 1,000 people as I walk my monstrous descendant of Dudley through the streets and past parks. Won't someone think of the children?
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