A Career of Caring for Even the Most Coldblooded Among Us

The patient had no appetite. Even the most succulent mouse was safe.

Penelope the Mexican Rosy Boa lay motionless in the palm of Dr. Chris Cauble, without so much as a flicker of her forked tongue.

Then, as more than 600 caged reptiles and amphibians looked on, Cauble blew Penelope’s nose. Clamping the snake’s jaws shut, he did it by dripping salt water on her snout, forcing her to breathe through her formerly blocked nostrils.

“Something was bothering her sinuses,” Cauble said. “It robbed her of her sense of smell, and that’s why she wasn’t eating.”

The diagnosis relieved the small group of pet owners who gathered recently with their sick snakes, croc monitors and skinks--nightmarishly big lizards--to see Cauble and his associate, Dr. Glen Howard. Veterinarians who treat reptiles and amphibians are rare. Once a month, the two men offer their esoteric services at Slither City, a dimly lighted, cave-like pet store in Sherman Oaks that sells only creepy-crawly things.

Fuzzy tarantulas the size of fists can be bought here for a mere $35 apiece. Baby African spurred tortoises, iguanas from South America and snakes from Colombia fill wall-to-wall aquariums. Somnolent creatures all, they form a sleepy, though pungent, United Nations of species in the midst of an upscale mini-mall.

Some are pricey. The 130-pound, 15-foot Burmese python coiled in the corner cage would cost a small fortune, if she were for sale.

But you can rent the huge snake and the rest of these varmints for $125 an hour from owner Wes Pollock, who will tote them to your kid’s birthday party in child-proof cages.

Penelope and the other sick critters made the journey to the store in paper bags, plastic cottage cheese containers and towel cocoons. Most were too sick to move much, but others squirmed and scratched nervously at the walls of their jerry-rigged cells.

Nervous skinks are distinctly not housebroken.

But a brief attack of reptilian incontinence all over the gray, concrete floor did not dissuade Cauble from giving Sasquatch the Prehensile-Tailed Skink her yearly checkup. Nor did it rattle the small group waiting to have their scaly little pals examined.

Reptile people are a different breed from ordinary folk. After all, what’s a little mess to someone like Matt Thorne, 30, a North Hollywood musician who met and fell instantly in love with the woman who would become his wife when he saw her snaring live pigeons to feed her python?

Naturally, Thorne purchases only live mice from Slither City for his five snakes. The store offers a so-called Luncheon Menu to tempt even the most finicky reptile. There are crickets, mealworms, mice (pinks, fuzzy, adults) and rabbits (small, large, jumbo).

All the items are available for consumption alive, but a sales clerk will gladly play executioner. The wriggling creature is stuffed into a paper bag, then smacked to death on the counter with a quick flick of the wrist.

If it’s any consolation to the squeamish, reptiles eat much less than birds and mammals of equal size because of their low metabolic rate, according to the encyclopedia. The text goes on to say that a 12-foot crocodile does not eat nearly as much as a small penguin. (Of course, the comparison may elude those whose studies did not include the alimentary needs of a penguin.)

Sasquatch the Prehensile-Tailed Skink’s owner said she picked the lizard because it eats only insects.

“I said, ‘I’ll take a vegetarian, please,’ and this is what I got,” said Lynn Ferrall, 25, a registered nurse from West Hills.

Cuddling the incredibly ugly skink closer, she helped Cauble give it a manicure. In the wilds of the Solomon Islands, the creature would trim its own nails by scraping them against the bark of a tree, Cauble said.

The most typical problems Cauble encounters are parasites, tumors, infections and malnutrition, he said.

Squeeze the Snow-White Albino Corn Snake was eating like a bird, his owner said. (She obviously didn’t mean like a penguin.)

Squeeze is owned by Kelli Timmins, 26, of North Hollywood. She said she used to take care of the reptiles belonging to rock singer Alice Cooper, whose act included draping a python over his crotch.

Like any doctor, Cauble can order tests, and that’s just what he decided to do in the case of Squeeze. He used a Q-tip to swab her mouth and ordered the goo cultured to see which antibiotic would help her respiratory infection.

But it is the rare people doctor who will order a patient force-fed the way Cauble did Squeeze.

How do you force-feed a snake? Open its mouth by gripping its neck, use a syringe to drip a water aperitif down its throat, shove a tiny dead mouse headfirst after it and flush it down with an after-dinner drink.

Speedy the Water Dragon--yet another species of lizard--was probably facing the same treatment, as he was off his food, said owner Dave Morales, 24, a construction worker living in Sun Valley.

If anything ever happened to 8-year-old Speedy, Morales would be devastated, but his girlfriend, Karrie Ogden, would take the loss in stride, she said. The two humans squabbled like parents over how to characterize the lump-like Speedy.

“He has a personality, all right,” Ogden said. “He’s mean.”