Story and photos by Anne Cosgrove Wimberly
Everyone knows a kid-and-dog story: Lassie, Where the Red Fern Grows, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Because of
Winn-Dixie. But not many people are familiar with kids who care for scaly, spiky, tough-skinned critters.
Meet Owen St. John, a 13-year-old who lives in Oklahoma City and is the proud owner of Darwin, a two-year-old bearded dragon. Darwin has lived with Owen since baby dragon days.
Owen’s introduction to bearded dragons occurred during visits with his grandparents in California. “My grandparents and their neighbors are very good friends, like family. They brought their bearded dragon over for breakfast, I guess to show him off. I got to hold him. I got to pet him. I pretty much carried him around the entire time,” Owen recalls. He returned home from those visits knowing that he wanted a beardie of his own.
Owen researched the life span, physical needs, favorite foods, and colors of bearded dragons. He even chose a name for his future pet based on an animated orange cartoon fish.
Life Span and Growth
Owen learned that bearded dragons can live for 20 years and grow to two feet long. He expects Darwin to watch him graduate from high school and follow him to college. He thinks Darwin, who is close to a foot-and-a-half long, is done growing.
Now and then, Owen meets someone with a strong interest in his pet. “One of my camp counselors, he was Australian, he sent me videos (of native bearded dragons), and they are wild, like crazy.”
Wild bearded dragons have a shorter life span and grow larger than the domestic variety. They are also much more vocal. “They’re screaming,” Owen said of the beardies in the videos. “They puff up, and their defense mechanism is that they turn jet black, and they become like three times their size. I compare them to Darwin. It’s like comparing a lion to a house cat.”
Physical Needs
Even though bearded dragons are passive pets, they still require daily attention. Owen makes certain that Darwin has an opportunity to exercise each day. “I can just chill and let him run around in my room for like an hour. It’s fun for him.”
Owen recalls one weekend when Darwin had an extra-long adventure. “I went to a sleepover. Before I left, I was like, ‘Oh, we’ll just let him out and feed him, you know, a little bit more. I’ll be gone for days.’ And I forgot!” Owen called his father, who found Darwin safely and sweetly tucked in a dark corner, sound asleep.
Darwin also hangs out in Owen’s lap or on his shoulder. Recently, Darwin traveled to Texas with Owen’s family. “He was super,” Owen said. “We have this backpack enclosure thingy, and we just put a blanket in there and a hand warmer because he has to stay very warm.”
One highlight of the trip was a visit to Buc-ee’s convenience store. “Three people came up to me and were like, ‘I have one, and I know someone that has one’ or like ‘Cool, I know about them.’ Like, I think quite a few people know about them but don’t own one. It’s not as big of a community as the dog community.”
Favorite Foods
Feeding Darwin “is kind of annoying,” Owen said. “They need a lot of calcium, and they’re very particular on their food. They’re not like dogs, who will kind of eat anything. They have a very advanced flavor palate, I think, almost if not as advanced as humans. So they know if they like sweet food, salty, savory, whatever, and you have to act according to that, and they need a mixture of greens, fruits, and insects.”
True to form, Darwin is a picky eater. “He’s not a big vegetable or fruit eater. I mean, I’ve tried dragon fruit, which is kind of ironic, but he wouldn’t eat it.” Unfortunately for Owen, one of Darwin’s favorite foods is superworms. “Superworms’ jaws open like that.” Owen illustrated by opening and closing his hands laterally. His fingers represented the superworms’ teeth. “The superworms can bite. Yeah, they suck. Literally. That’s my experience with them.”
Color
Owen chose a name for his beardie based on a character from the cartoon series The Amazing World of Gumball. “There’s a character in it and his name is Darwin, and he’s orange. Obviously, he’s a fish, and I used to think he was a lizard. When I was younger, I was like, ‘Oh, that would be a good name for one, because I have a reason for it.’ ”
Of all the bearded dragons Owen handled on his birthday two years ago at Alligator Alley in Oklahoma City, Darwin “was the most orange of them all.” Owen recalled how his mother held some baby beardies who immediately wanted to return to their enclosures. Owen held the orangest of the baby beardies. That little one didn’t retreat. Instead, he snuggled up to Owen, a sign of trust and friendship.
Darwin couldn’t ask for a better friend than Owen. If he could write, he would probably write a book about travels, culinary delights, and colors and dedicate it with this title — Orange You Glad We’re Friends? — to Owen.
