My dad makes me so mad sometimes

[Upirium]

This is kind of a rant because I'm mad..
Long story short... Lizard is on lenolium. Crickets got under there and died.

Took us a while to notice but now it's pretty obvious and it's definitely in her best interest to have the cage stearalized and cleaned.

But the cage is huge and I cannot pick that thing up. There is NO way. My dad is supposed to help me. Every time we make a plan to do it he backs out.

This weekend we were supposed to do it and he backed out. Not even for a good ******** reason.

He said he had to pick up his girlfriend's kid and drop her off at her house. Now yeah, okay, that's a good reason but it wouldn't take more than a few minutes.

But then he was all "Well, I have to sit around there for a while."
Okay, no, you don't have to. You want to. I know he's going to do his own thing but this is ******** important.

It was like, 3 when he said this and he said he'd be gone until 6. Judging by that time frame I'd say he'd have plenty of time to go over there and do NOTHING productive.

He could have taken like a half hour of his time and helped me get that cage outside, hose it down and get rid of all of the DECAYING CORPSES underneath her!

She's been like this for months and he won't do a god damn thing about it and he's the only one who would/ can.

I mean he's so ******** stupid sometimes. He keeps saying she's fine and that there's no bacteria or anything because the dead crickets just DISAPPEAR. How STUPID is that? I think he thinks I'M stupid. Well, I'm not!

I'm really grateful for my dad, I am, but it really pisses me off that we basically made an agreement to take care of this thing together and now he won't do it, and I literally CAN NOT do it myself.  

[Akiska]

You could just put her in a different cage, and then vacuum the corpses and wipe everything down with vinegar. .  

[Upirium]

Akiska

You could just put her in a different cage, and then vacuum the corpses and wipe everything down with vinegar. .

It's not just corpses. It's also sand. Plus I got s**t for when I vacuumed the room upstairs that had rats in it because he said the 'vacuum would stink'.
So I really can't. Besides, I don't have another cage really.
And if I tried to do it, if I could, he'd stop me and tell me to gtfo because I'd 'just mess something up'.  

[CrissAngelLover12345]

I know how you feel. The second time my mom and I tried to get our dogs on a feeding schedule, my dad almost sent Bandit to the pound over it... gonk To actually get them on a feeding schedule and to get the care I have wanted for Bandit, I ended up having to wait until he gained 10 pounds in 2 months, and I had to start the conversation with "You say you do not like being told how to take care of your animals. I do not like being told how to take care of my animals. Bandit is MY dog." and he finally listened and cooperated (mostly. I didn't eliminate the dinner time treats at that time because he was like "how do I show him that I love him if he's not allowed to have any treats?" I didn't feel like fighting him over it at the time. The dinner treats have become eliminated and he goes to his crate during dinner because my dad decided to hand out extra of his treats to everyone simply because the bag was almost empty. I calmly talked to him about it and told him that I did not want him to do that and that he is to get ONE treat per person, regardless on how many treats are left in the bag and how big the treats are. He blew up and decreed himself that Bandit is to go in his crate during dinner time, which is what I wanted in the first place, just not getting it that way...). He refuses to work with me on teaching Bandit not to beg, so I have no choice but to send Bandit to his crate when ever he or my brother (who also refuses to work with me on that) are eating. I told him EVERYONE needs to be consistent in the training, or it'll get nowhere. Also, if Bandit is begging, they will absentmindedly hand him some of whatever they are eating/"forget" that he's not allowed to have any (I caught my brother doing this just a couple days ago, just before I had announced that he is to go to his crate or in my rooom during any time anyone is eating anything). He refuses to listen to me about what ingredients/things causes health problems when giving Country, Jonny and Boots table scraps... He also can't seem to figure out why Boots will not leave him alone, even though mom and I both are trying to tell him that if you give Boots what he wants, which is table scraps, it will just make the problem worse... He also can't seem to figure out why the animals are generally only interested in him during dinner time and any time he is eating something/offering treats/just before bed time when he always gives Country, Jonny and Boots "treats". I keep trying to tell him why, but he either ignores it, or chooses to forget it within minutes (He has selective memory, claiming that behaviors the dogs have ALWAYS done was caused by the feeding schedule the second time we tried to get them on one)... I don't know why he thinks that the only way to show your animal that you love them is through their stomach. Bandit is getting only one treat per day (and that's most days, sometimes we'll put him in his crate without treats, and he still happily goes in it.), and is on a feeding schedule, and he's still spoiled rotten, knows I love him, and is really happy and getting healthier.

He's still not happy that Country and Jonny are on a feeding schedule and periodically complains about it. I keep having to remind him that Bandit cannot be on a feeding schedule AND being fed a different kind of food with Country and Jonny being free-fed without isolating Bandit from everyone (I almost did when I was unable to get him to cooperate, not wanting him to be morbidly obese by the time I moved out, which at the rate he was gaining weight (5lbs a month), he was going to if I hadn't stepped in. He wants to put Country and Jonny back on free-feeding when I move out, which likely will not happen, no matter how much of a hissy fit he makes because my mom is seeing the benefits of it, and it's the only way to guarantee Jonny will eat (when free feeding, the only time he really had interest in eating was when another dog was eating, then he'd go to that bowl and try to eat from that bowl, if it was Country there, he'd growl at him, which would get Country to leave the bowl, if it was Bandit, He'd try, but Bandit would snarl and stand his ground. Jonny gave Bandit food aggression (only towards him and the cats pretty much, he'd actually try to bite the cats if they got too close to him while he was eating, and he came close to biting Jonny several times if I hadn't interfered early enough) by doing that... Dad tried to blame the food aggression on the feeding schedule the second time around, when Bandit's food aggression issues were removed during the feeding time because there was no competition for the food (he had become very competitive, and after going back to free feeding, he would eat ALL the food in ALL the bowls before any other dog could get it. Then if he batted at the bowls, my dad would force me to fill them, and he'd once again, eat ALL the food in ALL the bowls... >.<)... He tells me that I'm too a**l about Bandit, but he'll cooperate. I'm basically thinking "well forgive me for genuinely caring about Bandit's health, considering I'm the one paying the vet bills and I DO NOT want have to pay for some condition that was preventable by not giving him the crap they like giving to the dogs. He'd also be happier not getting any of those conditions." I did tell him that I want him to live for as long as possible, and be as healthy as possible, and my being so "a**l" will help enable that to happen. Hopefully the almost 8 years of him being on crap food, receiving all sorts of table scraps (a lot of which would cause health problems later down the road), etc. hasn't already done him in.

Back when I first took Squirtle in from my brother after he had lost interest in Squirtle (not sure how much interest he had in him in the first place, he got him from our neighbor, who's kids had lost interest in him and she didn't want to continue taking care of an animal that no one really was interested in), I wanted to get the floating log out of the tank and wanted to put a floating dock in instead, not wanting to risk shell rot (because he couldn't get all the way out of the water), him getting stuck inside it, or his shell/head getting crushed from it continually slamming into him when he swam around really fast, causing it to move a lot. I also could tell he wasn't happy that it was always in his way and giving him very little swimming space. When I asked about a floating dock we supposedly had, he said "he's had that for a couple years now, he'll be fine." gonk I tried to explain the problems with it, but he wouldn't listen. A few days later, I went to the store and got him a floating dock and took the floating log out. He is a lot happier with the floating dock and not having the floating log. He also seems happy that he no longer has the log smacking him in the head/hiding his food when he's trying to eat (I would be too).

No matter how hard I try, there is no getting him to change his views about feeding... He has it in his head that the way his parents took care of their past animals when he was growing up is the correct way to take care of them, and refuses to listen to my HUGE number of hours (going on a year or more) worth of research, writing it off as "conventional advice" (he put it that way too)... >.<

Sorry about my rant... >.< I had to get it out...

I hope you can find a way to get his cooperation...

Maybe you can pick up one of those plastic animal keepers (like one of these) for temporarilly putting her in to clean out her tank. They are rather easy to find and relatively inexpensive. Maybe even pick up a small, inexpensive, handheld vacuum to vacuum her tank out so that way he can't yell at you for making his vacuum smell bad.  

[Gabrielle_AnimalLuver]

corpses disapear? eek by themselves? LMFAO. Sorry, that's like, the stupidest thing I've EVER heard. You know HOW they disapear? Bacteria feed on them till there's nothing left. Which is why to preserve things we keep them in formaldehyde. It kills all bacteria and insects so there is nothing to actually decompose the corpse, and then it never goes anywhere!  

[Vanilla eXee]

You should probably not have cages that you can't lift to clean by yourself. Look into rubbermaids.  

[Upirium]

Vanilla eXee

You should probably not have cages that you can't lift to clean by yourself. Look into rubbermaids.

She's a big lizard neutral Her cage just barely reaches the requirements according to the internet.  

[Vanilla eXee]

iDiru

Vanilla eXee

You should probably not have cages that you can't lift to clean by yourself. Look into rubbermaids.

She's a big lizard neutral Her cage just barely reaches the requirements according to the internet.

They make big rubbermaids.  

[Upirium]

Vanilla eXee

iDiru

Vanilla eXee

You should probably not have cages that you can't lift to clean by yourself. Look into rubbermaids.

She's a big lizard neutral Her cage just barely reaches the requirements according to the internet.

They make big rubbermaids.

I don't see how you could make lighting and uv and heat and all that s**t work in a rubbermaid though.
besides the cage is custom. My dad custom built it. There's no way he'd let me just switch it out for a rubbermaid.
I know it sounds like I'm making excuses or something but I'm not.  

[Vanilla eXee]

If you can't clean it yourself, you need a better solution. I know you have a bone disease or something like that, so you should keep that in mind when designing/buying habitats for your pets, making them out of as lightweight materials as possible or making them collapsible that way you can clean them on your own.

My tortoise lives in a rubbermaid and she has UV and Heating. It's do-able. If I were to use a tank or something that was big enough for her, there's no way I'd be able to lift it either, that'd just be way too heavy. You're also saying that your lizards cage as it is is the bare minimum, so start thinking of cheap, lightweight materials you can use to build a bigger one.