This evening I went to take my Argentine Black and White Tegu, Oreo out of his tank, so that I could mist and he had a serious freakout. I'd picked him up fine, off of his basking spot where he'd been napping. But as I turned and passed him to my boyfriend to hold him, he suddenly jumped and ran about, trying desperately to bury himself under my boyfriend. I managed to get a hold of him again and return him to his tank, where he immediately ran under his hut. I lifted it off of him and he was curled up. I thought that I must've just somehow startled him, even though he'd never reacted like that before. However when I went to pick him up again, he startled. Almost like he hadn't seen my hand coming. I moved my hand slower and tried petting his side only to have him start pushing himself up on his front legs strangely and move back a bit. Acting like he was completely terrified of me. At this point I was pretty freaked out for him and my boyfriend had to take over trying to reassure Oreo, who just continued moving about, sort of waving side to side and pushing himself up on his front legs. He also kept looking about, but not looking like he was seeing things. At this point I was getting ready to call the vet, but Oreo was slowly seeming to return to normal, or close too. So we decided to try again to take him out of his tank. He did fine as my boyfriend picked him up and moved him to the bed, but the moment he was down he was running. Right off the bed, big drop for a little guy, luckily though he fluked out and managed not to get hurt from that. It was at this point that we decided to get a hold of a vet and get him ready to potentially rush him to the vets office. Unfortunately with how late it is, the only vets open are emergency ones with no reptile experience and Oreo had started calming down again in the container we'd moved him into to transport so we thought it best not to stress him more for what would likely be an unhelpful visit.
So now we're turning to you guys for any help you could possibly provide. We're both new reptile owners and we know a Tegu is probably pretty daring, but we fell in love with the little guy and wanted to have a lizard that would get large eventually. The only thing that has changed in diet or anything for Oreo today had been that I fed him some mealworms I picked up in hopes of getting him some worthwhile nutrients because he hasn't been eating enough of his dehydrated diet and I can't just keep feeding him grapes. He's only a few weeks old, we've had him for two now and he's about 9 inches long.
Thank you for any help, it's greatly appreciated
So now we're turning to you guys for any help you could possibly provide. We're both new reptile owners and we know a Tegu is probably pretty daring, but we fell in love with the little guy and wanted to have a lizard that would get large eventually. The only thing that has changed in diet or anything for Oreo today had been that I fed him some mealworms I picked up in hopes of getting him some worthwhile nutrients because he hasn't been eating enough of his dehydrated diet and I can't just keep feeding him grapes. He's only a few weeks old, we've had him for two now and he's about 9 inches long.
Thank you for any help, it's greatly appreciated