🦎 Dog the Gecko
Charlotte's pet

Dog

He is a leopard gecko. He is not a dog. He has never been a dog. He would like everyone to stop asking.

Website built and photographed by Charlotte Su — hats, moustaches, crowns and all.

See the album
Dog the leopard gecko facing the camera
100%
GOOD
BOY

Meet Dog

Small. Spotty. Extremely confident.

Name
Dog
Chosen by Charlotte. Final.
Species
Leopard gecko
Eublepharis macularius
Outfit
White + black spots
Same one every day
Best trick
Standing very still
World class
Hat size
One gummy bear
Red is his colour
Top speed
Surprising
Usually across the table

The Album

34 photos. Click any picture to make it big. Use ← and → to flip through.

Five true things about leopard geckos

All of these apply to Dog personally.

👁️

He can blink

Most geckos can't — they have a clear scale over the eye and lick it clean. Leopard geckos are one of the few with real, working eyelids.

🥕

His tail is a lunchbox

That fat tail stores food. A well-fed leopard gecko has a tail almost as wide as its head.

🪄

The tail can escape

If something grabs him, the tail comes off and wriggles as a decoy. A new one grows back — shorter and rounder than the original.

🌙

Dawn and dusk gecko

Leopard geckos are crepuscular: most awake early in the morning and around sunset. Which is exactly when these photos were taken.

🎂

They live a long time

Fifteen to twenty years is normal in a good home, and some have passed twenty-five. Dog will be around for a very long while.

Real science

How a gecko sticks to a wall

Facts from National Geographic. Dog cannot climb walls at all — and that turns out to be the interesting part.

01

Millions of tiny hairs

A wall-climbing gecko's toes are covered in hair-like structures called setae. Each seta splits at the tip into millions of even smaller nanoscale tips called spatulae.

02

A force between molecules

Those spatulae get so close to the wall that a weak attraction between molecules — the van der Waals force — takes hold. One is far too weak to notice. Millions together hold up a whole lizard.

03

The tendons do the rest

Scientists found the hairs aren't the whole story. Tendons attached to the skin of the foot stiffen it the moment it touches down, spreading the pull evenly across every hair. That's where the real strength comes from.

04

What defeats a gecko

Water, dust, oil and non-stick coatings all break the grip — the hairs can't get close enough to the surface. A gecko is also temporarily un-sticky while it is shedding its skin.

05

Invented eleven times over

Sticky toes are such a good idea that geckos evolved them independently about eleven separate times — and lost them again about nine times. Of roughly 1,450 gecko species, around 40% have no sticky feet at all.

06

Dog is in the 40%

Leopard geckos are ground-dwellers. Instead of sticky pads they have little claws for digging and gripping sand — which is exactly why Dog walks across tables and never up the wall.

🗺️ Everywhere but Antarctica. Geckos live on every other continent, from rainforests to deserts to cold mountain slopes.
🔊 Lizards that talk. Geckos chirp, click and bark to defend territory or attract a mate — unusual among lizards, and how the family got its name.
📏 Small and quick. A typical gecko is about 10–15 cm long, and in the wild lives around five years — far less than a well-kept pet like Dog.

Sources: National Geographic — Geckos May Be Famously Sticky, but Here's What Stumps Them, Geckos evolved sticky feet many times, and Gecko — National Geographic Kids.

Warning: nonsense

Silly gecko facts

Not one of these is true. Not even slightly. Do not put them in a school report.

Geckos invented the sticky note and have never received a single dollar for it.
A gecko's favourite hat is a gummy bear. Offering any other hat is considered rude.
Geckos always win staring contests, which is why they are banned from entering.
A gecko's top speed is officially recorded as "suddenly".
Geckos are brilliant at hiding and absolutely hopeless at seeking.
The fat tail stores six snacks and one secret.
A gecko has never fallen off a wall. He has occasionally chosen to descend quickly.
If you name your gecko Dog, he will still refuse to fetch. Every single time.
Geckos can hear the fridge open from three rooms away, and are simply too polite to mention it.
That is not a smile. That is just his face. He is fine.

🧠 True or Silly?

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Dog's year so far

According to the little date stamp in the corner of every photo.

9 May 2026

The first photo

Dog flattens himself on the desk and stares straight down the lens. This is the pose he will be doing for the rest of the year.

16 May 2026

The morning photo shoot

An entire morning of portraits under the desk lamp. Distance travelled by Dog: about forty centimetres. Photos taken: many.

27 July 2026 · evening

The camera grows stickers

Moustache. Bow tie. Pearl necklace. Mirror mode, four-up mode, honeycomb mode, green mode, pink mode. Dog does not react to any of it.

28 July 2026 · 11:15

The gummy bear hat

A real gummy bear is balanced on Dog's head. He holds perfectly still for six minutes of photos. A crown follows. Then glasses.

Today

Still the best gecko

Still not a dog.